Oum Palace Casablanca

... taking place across the road. Generally I try to avoid them but this was interesting . I think they were protesting against a provocative movie that was playing at the cinema. It featured a guy wearing no shirt. How dare they. The funny thing about the protest was that when a TV crew finished filming the protesters all packed up and went home. Very strange. A couple of beers later and time for bed.

Slept in till after 7:30 (although the 5am prayer call woke me), took our time showering then went down for breakfast. The weather was really foggy and it was hard to see past a few streets away. Went for a quick walk to the bank to change money, found a craft co-op and had a quick look around. We then just sat in our room watching TV and relaxing. Packed our bags and checked out and left our luggage at the hotel and headed out for a walk again ...

... times and how masons, wood workers, and sculptors traveled from town to town to work on projects. I got the impression that the Moroccan government firmly believes in keeping its artistic heritage alive. The last time I remember the US making such an effort were the WPA train stations constructed during the New Deal. I doubt there is much in the Stimulus package for starving artists. Research done after the fact revealed the mosque had retractable roof, see through floor over ...

... is a religious studies major with an emphasis in Hinduism who is African American, from Tennessee and goes to UVA. Ashley is half Korean, lived in Japan for sixteen years, and is now living in San Diego with her sister while her parents are still in Japan. I have really enjoyed talking to them and just learning from their experiences since our backgrounds are pretty different. We went to bed relatively early with the intent of getting up early the next morning to shop.

... Atlantic Ocean, lined with beach clubs in between derelict concrete parks and buildings. We sipped hot sweet mint tea and soaked up the sun and admiring the view of the crashing surf and lighthouse. Arriving back at the hotel at lunchtime to met our tour group, we headed to Hassan II mosque, the third largest mosque in the world, and built on a rocky outcrop. It is said in the Quran that God's throne was built upon the water, hence the mosque location. It can hold ...

Woke up late and went for breakfast at a patisserie. Feels weird attempting to speak french when you know you should be trying to speak arabic; but at least i know what i am asking for in french :) I have now gained stalker number 2 - man in red jacket; who thinks that australia is in america; asked me if i liked the buildings in ...

... goods, pottery, jewelry, clothing, supposed antiques, and so many other things it was overwhelming. Once through those, we were brought to the main market square which was ENORMOUS lined with shops/stalls with the various souks coming off of it. We were given 15 minutes to look around and told that if we wanted to take pictures of the snake charmers, don't give them more than one or two American dollars for it. We went straight to a snake charmer to ...

... photographing the birds. She was particularly pleased with the rather friendly one we met in the Sahara ...

... donkey ride sealed the deal... i loved donkeys. That afternoon, a few urgences, snacks and donkey-sightings later, we got the tour of Meknes, by none other than the ex-translator to the king who divorced his second wife and was looking for his 9th. We saw the worlds biggest silo (i can see that a king with 12000 horses would need to store hay), he told us the arabs invented the concept of the arch (sorry Lynn, your art history studies were clearly wrong, arabs ...

... before going to bed. First I noticed the weird toilets, which aren't anything unusual in Morocco anyways - a hole in the ground with porcelain stepping-points on both sides But the unusual thing (or perhaps not???) was that EVERYTHING in that bathroom was covered in **** - literally. Poo. Smeared everywhere. **** all over the floor. Blockages. I nearly threw up. I checked the next toilet and it looked pretty much the same. Next one - same. I was feeling seriously ill ...