So my last entry was kinda sub-par, i realize. Sorry about that.
I slept horribly last night, again. I hope that this doesn't become a trend that follows me home. That said the jet lag is going to suck rocks. In fact my plans for friday (i'm not even home yet and i'm making plans!) includes accounting for waking up at 4am.
Today we got our stuff all packed, moved around necessary items to various packs then checked out. Between then and when we hop train we are without room which always makes me a little nervous. We leave our bags by the front desk to continue our day.
We walk along Casablanca's ports to the King Hassan II Mosque. A very modern mosque built between '87 and '93; impecibly designed by some french guy and stands to be the third largest mosque behind Mecca and Medina. So it's pretty kickass. Keith liked this mosque because it also includes a laser that points directly to mecca. We found out during our private tour (we were the only english speaking tourists for the 11 o'clock, lucky us!) that the laser alternates between red, blue and green. Multicolored laser for the win. Our tour included the inside of the prayer hall, which non-muslims aren't generally allowed in most mosques, the abolutions hall (for pre-prayer washing) and the hammam (to be opened for public use at a later date). All are amazing! The other cool thing about being the only ones in the English tour is that other than the prayer hall we had each place basically to ourselves. Our guide sounded very impressed when we said we'd been here for a month. She exclaimed that we have seen all of morocoo, and was surprised when i said there were a couple of things that i would have liked to see.
After we walked through the medina to get back to the Nouvelle Ville. This was kinda neat, seeing as we've been through so many medinas and we found it wasn't that hard to navigate. We also met an old man (met= "hey you! where you from!") who lived in Canada 15 years ago and regailed us with an impressive list of Canadian cities. We had icecream to stave our hunger and eventually found our way to the front gate.
We had lunch and then we went off to find this Kubba that only appears on our map that turned out to just be a little site that we weren't allowed in. That's okay. We went shopping a bit, finally finding a pipe for cassie's collection. But Keith needed to get off his feet and we need to check the train schedules so here we are! We have 5 more hours before we even think about the train and even then, our flight is at 1am. I am already exhausted, and it's going to be awful. Luckily it's only going to be a 5 hour wait in frankfurt as opposed to last time's 15.
Sigh. Guess we're off to the medina for tea and shoping.
Next entry should include fun culture shock updates!
So here we are back in Casa.
We slept beautifully last night in our expensive bed. My arm spots!welts are dissapearing. We packed up, had breakfast up on the terrace then hoofed it to our bus. Bus to Merrekesh, hop train. train hella longer than expected. Other than that, our 7 hours of travel were amazingly dull.
Arriving in Casa, dodging invasive taxi drivers, we ran out into traffic to catch a taxi making us terrible unpopular. But this guy not only ran the meter (yay! no rip offedness!) but also spoke English and was very personable. We got a not bad place with a balcony and a reception guy who's pretty funny. Food and off to find internet which in Casa is harder than it sounds.
Tomorrow is going to tons of fun! Lots of stuff to see and do last minute. Then we taxi to the train station, train to airport (not sure how that works, entirely) then zoom home!
Keith and I talked today about what we have learned from the trip and stuff. I'm so stinkin' proud of him. I guess it's a good thing I'm going to marry the dude. It's going to be fun to see him go through reverse culture shock. awww; everyone's first time is so different!
So it seems i'm coming down with a cold. ew.
Yesterday, not much more to tell. Started feeling sick, riad searching, dinner, shopping, early to bed. Had an awful sleep. Woke up with more red spots and Keith didn't have so much as a nip off of him, which again makes me hesitate to name bedbugs as culprits. Possibly a reaction to the sheets? We'll see if it gets any better.
This morning we paid up after much standing around. Despite having considerably nicer rooms and facilities than the other place, Hotel Centrale has the worst reception in all of Morocco. Then, we hoof it to the riad we picked out yesterday, the Dar El Qadim, which means the old house. Ha! So, we're now paying out the nose for a very nice room with a couple chairs and our own bathroom and hot shower on demand. Riads are the hot hot thing in Morocco, and we should at least try one before we leave. The fun thing about riads, and many of the hotels in Morocco, is that there is no way to tell anything about it from the outside. The fanciest, swankiest places are still a wood door down a dark narrow alley. So now we have a pretty place for tonight!
The other big plan for today was my birthday present: a trip to a hammam! It isn't a real hammam, which is a public turkish-ish style bath, but more like a spa organized through our riad. I've been itching to try a hammam since i read about them but once i got here i found i was, of all things, shy. I really didn't know what to do and i didn't want to go alone. If i were here with my sisters, i could probably had bullied them into going, but by myself, i couldn't quite do it. but since this was a private hammam, Keith and I could go together. Which is also super cool, because he wouldn't have done it without me.
Inbetween moving in and our hammam trip we ate breakfast, took a shower (we weren't sure how clean or dirty we really aught to be for this thing, so we decided to play it safe and get good use out of our swanky riad shower!), did the great budgeting for the next couple days, did some shopping, had lunch, had ice cream and sat by the beach, and generally enjoyed our last day in Essiouara. Though i do warn people, despite our VERY best efforts, our shopping has been patchy at best. Unless it's a scarf or a wood box we seem to be having trouble with it. Anywho; after some of that, we headed back to our riad, changed into our bathing suits (which it mentioned in our book) and waited to get picked up. Promptly, we were picked up by a young woman who first walked us though a part of the medina, then we caught a taxi (which she paid for) the rest of the way.
Up in the spa-hammam we were escorted in, told to remove our clothes and we exchanged the flipflops we both wore for ones that looked pretty much identical. I was instructed to only wear my "coulottes" so i wrapped myself in a towel which was promptly taken away from our Hammam attendent, who i would like to call the Hammam-amama. She apparantly took her hammam-ing very seriously. we were brought into a little steam room and were soaped up, rinsed, scrubbed down like crazy (she took a layer of skin i swear! magic eraser-ed my tan!), rinsed, shampooed, rinsed, soaped up, rinsed and then dumped a bucket on our respective heads. She was very down-to-business, but she did smile a little when she dumped the bucket of water on keith's head. Then we were given towels, lead off to another room for MASSAGE! I love massages. I practically lived off them in south east asia. it was great, though, there was a bit of an odd boob-jiggle in there during the chest part of the massage. Despite that, all in all, it was pretty kick-ass.
After, we managed to find our way back to the medina (somehow!), got back to the riad, got jackets and went for dinner. now we're here!
Tomorrow we're off to Casablanca by bus then train. Then, day after tomorrow we catch the flights to get home! AKK! where has the time gone! A month goes so fast! Keith is quite ready to return. There were a couple more things in Morocco I'd like to have seen but we would have had to completely cut out Essiouara after Merrekesh and I'm very glad we didn't. Just means i have to come back, at some point. I'm just happy we've had a month to see Morocco, unlike so very many who come here for 2 weeks then leave. Listen to me gripe. Anyroad...
See you all in Casa!
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