Alfisaal huwa laba wa ana alab liarbah

I bought a hat yesterday, which initiated the first experience I had bargaining in Morocco. Moroccans, so I'm told, love to bargain, and so far my experiences confirm this. When I bought the hat, I asked how much it cost and the guy said "80 dirham" (about 10 dollars). I said "Sorry, that's too expensive." And he simply replied "Well, how much do you want to pay for it?"
This appeared to be a good sign that bargaining is a Moroccan pastime. And I wasn't even in the suuq (open air market). I said 40 dirhams and we settled for 50 after I said "It's still too much. Thank you, goodbye." I was worried about bargaining at first because I figured it would be stressful and difficult, but after this first experience, I felt a huge rush and am now addicted. I bargained successfully for a few other items and now I feel like I'm going to go home and weird people out by saying, "8 dollars for a sandwich! Next door they have them for six!"
An exciting point of yesterday was also seeing my first muzahara (protest or demonstration) in person. This blog is now officially newsworthy! As a group of us walked to the language center, we passed by a small group of chanting Moroccans, about twenty strong, in front of a local government building. The group of police standing in front of the entrance was about the same size as that of the protesters, and they watched silently. I wanted to take a picture, but I've heard about photographers getting beaten by police. This was the same day there were huge protests in the capital, Rabat. To read about it, see here: Morocco's Uprisings - Aljazeera English.
Also, we went to a farm to eat a wonderful lunch. In Morocco, a group eats from a single, huge plate, using pieces of bread as scoops to get the meat and vegetables. Photos from the farm will be up tomorrow.