Journal Entry: April 29th -May1st, 2005
Casablanca! A city well known for the infamous movie, ......Casablanca. Nothing of the sort, just a big city with an old feel of former French colonialism.
The ride to Casablanca was nothing pleasent. We had to transfer bus after bus, without understanding Arabic and the broken French spoken to us. We just followed their commands to get off the bus and go to another bus. The only enjoyment I had was playing with this beautiful 1 year old kid who sat with his mother and father. His smile made my time wonderful.
The city had style like an old Parisien style mixed with a North Africa appeal. The women in this city were beauitful, exotic and very sexy.
Though, many of the city's women were not dressed in traditional fashion, their beauty was something not easily missed.
Though this city was filled with man advantages with beautiful women, bars serving beer, great restaurants, like most places around Morocco; we had to deal with the forever scams of taxi drivers or people not wanting to give us the right place, which we wanted to stay.
While our taxi driver knew that we request L'hotel du Palais, he decided to take us to a place, which a friend of his owned as he said "voila!" Voila, ce n'est pas L'hotel du Palais. The taxi guy tried to assure us that the place we were was the hotel we were looking for. Now, (bragging rights here) but I have a great knowledge of the French language and I understand that Palais is spelled as P A L A I S, right? The hotel were first arrived was Al Mara...something. Attila managed to find the hotel with his great mapping skills.
This city unlike other cities we've visited was free from husslers, scam artist (besides the first taxi driver) or anyone being curious to who we were. To the people of Casablanca, we could have been city residents to them. I have to admit, it felt great not hearing someone calling me "friend"
Certain times of the day, I would venture out of the hotel room away from Attila and Nate to explore this city. This city was very alive, motorcycles, dance clubs, bars, beer vendors, you name it. I wanted to capture every moment while I was there.
The streets were always filled with cars, people walking and bakery stands on almost every corner. I had to remind myself that I was not in Paris, France.
Unlike other cities in Morocco, Casablanca is blessed by providing a lost curious traveler names of streets in both French and Arabic. And the streets were not as confusing as I thougt they would be.
Even with everything in sight, we couldn't miss out on one of the world's infamous sites: The Great Mossque of King Hassan II.
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