Morocco, way back when

Moroc, Al Maghreb, something in Arabic I can't type…

We ported in Casablanca…. The city isn't very white/clean. Just ugh dirty. Traffic everywhere, taxis everywhere. Actually went to Rick's Café, the recreation from the movie Casablanca. It was apparently true to life but very touristy and kind of a waste of money and time, but I can say I've been there. Also went to the Hassan II Mosque, which apparently cost $600 million to construct. It's grand and huge, and shoots out a green laser beam at night calling the faithful to prayer. It's quite opulent and grandeur, but also a complete waste of money consider how much it cost and how dilapidated the adjacent neighborhoods are.  We spent a day in Morocco then went to Marrakech.

I took the train to Marrakech with Andy, Tina, Linda, and Travis. We couldn't get 1st class train tickets so got 2nd class instead…. That was an experience, our AC didn't work too well and it wasn't the best of conditions (check out the video I put up). Of course we got 1st class on the way back, and the only improvement was there were curtains and there were armrests on the chairs, but all in all the same quality/ safety. Oh how I love creaky trains. Also, the toilets for second class were a literal hole in the train.

Marrakech…. The Vegas of Morocco. It was much much cleaner than Casablanca but then again it was so touristy. The souks (bazaars, outdoor markets, money traps, whatever you want to call it) were designed to accommodate tourists, whom were mostly French due to Morocco's ex-colony status. The shopkeeps in the souks are vicious, and dicks. They're very aggressive in trying to pull you in, sometimes even physically grabbing. They're also very aggressive with bargaining, I'd say a general rule of thumb is go for 1/3rd of their price, don't budge twice, then walk away. Always walk away, if they want to sell at that price then they'll pull you back, but don't budge up. I made the mistake of listening to someone once and upped my price but what a waste. They're also douches, I kept getting "konichiwa" from everyone, it was pretty fucking aggravating and racist. However, there were some genuinely nice people in Marrakech's souks, I met this really cool kid that learned English, German, and French from just listening to tourists talk. Casablanca's souks were radically different, it wasn't geared towards tourism there so shopkeepers were a lot less pushy and annoying, and I met more cool people there, one shopkeeper actually lived in Minneapolis, and another lady that was shopping was on vacation from Pennsylvania (both native Moroccans). On a whole I enjoyed Casablanca souks much more, people were friendlier; I met a guy in there that had a friend from SAS from like 2 decades ago and showed us around the place offering to be our tour guide, he owned a fabric shop that he wanted to bring us to at the end but the group I was with wasn't feeling it so I guess that was an opportunity passed to meet a friend and learn more about his culture.

We also went to the casino in Marrakech…. What a joke. Their dress code was retarded, they required pants on guys but not specifics, I was wearing shorts so I actually traded my shorts for pants with a girl in our group, the girl wore my shorts with a pashima (scarf) wrapped around as a skirt. Went inside, the casino was extremely small and expensive, with $25 minimum bet for blackjack. I didn't gamble, just had a drink then left.

We tried a lot of local cuisine, and actually stayed at a "four star" (supposedly) hotel outside the old city in the new city. Other SAS kids were there, but they were on actual SAS trips. It was a cool place with a swimming pool, we "borrowed" a roll away bed every night since it would have cost extra to put 3 in a room, which is an offensive charge. Went to the hookah (shisha) bar every night and smoked hookah and had some beers with fellow SASers, it was a chill time. On a side note, I found a Vietnamese restaurant in Marrakech, but it was closed for all of Ramadan, blaaagh. All in all we stayed in Marrakech for 2 days, went shopping in the souks, smoked good amounts of hookah, and I bought a cowboy hat that I sported the rest of the time in Morocco. It was just an oddity for me to find a cowboy hat in Morocco, it was only 30 dirham (30/7 = $4). I also learned some cool hookah smoke tricks too.

Ok back to Casablanca. Even though Marrakech was cleaner, I met a lot more locals in Casablanca. One of the coolest people I met was actually a worker/manager of the hookah bar near our ship, Brad had met him the night before I got back. The guy's name was Mohammad (lol surprise), he didn't speak much English, or at all, but Brad and him communicated through hand signals and such. Guy was a baller, I don't think they liked the other loud typical American SASers there since they kicked them out early, but they let me and Brad stayed for as long as we wanted and even sat down and chilled with us, the guy even lit up a joint while we were smoking hookah. There was another dude that worked there also named Mohammad, he used to be a merchant marine with pretty good English and friendly. The owner's son (I assume) Hassim also stopped by, he spoke broken english but was also very friendly. So moral of the story here: people in souks aren't there to be your friends, meet them on the outside and take some time to communicate even if you don't speak the same language.

I forgot to mention it was also Ramadan the entire time we were there, so none of the locals at or drank during the entire day. We were told it'd be disrespectful if we drank or ate infront of them, but they were completely cool with it (the shopkeeps and restaurant owners at least). Also Mohammad said he only smoked 2 joints a night in observance of Ramadan, instead of the normal 7.

I feel like Morocco warrants more indepth exploration, and probably speaking French or Arabic would help greatly. The younger generation speaks fluent French because of the colonial ties, although the middle aged ones don't, but the grandparents also speak French, I guess they tried anti French sentiments but it didn’t work out so well. Something to note is that with Arabic French you have to hock some of the pronunciations with a harsher sound to be understandable to Moroccans. I kind of miss Morocco, but not Marrakech souks.