So, we arrive at our hotel. We are given a few hours to rest, change money and prepare for our afternoon touristing.
Changing money:
All the students and most of the other adults brought dollars or euros that needed to be exchanged. We found that odd. We just went to an ATM and withdrew money from our American bank accounts in local currency. Our bank, Group Health Credit Union, doesn’t even charge us any fees. I guess most of the students don’t have american bank accounts? And we were the only “adult” Americans, the rest were Egyptian.
Additionally there was a hassle because the hotel ran out of cash.
Kaddee and I decided to get something to eat. This being Eid, the only thing open nearby was a western hotel with a rather expensive restaurant. We ate there anyway. The food was very tasty.
Back to the hotel and on the bus.
We went to the Mosque of Hassan II. It is a truly impressive structure. And there was at least one universal truth that came to mind while visiting: Old men hang out on park/church/mosque benches where ever you go. It was an extremely blustery day, pooh. The clouds rolled through and we had sun and shade and sun and shade.
I brought my small camera with me and got a few pictures.
Bummmer: because of my tired state (red eye from Cairo to Madrid and then Casablanca) I thought I had put my 50mm fixed lens in my pocket. I missed the pocket and bounced the lens off the tile floor of the hotel room. It would no longer focus, either manually or automatically. Well, technically it is focused at the infinite end of the range. Sigh. So I decided to leave the big camera in the hotel room cause I was upset by my $350 oopsie.
It was nice to stand right on the ocean and feel ocean breezes and mist again. The air was clean and smelled of the sea. The crowd was practically non-existent. We wandered around for about an hour. I looked at the colors and the construction details and the people in relative quiet.
Then we were back on the bus. Since everybody was hungry (except us, because we took our own destiny in our hands and actually _thought_ how “hmm, we haven’t eaten, nobody mentioned anything about food for the bus trip this afternoon, maybe we should do something about that”) the tour guide decided to takes us down the Corniche where he _hoped_ to find a restaurant open. (Again it was Eid. Everything was closed).
So we drove the Corniche and they pulled into a McDonalds. Yeah, a McDonalds. We took this time to stroll along the waterfront while folks grabbed a meal at McDonalds.
Then it was back to the hotel and some rest before dinner. The guide had arranged for a traditional “Moroccan” Dinner. At this point we were not thrilled with the guide and the choices made so far. We retired to the hotel room to rest and discuss our options.
We met downstairs at the appointed time and were discussing whether or not we would board the bus. The guide was saying that “it is really hard to get traditional moroccan food in Casablanca because it is a ‘modern’ city”. The dinner they had planned was going to cost $20US. I wondered why it was in US$. They wanted US money only. We bailed out and consulted our trusty Lonely Planet guide. The bus departed.
We wandered around. We were unable to find much open because of the holiday.
Note: Difference between Cairo and Casablanca: Cairo is a late night town. We usually eat out around 8pm. We are part of the “early bird” diners at that time..
What we did find open was starting to close around 9:30. We finally found a traditional Moroccan restaurant about 2 blocks from the hotel. Low seats and tables, lots of tile and tin ceilings. We had tagine and couscous, of course. It was great food and a lovely setting. Our meal, total, for both of us, was less than the equivalent of $20US.
We returned to the hotel with happy stomachs. We drank a couple of nips of scotch we had brought along and slept the sleep of exhausted travelers.