Time for Morocco

I never recapped Morocco. I still get tired when I think about it. It was a rough trip.

I flew from LA to Paris, then Paris to Casablanca. They even had Casablanca, the 1942 film with Ingrid Bergman on it and I watched it for the first time ever LOL. The layover was very short, and even though I was technically leaving from the same terminal, I still had to take a tram and go through security again. This is why I was not surprised that my luggage didn't make it. But, it didn't worry me that much. It's happened before, it shows up on the next flight, no big deal, vateva.

Well, I was pretty exhausted, and the immigration processing was taking forever. While I was waiting, I looked up my hotel, and it was still an hour from the airport, which made me want to cry. I was just exhausted and ready to fall asleep. The conference would already be starting in like 15 hours.

So, imagine how crushing it was to hear, at the luggage desk, that the entire country of Morocco will not deliver luggage. They just won't do it. They have a moratorium on it. That meant that I needed to come back to the airport when it arrived, whenever that would be. And I needed my luggage before the morning, because we had the conference and a dinner at the Consul General's house, so this translated to needing to drive an hour to the hotel, wait God knows how long, drive back an hour to pick it up, and drive back an hour to the hotel. And I couldn't just go crash. It sounded like a miserable, horrible fate (and it was). So, that set the tone for Morocco, especially because, as it would turn out, my luggage wouldn't arrive until around midnight. I would get it around 1am, get back to the hotel around 2am, go to sleep around 2:30am, wake up at 7:00am for the 8a-5p conference (all day, errday) and never. catch. up. It was miserable. I never recovered from that, and being very exhausted and ended up getting quite sick.

This all being said... here were some of the adventures!

When my luggage didn't make it on the 7pm flight, I started to freak a little bit. I had a friend I met on previous recruitment trips that was here for the conference and was actually from Morocco. He offered to help me shop and negotiate for clothes- what a lifesaver! Seriously! We had to go to little stalls and not only was he able to speak Arabic (which seemed preferable to French), but he was able to explain to them that this was my first time in Morocco and they should be nice to me HAHA! Here was the outfit I was able to put together in like 20 minutes that night from various street vendors.

For the first lunch of the conference, they spoiled us with an amazing spread of traditional Moroccan dishes in the Moroccan lounge room. Ser gerd!

That first night we went to a reception at the Consul General's house in the nice area of Casablanca - yes, there was one!

The Consul's house there was where the US President and Winston Churchill met to strategize during the war. The "map room" there had authentic documents in there with their signatures too! Pretty neat. And here's a super interesting fun fact: The United States and Morocco have the oldest unbroken friendship agreement (or something like that) in the world. When the United States declared their sovereignty from England, Morocco was the first country to recognize us!

When we got back, a few of us went out to a club on the beach. For the record, there is a Rick's Cafe in Casablanca but it's just named that for the tourist appeal, it's nothing like in the movie!

Anyway, this club had hookah and live entertainment... in the form of a Spanish singing band. They serenaded us so... can't complain!

The conference was pretty long and semi-grueling. I say that because I never caught up on sleep, it was a solid 8a-5p, and then we had a school fair from 5p-8p one day that was insanity. Still, we found some time to get out and see the beautiful Hassan II mosque - it was gorgeous! We did a tour of it and got some really neat facts about it too.

The last night of the conference was so much fun! First of all, we had a fun cultural dinner and show to close it off, that included some fun traditional Moroccan bands - that even did a cover of the Fugees' Killing Me Softly hahahaha! My favorite dish was the appetizer pastilla. It's minced meat in a flaky, sweet honey and cinnamon-glazed pastry covering. A lot of people didn't like it, but I loved it. The main course was whatever this animal was (vegans: avert your eyes!)

My friend Melanie was vegetarian and asked for something else so they brought her fish LOL.

Here was some of the cultural performances:





After that, a bunch of us went out to a nearby bar. It was interesting, and they had a local brew on tap. We had the best time playing this new numbers game, and in addition to my new friends Haley and Melanie, I met another amazing person Jen who was just cracking me up!!

The inexplicable bridge in the bar

When the bar closed we said we should call it a night and headed back to the hotel, but then we found out that our own hotel had a club attached to it! So we got a table at the hotel and stayed out til 3am! Hahaha.

Fire dancers in the nightclub haha!

Me and Jen!

The next day was rough. Haley and Melanie were taking off... Melanie was going to the Moroccan city of Chefchaouen before going home through Madrid, and Haley was headed to Switzerland for the weekend to visit a friend before going home. I was going a group to Tangier for an additional student fair.

I was pretty miserable. I was really tired and at this point, sick. We were barely going to be in Tangier for 24 hours so I decided, after putting my feet up for a little bit, to walk to the old medina to see something before just calling it and staying in for the rest of the time.

It was pretty. It probably would have been nice with a group. I didn't feel too safe in Tangier. It just seemed shady and I got uncomfortable stares. I walked along the promenade where you can see Spain on a clear day, and there were people riding horses and camels on the beach. It was a bad time to be alone.

Inside the ancient medina, it was pretty neat to see, but, it was the end of the day.

There weren't too many people around, I was really sick, and not in the mood to be coerced into stores or haggle, so I was just trying to look around. It's a tangle of very small streets and I felt like I just kept ending up in a deserted, not good area. I got the feeling someone was following me... everytime I turned around he was conveniently on his phone. I wasn't enjoying this so I decided to just go back to the hotel. As I was making my way confidently anywhere, I passed this alleyway with the Arabic graffiti that I thought was cool, so I ducked in for .2 seconds to snap this picture...

As I turned around, the guy, who had followed me into the alley way, was darting out and running away. Yeah, that didn't feel good. So I said F this and just took off out anyway possible. I came out on the other side by the kasbah where there were lots of workers and tourists, so I was able to relax. I was also able to overhear from a tour guide how this was the first house in Tangier (supposedly...?)

...and caught a few more neat sites on my way back.

SNAIL FOOD TRUCK!!!! BARF!!!

My hotel was attached to a pretty modern mall, and I went to the grocery store inside of it to pick up some Bandaids and look for medicine, and ended up in there forever buying so much fun stuff! I didn't have the energy to try to get spices, as they were in huge tubs and you had to talk to the workers haha but I still picked up some Argon oil, some rose water, Moroccan tea glasses and some interesting teas... gunpowder?? (Still haven't tried it yet though).

Also, that night and the next day I had harira soup... it is a traditional Moroccan soup and it is the best friggin thing ever. Need. More. I love soups anyway, and it was pretty perfect for being so sick.

I crashed that night, slept in as much as possible the next day, then we had a rough student fair, then caught the train back to Casablanca. A few hours of sleep, then to the (extremely frustrating, very low and inefficient) airport for the journey back to LA. My luggage was lost again (why is Air France selling this itinerary when the luggage can't make it?!) but the cat in the Casablanca airport made me happy for the morning.

For the record, I still have a lot of faith in Morocco and would like to see Marrakech and Chefchaouen. But I don't really recommend Casablanca...