Aselamu Aleikum Everyone,
Let me start off with going over my Thanksgiving.
While it was very strange not to be home for such an American and family oriented holiday, I had one of the best Thanksgivings of my life here in Morocco.
While we did have school this past Thursday, there was clearly excitement in the air as people were preparing foods to bring to our potluck dinner, and the school was having a turkey catered for us.
I started off my night at the Marine house, where a few friends and I shared Thanksgiving dinner with Marines posted here to protect the diplomatic mission.
This was an amazing experience with amazing people, and the food was better then I could have hoped for here in Morocco.
After dinner with them I headed back to school and shared more festivities with my classmates, everyone was very satisfied and we had more then enough food.
On Saturday a friend and I boarded a train for the city of Marrakesh, located about five hours south of Rabat. It was a relatively easy train ride until a teenage boy sat down across from us, and started talking to us. He indicated he was "deaf" but I am not so sure, as he was listening to music, and when we did not understand his hand motions, he seemed to pronounce some words pretty well. I was trying to read my book and the boy kept trying to talk to us, he eventually started asking for money, and when I told him we had none he called me a liar, he kept interrupting my reading and eventually told me that when we got to Marrakesh he and three friends were going to kill us. This pushed my last button, not because I was afraid of this kid, but because I was trying to read, so I got up and went to find a train employee. When I found one I began to tell him what was going on, and I could see the boy was trying to get out of the cart before the employee got to him. It was a minor commotion and we were not bother after that.
Upon reaching Marrakesh we got into a taxi and headed for Jemaa-el-Fnna, the main square of the city, and a landmark very close to our hostel. The site of 2011 bombing, the square is a place where both locals and tourists congregate. It is filled with snake charmers, men with monkeys, orange juice salesman, story tellers, and costumed dancers (males dressed as females). This weekend was extra exciting as it was the International Film Festival, and a large projector was set up in the square for movies
After checking in to our hostel, we headed back to the square and found the snake charmer, and he managed to get the cobra around my next before I managed to say no. Nothing is free in Morocco, not even a picture, and he asked for 300MAD, we gave him ten.
The square had been transformed as rows and rows of food tents had been set up, and very aggressive men immediately tried to get us to enter their tents. Everyone had mostly the same food and everything was similarly priced, a little too much and not very good.
After dinner we got a quite a bit of souvenir shopping done, which takes awhile due to the bargaining, and headed back to the hostel with all our stuff, and headed to a bar.
After a twenty minute walk to the bar we were told we cannot go in....because we were wearing flip flops, this has never happened in Morocco....ever.
The next day we woke up, ate breakfast with other guests and the hostel owners and made our way to the train station for our ride back.
I got off in Casablanca (Dar-el-Beida on above map), an hour south of Rabat, and the largest city in Morocco.
I ate lunch as I waited for a friend of mine from school and was meeting me there to spend the day in Casa before picking up her friend at the airport.
We first visited Hassan 2nd Mosque, a huge structure and the only mosque open to non-muslims in Morocco. Well it was not open to us, as we arrived at 3:45 and apparently it is only open to non-muslims until 3pm. No big deal, it was still nice to look at.
Next we headed to the Mall of Morocco, the largest mall in Africa, and after heading through Moroccan slums we arrived at the cleanest place I have been in Morocco. There are two Starbucks in the entire country, and both are located fifteen feet from each other in the mall. I was able to score some not so good Chinese food and frozen yogurt, which was great.
Post mall we headed to the Casa train station where we were to take the train to the Casa airport. We purchased our tickets and awaited our train, and at the right time and at the right track we boarded.
After about 30 minutes, I turned to a man on the packed train and asked which stop was the airport, he informed me that this was not the airport train, and it was headed down to Marrakesh. We got off at the next stop, and after a few chaotic moments of trying to figure out where we were, we linked up with a guy who offered to drive us to the airport for 200MAD. We made it there within thirty minutes and finally met up with Holly's friend and headed back to Casa. After a long delayed train we finally made it back to Rabat and my weekend was over.
From today there are only 14 days left till I am standing back in the United States, it is surreal.
I leave for Paris tomorrow and will post about that adventure as soon as I get back.
See you all soon, Allah M3ck,
Kevin
Arabic word of the day
مطار- MtAr- Airport
Let me start off with going over my Thanksgiving.
