It’s about 7am and I’m sitting in an open café under my hotel. There is African music playing through small speakers on the wall. I’m the only person here, but outside I can hear two people talking in Arabic. The café opens to a courtyard of palm trees and some park benches. So I got into Casablanca yesterday after about two of the worst plane rides I’ve taken in the last few years. I won’t say anymore about this once I vent a little. Why do the airlines insist on treating us like cattle? They herd us from one spot to another, cram us into seats that are just large enough for our bodies, completely ignoring that our arms and legs need space too. ‘nuff said.

I got into Casablanca in a strange mood. I didn’t know what to expect or where I needed to go. That’s not exactly true, I had the address of my hotel, but I had no clue where it was, or how far it was away.  I was a little pissed at the flight that I had endured so I decided to take a taxi. The taxis are nothing more than ancient Mercedes Benz that have a small sign that suggests it’s purpose. The ride was straight out of some movie. The driver honked his horn at nearly everything that was in front of the car, he made lanes where most normal people wouldn’t imagine a lane to actually exist. He wasn’t the only one either. At one light on a four-lane road, I counted six cars just waiting for the light to change. It’s all good, and to be honest I really enjoyed my taxi ride to the hotel.

Casablanca is different than what I had expected, which is a good thing. I was told that it was more cosmopolitan than the rest of Morocco, so my thought was, was that I was going to step into another Dubai. Fortunately that wasn’t the case, and at what I’ve seen so far, there is nothing cosmopolitan about this city.

After arriving at the hotel, I headed out just to walk around to see as much as I could before I wore out. It’s four hours earlier here than Dubai, so I had to deal with a little bit of jet lag, but it wasn’t that bad. I headed towards a large mosque stopping at the beach as I got closer. The beach really wasn’t a beach but more of just a retaining wall that people (mostly kids) were jumping from into the breaking waves.

I walked for about another 2 hours slowly making my way back to the hotel. I kind of like doing this kind of sightseeing. I get to be a part of the people as I walk along.

I haven’t put the pictures that I took yesterday so I won’t add any today. I also have to change hotels so I can meet up with the tour that I’m taking, so I don’t have time to do it this morning. I got back to the hotel about 10pm (Dubai time) which was 7 here. I fell asleep shortly afterwards. Pathetic when you go to bed at 8pm… I did get up at 4 though.