I woke up on Sabado the 19th and the sun was blinding like i was on the freaking equator. As the fog of sleep lifted it was loud as hell outside. Like a Moroccan Bazaar.
I had some very sweet and greasy flat bread and sweet mint tea for breakfast. It was delicious. I decided to go up to Mohammedia, about 50 km north, and halfway to the City of Rabat, which i think is the capital. This dude i met in the airport mentioned it to me.
FYI: Iberia is in terminal 4, which must be a few km farther than Terminals 1,2 and 3. Why would a Spanish Airline have the worst location in their home country? I don't have an answer for that.
Anyway, the guy came up to me and said; “I saw you telling that guy from Iberia off. Good for you. This is the worst airline ever. Never again!
He had immigrated to the US when he was three, but was coming back to visit family. He said Casablanca was a hell hole (his family was there was he was here). I asked him if there was a cool beach nearby, and he told me about Mohammedia. So I settled in and went to the Casa Port train station to get back on the scary train and found out the train had left at 12:30. It was 12:31 and the next one was at 14:00. I decided to get a taxi and it was a good move. The driver was nice as hell and told me a million things. He dropped me off at a nice restaurant at a little cove of a beach. I sat on the veranda, had some good Veal Tajine and a nice salad. And of course olives. They eat pickled white asparagus there, as well as here in Spain. It was in the salad. I don't think we have it in the USA. It REALLY looks a thin scrawny white penis. I love asparagus, so i just closed my eyes.
There was a concrete pitch to play football right on the beach. 10 kids drove up and played. It was fun. Good food, a cold Flag Beer and good food. The driver really hooked me up. Then I went exploring and that's where i saw the house that was number 107 (it's in one of the photos i posted), the number of our townhouse in college. Crazy!!!! The weather turned gray and the Atlantic was just battering the shoreline. When i've lived close to the water (Jamaica, Fairfield) it was always primarily calm water. This show of shear force was awesome. When Brahim later picked me up, he asked if I had gone swimming?
“Are you crazy man? Out there? No way! I'd be mashed against the rocks.”
Then i found a cool place to have a tea (some places don't serve beer) and got lucky as it started to rain. This place had crazy views, but it was too cloudy for the camera. They I hiked back to the restaurant and waited for Brahim.
When we got back to Casablanca I had him drop me off at a Hammam, which was a sauna. Then they gave you a scrub down and then a massage. It was awesome. It was all male (Islam sucks), but the guys were cool. Built. Some were hairy as osos (bears). I am so NOT gay, I didn't get any of that gene at all.
Just let your head flop back and forward. Your neck is a well cooked piece of asparagus. -- Sadrodin Muraradad's Yoga Party, The Simpsons
There was a nice moment at the restaurant on Saturday afternoon. I was in the bathroom and went to wash my hands when i was done. There was an eight year old boy struggling to reach the faucet handle. He looked at me like, you´re big - little help bro! So of course i turned on the water for him. Then he couldn't reach the soap dispenser so he just held his hands under it while i pumped the soap it for him. He smiled as he left. I later heard him and his mom speaking Arabic. Amazing how sometimes it is so easy to communicate.
If you smile at me, I will understand 'Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language. -Crosby, Stills and Nash
The situation with cabbies is much different. They just assume you speak French. I mean, I can speak English and Spanish (poorly, but I f@*king speak it!), both of which are spoken all over the world. But to assume everyone speaks French! That's so 1820s! Talk about a dead language!
Saturday night i went to a local place and had fish and watched Spanish football on Al Jezeera sports in the restaurant. Al Jezeera Sports - are you kidding me? The stats were in Arabic script. Then I went to this cool bar where they pull the curtain across the windows so you can´t be seen drinking, but they do have beer signs outside. It was jammed so i got put at this table with these gals. The one in her late 40´s spoke Spanish. Then we went to a place with belly dancers. The place was jammed! I later found out they were prostitutes (i suspected after the first hour) and the 40 something year old woman - Susanna was the pimp! I declined their services and went home, but i did buy the cute one a few drinks. She was sweet but drinking herself unconscious she was so nervous.
Oh, how i love them whores! -Janes Addiction
Sad, though, that there is such little opportunity in these countries. But she wasn´t a slave, just a newbie.
There are an estimated 23 million sex slaves around the world. Over double what was brought to America during the 300 years that African slavery was practiced in the US. The new novel has an arc on the subject. When will we wise up and just legalize prostitution? Let's make it safe for everyone involved. Allowing slaves to exist in 2008 is bonkers. It's stupid and senseless. And it perpetuates organized crime. Tax it. Build an art room in schools and basketball courts for kids. Take that money out of the pockets of criminals, and crooked cops, politicans and businessmen.
Domingo
I had breakfast downstairs and went to the bazaar, which was bedlam. People shouting and following me, speaking in English, full of desperation.”
“Come look in my shoe store.”
“I don't wear shoes anymore thanks. I wear sneakers to work.”
That dude followed me for a block. After that, for everyone who came up to me talking in English, i replied in Spanish, That lost them pretty fast. Then it was off to the Hassan II Mosque. It was gigantic, rising out of the sea. Very impressive.
And then it was time to go home.
One day I feel I'm on top of the world And the next it's falling in on me I can get back on I can get back on One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel, And the next it's rolling over me I can get back on I can get back on -Rush
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