Golden Tulip Farah Casablanca

... we had a traditional Moroccan lunch in this big (empty) restaurant, and then headed to the palm groves where we were going to ride camels. The palm groves weren’t as I pictured them, it wasn’t a colorful oasis in the middle of the desert but instead kind of reminded me of Arizona. The whole city of Marrakech, buildings and all, reminded me of a more run down Arizona city, which you will probably see from pictures. We rode on the camels for ...

... largest mosque in the world (apparently the oldest is in Iraq), but not the oldest as it was only completed in 1993. We are going to visit that tomorrow morning, and then we have the rest of tomorrow here before leaving on the early morning train to Marrakech on Tuesday.

Hope the end of term goes smoothly - all the papers and TV channels are full of Michael Jackson here. I'll be in touch again soon.

Lots of love

Sam xx

... that a chunk of you have already hit 'delete' (i'll be the first one to admit that i often fall into that same catagory). i tend to think the word 'blog' is a bit onomonopiatic, and when i receive one, i tend to catagorize it next to, and get the same feeling from, the word 'flog.' and in most instances would rather press my luck with not responding to a chain letter then to read about about someone's trip to aunt kate and uncle steve's (by the ...

... the guys sold me when they came up to us and said, "Obama, yeah??" I told the group that I liked that place and that we would be eating there, no questions! The hostel situation in Marrakech was not pleasant though. I will not give you the details of that terror, haha, but let's just say that one issue was that there was no heat... and it is winter in Morocco right now. We went and rode camels the next morning. That was an... experience. I do not think I will be doing ...

... food turned out to be fairly decent. There were a couple of English speaking patrons around, but all of them seemed to have either a good command of French or french friends to help them. From the drive we saw that the touristy Rick's Cafe was only a block away, so we decided to head there. Touristy it no doubt was, but very well done, although the doormen surely must have failed international doorman school by being far too friendly and welcoming ...

... Ahhh dear me. Thankfully Jay was coming back at 1 to collect those not watching the football so we made tracks back to the mosque and hitched a lift home with them... stopping off for McDonalds along the way in order that the cheese burger challenge could take place. Cheese Burger Challenge: To eat 10 cheese burgers in 30 minutes. Contestants: Sam, Tom, Josh and Team Ovaries - Rachel & Suzy (5 each) Result: Josh ...

... to our Arabic, or generally respond at all.  We eventually did manage to get a room and he took our money promising to bring us back change... which of course never happened.   The hostel was pretty soulless, but we had our own room right across from one that the hostel staff later broke in to, forcibly bashing down the door (apparently there was problems with the lock).  When we poked our heads out to see what was the matter we were received with ...

... fitted with metres would be more helpful.......even World Heritage status couldn't save it. The square still retains an atmospher but where once your feet would dislodge stones that the king's great, great, great, great grandfather could conceavibly stood on.....now they smack rather boringly onto machine cut paving stones......not very romantic and not very well done.....you can now buy prawn sandwiches at football grounds and the DeF is paved...is it really progress?

... we were happy, at least temporarily, to lunch in a fantastic seafood restaurant. Leviticus 11:9-12 says: 9 These shall ye eat of all that are in ...

Successfully making it into Casablanca we found our trip mascot. Her name is Felia and we purchased her at the fish market. Bopped around the city for a while, ate dinner at KFC again, blech, I think we go there just for the sunset. Went to Darb Ghalef to find a bunch of stolen goods for sale. Then spending bizeff Dh's at some club with techno freaks on ecstasy. Karim got plowed, I drove around afterwards. Good night in dar bayda.