While it was very strange not to be home for such an American and family oriented holiday, I had one of the best Thanksgivings of my life here in Morocco.
While we did have school this past Thursday, there was clearly excitement in the air as people were preparing foods to bring to our potluck dinner, and the school was having a turkey catered for us.
I started off my night at the Marine house, where a few friends and I shared Thanksgiving dinner with Marines posted here to protect the diplomatic mission.
This was an amazing experience with amazing people, and the food was better then I could have hoped for here in Morocco.
After dinner with them I headed back to school and shared more festivities with my classmates, everyone was very satisfied and we had more then enough food.
On Saturday a friend and I boarded a train for the city of Marrakesh, located about five hours south of Rabat. It was a relatively easy train ride until a teenage boy sat down across from us, and started talking to us. He indicated he was "deaf" but I am not so sure, as he was listening to music, and when we did not understand his hand motions, he seemed to pronounce some words pretty well. I was trying to read my book and the boy kept trying to talk to us, he eventually started asking for money, and when I told him we had none he called me a liar, he kept interrupting my reading and eventually told me that when we got to Marrakesh he and three friends were going to kill us. This pushed my last button, not because I was afraid of this kid, but because I was trying to read, so I got up and went to find a train employee. When I found one I began to tell him what was going on, and I could see the boy was trying to get out of the cart before the employee got to him. It was a minor commotion and we were not bother after that.
Upon reaching Marrakesh we got into a taxi and headed for Jemaa-el-Fnna, the main square of the city, and a landmark very close to our hostel. The site of 2011 bombing, the square is a place where both locals and tourists congregate. It is filled with snake charmers, men with monkeys, orange juice salesman, story tellers, and costumed dancers (males dressed as females). This weekend was extra exciting as it was the International Film Festival, and a large projector was set up in the square for movies
After checking in to our hostel, we headed back to the square and found the snake charmer, and he managed to get the cobra around my next before I managed to say no. Nothing is free in Morocco, not even a picture, and he asked for 300MAD, we gave him ten.
The square had been transformed as rows and rows of food tents had been set up, and very aggressive men immediately tried to get us to enter their tents. Everyone had mostly the same food and everything was similarly priced, a little too much and not very good.
After dinner we got a quite a bit of souvenir shopping done, which takes awhile due to the bargaining, and headed back to the hostel with all our stuff, and headed to a bar.After a twenty minute walk to the bar we were told we cannot go in....because we were wearing flip flops, this has never happened in Morocco....ever.
The next day we woke up, ate breakfast with other guests and the hostel owners and made our way to the train station for our ride back.
I got off in Casablanca (Dar-el-Beida on above map), an hour south of Rabat, and the largest city in Morocco.
I ate lunch as I waited for a friend of mine from school and was meeting me there to spend the day in Casa before picking up her friend at the airport.
We first visited Hassan 2nd Mosque, a huge structure and the only mosque open to non-muslims in Morocco. Well it was not open to us, as we arrived at 3:45 and apparently it is only open to non-muslims until 3pm. No big deal, it was still nice to look at.
Next we headed to the Mall of Morocco, the largest mall in Africa, and after heading through Moroccan slums we arrived at the cleanest place I have been in Morocco. There are two Starbucks in the entire country, and both are located fifteen feet from each other in the mall. I was able to score some not so good Chinese food and frozen yogurt, which was great.
Post mall we headed to the Casa train station where we were to take the train to the Casa airport. We purchased our tickets and awaited our train, and at the right time and at the right track we boarded.
After about 30 minutes, I turned to a man on the packed train and asked which stop was the airport, he informed me that this was not the airport train, and it was headed down to Marrakesh. We got off at the next stop, and after a few chaotic moments of trying to figure out where we were, we linked up with a guy who offered to drive us to the airport for 200MAD. We made it there within thirty minutes and finally met up with Holly's friend and headed back to Casa. After a long delayed train we finally made it back to Rabat and my weekend was over.
From today there are only 14 days left till I am standing back in the United States, it is surreal.
I leave for Paris tomorrow and will post about that adventure as soon as I get back.
See you all soon, Allah M3ck,
Kevin
Arabic word of the day
مطار- MtAr- Airport
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