As I was
walking up to my room to finish typing up the entry below, I came across one of
the quotes that the RAs had posted on the walls all over the building. This one
had fallen off and was lying on the stairs. It says, “Our life’s a stage, a
comedy: either learn to play and take it lightly, or bear its troubles
patiently.” –Palladas. In light of the weekend we just had, I found this quote
to be very meaningful, and I’m keeping it at my desk to remind me that if I can’t
laugh at myself, life becomes very difficult.
This
weekend was … well, to put it lightly, it was a whirlwind tour. I’m not even
sure how to summarize it, so I’ll just go chronologically and we’ll go from
there.
As late as
lunchtime Friday afternoon, we still weren’t entirely sure where we were going.
We all gathered in Maggie’s room (Henry had to sit outside the door due to
campus rules), and it took us about an hour to figure out we were going to stay
in the city’s center in Casablanca. We all had class pretty late, so we figured
we wouldn’t get out of town until five or so.
We managed
to leave at the same time as a large group heading to Rabat, so we ran into
them multiple times – at the globe waiting to leave, at the grand taxi station,
at the train station in Meknes. A petit taxi to the grand taxi station, then a
grand taxi ride to Meknes. Then we caught the train headed out to Casablanca,
and we were on our way.
First of
all, we were split up because someone (not to name any names, but Brian) bought
a first class ticket and the rest of us second class, because they ran out of
first class tickets. The three girls (Halcyon, Louise, and myself) wound up in
a six-person section. Our neighbors were an elderly gentleman with houses in
Meknes, Casablanca, and Paris, and a couple of handsome young Moroccans. In fact,
our car got progressively more attractive as the trip wore on.
At one
point, the college-aged kid next to me offered to share his music. After
initially refusing, I caved after five minutes of boredom. His selection
included, among other things, Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy” and some rap music.
We got into
Casablanca late, around ten or eleven. After getting an expensive taxi ride to
the hotel, we discovered that the hotel would only allow two of us to stay in
the room we booked. We tried explaining that we could sleep on the floor, but
they were adamant. So the boys and I went to the Hotel Astrid, which actually
turned out to be quite lovely. With a three-person room priced at 450 MAD a
night, it worked out to less than 20$US per person per night.
That night
we went out to La Bodéga, which was in Louise’s Lonely Planet book. It was a
tapas bar, and a great way to make us all feel better after the chaos of
arriving. The tapas were delicious, the sangria was perfect, and the basement
had a dance floor that was, if I may say, quite bumpin’.
Our walk
back to the hotels wore off the tapas high. We decided to navigate the city at
night (terrible idea!) and wound up in a dead-end construction zone with some
super-sketch Moroccans heckling us. In the end, we got into two petit taxis and
spent 20 MAD per taxi getting back. It turned out we were less than a
two-minute walk from our hotels, but it may as well have been two miles.
In the
morning I was considerably more chipper, and we went to the Hassan II Mosque.
The tour cost more than we expected, but it was definitely worth it. The mosque
is beautiful, and features the tallest minaret (the tower part) in the world.
It’s built partially on the sea, and it took several years to build it. Of
course, when we went I was wearing shorts, so I had to wrap a blanket around my
legs. Apparently it’s too immodest, but luckily they had the blankets
available.
While at
the mosque, we met an Australian named Dan. After much conversation, we found
out he studied abroad at Halcyon’s college, and he decided to hang with us for
the day. He was spending the day in Casa before starting a Morocco tour lasting
3 weeks, after which he was going to start a job. Spending nearly half a day
with a complete stranger was a lot of fun, since I love strangers.
We walked
for nearly two hours away from the mosque, and wound up paying 70 MAD each to
access the beach. That’s when Dan said his goodbyes. Our whiteness stood out a
lot, and we attracted some unwanted attention in the form of some really creepy
30-year-olds. They eventually left, but it was really awkward being openly
gawked at.
After going
to the beach, we went to Rick’s Café, of Casablanca
movie fame. Of course, they built it after the movie was made, and the movie
wasn’t even filmed there, but it was still really very cool.
On Sunday
we went to the Arab League Park for a little bit, and then spent a few hours at
the Morocco Mall, the largest mall in Africa. There was a giant aquarium in the
middle, and a Marjane (their WalMart), and lots of other things. The food court
was ginormous and it was a very different feel from our small town outside of
campus, Ifrane.
On the taxi
ride to the train station from the mall, we were about halfway there when the
driver suddenly announced that the trip would cost 1000 MAD. Henry and I were
understandably furious and threatened to leave until he held up a 100 dirham
note. So not only was his grasp of English numbers bad, he was STILL
overcharging us. We ended up paying the fee, but weren’t very happy about it.
The train
ride home was more relaxing. Well, kind of. At first we didn’t have any seats
because they just sell tickets willy-nilly without counting if the number of
people and tickets matches. So I was left standing literally in the door of the
car, which was open, until about fifteen minutes in when we found seats.
After a
while a mother and her daughters wound up next to us. The little girl kept
looking at us pale foreigners, and I wanted to talk to them but I don’t speak
any Arabic or French. Figuring that giving a gift of skill is pretty much a
universal communication tool, I began folding paper cranes from paper torn out
of my magazine. The little girls were delighted, and I had a good time using my
garbled mix of Spanish and French with one or two Arabic words.
We got to
Meknes around 8:30 and had dinner at a little shop right next to the train
station. Then we were lucky enough to get a nice petit taxi driver (he used the
meter!) and at the grand taxi station we found a taxi ride for a reasonable
price, especially given that it was dark by that time.
All in all
it was a crazy whirlwind tour of a trip, and while I’m not sure if I would ever
go back to Casablanca, it was definitely an adventure.
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