Brian on the Road

We headed to Rabbat, where my stomach decided it had enough of being on an all-fresh, all-healthy diet and revolted. Can't say I blame it. I did manage to get to the Chellah, an acient fort. Took lots of pictures of people that look completely different from me. It was also an enteratining cab ride with a driver whose French was just as broken as mine. But I made it, and managed to squeeze in some Tour watching at the hotel. It was in French, but Le Tour is Le Tour.

We hit a Tex Mex place for dinner with a group of Moroccans, which in conjunction with the random music I've been hearing everywhere put my irony sensors on overload. We were in a cab with a cabbie who could sing most of 'Hotel California', but didn't understand a word of English. But we had a good singalong. Dinner was around midnight, which just starts to mess with your mind after a while.

After that we rolled to a huge club in the middle of nowhere. Two things stood out: 1) Moroccans at the club were quite concerned with their appearance. Lots of designer jeans and trendy-ish haircuts. Also quite a few guys who seemed to be working on eating disorders. 2) House music is probably popular because it's the same everywhere. I don't really care for it, but there you are. Oh, and I was informed that a lot of the women at this club were prostitutes, as if I didn't have the whole 'doesn't speak my language' thing working against me. So a good game of 'Spot the Hooker' was started. It's tougher than it seems.

Everything in Morocco is cheap except for alcohol. And you can't get bacon anywhere.
Anyway... we headed up to the Mid-Atlas mountains with a friend of Sara's, and stayed at his place for a while. We ate incredibly well, hiked into the plateau-filled desert, shot guns, and went off-roading. I'll post the pics at some point. I'd like to thank Nintendo for my excellent showing with the clay pigeons and shot gun. We got back to Casablanca on Tuesday morning and took off again from there. More to come.

Posted by Brian at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I left Scarborough, ME at 2:30pm July 18th. I arrived in Casablanca at 1:30pm July 19th. The world is a very, very small place. The concept of going from my parents' house to a country in Africa in just over a day (with time change) is amazing to me. And very cool. If you haven't flown Jet Blue, I highly recommend it. Cheap, nice plane, nice people, and lots of room on the plane. I even tried "talking to the guy next to me". It was crazy.
We were delayed in JFK, but I had two seats to myself and it was 10:30 when we boarded. I promptly feel asleep and woke up somewhere over the Atlantic.

After clearing customs (easy for an American) and buying a train ticket (deuxieme class is 2nd class, right? not 12th?), I hit Casablanca. We immediately turned around and headed to Rabbat, about an hour train ride up the coast. Rabbat, the capital, had some amazing sights. I went to my first Medina, which is like an open market. They sell pretty much everything and anything. Fresh (and I do mean fresh) meat, spices, knock off soccer jerseys, etc. We went up to an old walled city overlooking the ocean, then walked down to the ocean and watched a bunch of kids play soccer as the sun went down. We wanted to eat around 8pm, but apparently no one here eats until at least 10pm. We ate anyway because we had a train to catch. We topped the night off with some really small beers.
Today we hit several open air markets, which were very cool yet a little scary. They're dark, sort of dank, and filled with more people selling anything you could ever want. I got a belt, but was tempted by a Ferrari shirt written in Arabic. Haggling is expected, so it's pretty entertaining. And it's all in French, so thanks Madame Braun.
We finished the afternoon off with a visit to a Hammam, which is sort of a spa/steam room. You sit in the steam and then they take this sand-paper type mit and scrape off all your dead skin. Then they rinse you off and give you a massage. It sounds sort of weird, but it was awesome. So relaxing, and my skin is super soft. We're heading back to Rabbat and onto the High Atlas mountains this weekend.

Things I've learned:
-Annoying kids are everywhere. It's not just a US thing. And bad parents are everywhere as well. I wish people would stop yelling at their kids to shut up and that they're stupid. (That was mostly in the US, obviously.)
-If you need any movie ever made (including ones currently in theaters), they're available in Casa.
-The quality of the knock-off goods is pretty good, although there are some things like the wrong players on soccer jerseys that give it away.
-The class disparity here is quite obvious. There are a few neighborhoods of large houses behind larger walls, and there are people with nothing.
-Moroccans don't consider themselves part of Africa. They've applied to the EU several times.

Think that's it for now. Not too many pics because taking people's picture is sketchy.

Posted by Brian at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)