Marrakesh is the economic center of Morocco and, to me, feels like a miniature New York City. People lived crammed together, there is plenty of shopping both in high end global stores and in the medinah, and plenty of nightlife. I was slightly worried when I arrived because we were told that girls receive a lot more attention here if they are not dressed conservatively, especially in the center of the city and not with a male to escort you. Apparently if you are a woman alone in the main square at night then the police will escort you back to your residence (in our case, a very American four star hotel named the Meriem). I had plenty of adventures in the city!
On our guided tour, we first stopped at a royal graveyard and mausoleum in the kasbah (government part of city protected by walls that force one to weave through the area). Originally it had been walled off when a different dynasty had taken over and wanted to make their sites even more beautiful without desecrating the graves. There were beautiful gardens, gorgeous rooms that we weren't really allowed into, bunches of tourists, and lots of cats. The one on the right below was really friendly and came up to me when I held out my hand.
This is a castle of the current royal family in Morocco that is now more of a tourist site. While the family can still use it, they tend to reside on the other side of this palace. It used to be a place where court business was handled. The king would both entertain guests here and deal with daily issues that were brought to him in the little square building off to the right of the picture. What looks like bushes is actually trees in a sunken garden that are visually appealing and even produce fruits.
This tower is the tallest point in the city. It has been the tower of two mosques. The first of which, the people were told that it was facing the wrong direction according to the Qur'an, so they rebuilt it. Yet, it still faces the wrong direction. Oh well, hopefully someone will get it right eventually.
The picture on the right is of a beautiful, old Moroccan university decorated in stucco art and zellige. It was exclusively for boys looking to learn about law. Classes were conducted in small groups with a teacher who would recite, by heart, a particular book while the students would take notes on washable boards. When a student could meet with his professor and recite the entire book by heart, he would earn his degree in that book giving him the right to teach others about it and to practice law. The graduation ceremony is actually where we get much of our own graduation ceremony from including the idea of degrees and the robes we wear. We continued onto the upper floors of the university which were the dormitories for the students. They were very similar to our dorm rooms in that they are very small and basic. There was no furniture in these but not much would have fit if they tried. 
Later in the day, we visited the medinah with our teachers and then stuck around to do some shopping and touristy activities. I can't mention what I bought again because it would give away what some of my gifts are, but I can tell you that I tried purchasing a few more of one item that I had already bought in another city for very cheap and the store owner chased me out of the store calling me crazy for the price. Then I had another shopkeeper try to get me to buy a rug by flirting with me. He even went so far as to ask me what my hotel was so that he could have tea with me later that day. He looked to be at least in his 30s. I told him I forgot the name of the hotel and eventually managed to get away from him when I saw my group walking away. The third incident: I told my group I wanted to stop at one shop, but somehow we all got confused as to what I was doing and I ended up by myself in the middle of the medinah. I ran around for about five minutes trying to find and text them when I turned around and Khalil was standing there looking for me. Thank you helpful shopkeepers. THEN (if you don't like snakes, skip to the next section), I ended up getting trapped by this silly snake charmer. Earlier he had been grabbing our arms and pulling us to try to get us to take pictures with the snakes but on the way back out we thought we might as well get a picture from a few of them. Originally, I was not going to take one of myself but then the rude one came up to me and grabbed me and put it around my neck. He took a few pictures and then asked me for 200 DH!!! That is insane. For a normal picture it costs 10 DH. He claimed it was because he had so many people in his group. I told him 20 DH and he told me I was insane (apparently I belonged in an asylum that day). He demanded 200 so I reached into my wallet and pulled out the first bill which happened to be a 100 DH, handed it to him, told him he wasn't getting anymore, and walked away pretty pissed off. So, I lost about $12 for three pictures with a snake. What a ripoff.
The next morning we took our last tour in some of the oldest gardens in the world that belong to the royal family. They are not very touristy and only open twice a week. We fed some kind of fish in this big water tank. It leads into the irrigation which is designed specifically to not be too fast to erode the system but not too slow for it to not flow. Because of this, it has lasted hundreds and hundreds of years, although it is in need of repairs soon. The tank also used to be used to impress guests while running court duties by staging mini naval practices in it. The building on the other side was meant to entertain guests of the former king but he died before it could be completed and his son never continued the construction. Of what we could see, it was very beautiful and covers a huge area of land that leads up to the most recent royal palace. Then we hoped back on the bus for a eight hour bus ride home through the mountains.
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