September 07, 2006
August 29, 2006
Picture Pages I
August 01, 2006
The Road to Everywhere
Upon return Tuesday morning, I took a quick tour of the Hassan II mosque, the 3rd largest mosque in the world. It took something like $3 Billion and 6 years to build. It's impressive. The strangest part was that I didn't get the same sense of wonder as when going to Westminster Abby. That is to say since it was only completed in 1993, it doesn't have any history. I'm sure when people look back in 200 or 400 years, they'll wonder at how it was created, but for now, it's just a really big building that's incredibly ornate. At least to me. Glad I saw it, anyway. That beeping you hear is a missle tracking in on my location...
From Casa we rented a Fiat and drove down to Marakesh. It wasn't quite as cool as they made it seem in Indiana Jones, but what is? We were able to find a really cool place that actually had A/C, so sleeping was nice and cozy. The main square is filled every night with bands, vendors selling everything and anything, and the biggest food court in the world. Granted most of the food is the same, but it's still pretty damn impressive. There's also a medina with a more chill vibe than either Casa or Rabbat's. They also tended to have more handmade goods, especially leather, there. Handmade where, I don't know. We spent the next day in Marakesh as well, checking out an incredibly old palace as well as a newer but still old palace (both names escape me, but I"m sure Wikipedia knows. Both were awe-inspiring to say the least. The idea of having a 90 meter pool 800 years ago boggles my mind. We spent the afternoon at the pool because we were in Africa and it was Africa hot.
The next day we drove a couple hours to Esouira right on the coast. It's a fishing port, and previously a military fort. We bunked down in a very cool little Riad, which is a house with an open area in the middle. Since it rarley rains, it provides tons of use and helps keep things cool. I took a bunch of pics. It also included a sweet little roof deck with beautiful views of the rest of town including the fort walls, ocean, and the other white-washed roof decks. We had an excellent Tajine lunch at an outdoor cafe and then took a walk around town and an obligatory stop in the medina. One of the vendors was creating sculpture made purely from scarp metal. One particularly cool one was made entirely of bike parts. Things like deraileur cages were put to amazing use. Wish I could have bought one, but getting things back to the States is an adventure at best. We managed to secure some bohemia-style beers and enjoy them on the roof. We went out for dinner, hung out a bit more, and hit the hay.
The next morning we piled into the car for a 5 hour drive back to Casa. It was incredibly hot and drivers and driving there is beyond nuts. I thought we were going to die (and I really mean that) twice. Situations like oncoming cars in both lanes and people on scooters in the breakdown lane tend to thin my joie de vive. But we made it back.
After that it was an early night and the next morning it was on to Prague...
July 31, 2006
Where's my Atlas?
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.
July 20, 2006
Travel and Day 1-2
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.