Lyall, Henry, and Max challenge les vagues!
I didn't bring my camera with me for our night out in Casablanca, but I'm sure Elin and/or Claire will post pictures on Facebook soon enough
10/30/09-11/01/09
Yes, that's correct, we spent Halloween on the beach! Be jealous all you cold friends of mine! But let's back up to Friday night before we left Rabat.
So we had two desires for our weekend plan: We wanted to go to the beach, and we wanted to go dancing. So, after a whole lot of plans falling through and getting changed (have I mentioned before you shouldn't let boys plan anything?), we finally arrived at a plan that seemed to work for everyone!
Friday night Chloe, Max, Lyall, and me rushed to the train station after work to catch a train for El Jadida. El Jadida is a Portugese town about an hour and half south of Casablanca. It used to be an old Port town used by the Portugese, and is known for being open minded - there is no Mellah there because the Jews were allowed to live with everyone else. It was kind of run down and busted, but it was really nice to be in a small town with some neat European architecture where we were basically left alone, even if all the taxi drivers did rip us off.
When we got there we went to our hotel where Henry was waiting for us. He has gone even farther south to Safi with his boss Thursday night then just met us in El Jadida Friday night. We then went for a drink at a bar called "Le Tit," which of course we found endlessly funny. A word about bars in Morocco: They are extremely uncommon, and even more uncommon is finding a woman in one. I would never ever in a million years think of going to a bar or a club here unaccompanied by at least two men - typically any women you find in bars here are prostitutes. But at any rate, we enjoyed a few 11dirham ($1.50) beers and headed back to our hotel.
In the morning, after a very long breakfast where we ate way too much cake and pain au chocolat, we headed over to the Cite Portugaise, which is the small Portugese-built Medina in El Jadida. There is an old cistern there which is famous for being used as part of the set in the Othello which Orson Wells directed. It's really cool down there. As you can see from the photo, the whole room is lit by one beam of sunlight, and everything is reflected by all the water on the floor. We then ventured up to the Bastions on the corners of the Medina. There were a few kids playing in the water, jumping from the tops of the Medina walls and splashing around. I wish there hadn't been so much trash in the water where they were swimming, but I suppose they are used to it.
We then headed for the beach about 5 km away called Sidi Bouzid which was recommended in Lonely Planet. When we got out of the cab we could definitely feel the "beach town" vibe coming from the trendy restaurants and gorgeous summer homes which lined the streets. The waves were absolutely AMAZING! They were so big and Chloe and I had fun/had panic attacks while we watched the boys play in them. I went in for a bit, but not far enough out to have really experienced the strength of the water. It was sunny, but the waves threw so much mist in the air that the sea kind of seemed to have a haze over it in the distance. I don't think I've ever gone sunbathing on Halloween before!
We then headed to the train station to go to Casablanca for the night, where we would meet up with Claire, Julia, Elin(a really cute Welsch girl who works at the same center as me), and Jess(a really cute Australian girl working with kids in Sale). We have been wanting to go dancing really badly, but it is really awkward with the host families to tell them we are going to be out late. So we figured we'd just find a club in Casablanca and stay out late when we don't have anyone keeping tabs on us. This would have been a great plan if we hadn't paid for our hostel rooms before being told they close the doors from Midnight to 8am, so unless we wanted to be locked out we had to be back by midnight. The reason he gave us was "I hate Americans." Apparently some American's had caused trouble there before...but still I didn't appreciate the sentiments, and the "oppression" I'm feeling from this culture is starting to get to me (that's another blog entry).
We managed to find a Spanish restaurant close to our hotel which serves alcohol, has a dance floor, and turns into a pretty happenin' place at night. It was pretty hilarious when we walked in and all the servers had pieces of Halloween costumes on. Clearly, the only people who go there are foreigners and really trendy Moroccans who love foreigners (a rarity it seems). They also had a big fake bloody arm in their case displaying the day's specials. Pretty hilarious. I was able to order a "Margarita" and "Fajitas de Poulet." I put those in quotes because true to my Texan snob form, I won't recognize what they gave me as actual margaritas and fajitas, but it was still quite good. I haven't had guacamole in ages!
After we finished with our dinner we got up to dance...and we were the only ones on the dance floor. But let me tell you what, I did not walk through the rocky streets of Casablanca in heels to not put them to use on the dance floor! I knew that if we all started having a blast dancing together then pretty soon everyone else in the place would follow suit, and they did, in a very major way. At one point Elin came and grabbed me and dragged me back into the room where we had eaten before, and everyone was dancing on all the tables!!! (Yes, I joined in) I also managed to meet a couple horror film directors who live in Casablanca. Haha, I don't really see myself working with them, but it was very different and reassuring to meet a friendly gay artist here. We managed to get back to the hostel on time, hang out for a bit, then crash.
Sunday was basically a relaxing day - train back to Rabat, lounge on the beach, lounge at this nice cafe in the Kasbah Oudaya right next to the beach, and heading home for the night.
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