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There's little to do in Casablanca, we learned, other than see the Hassan II Mosque, so we left quickly.
It was beautiful though.
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Let's not talk about the amount of mint tea and pastries I consumed in Morocco. The last morning I ate five croissant chocolate swirl things the size of my fist and half a dozen glasses of tea. And the amount of bread, oh my gosh. And the tagine and couscous. Did I mention the tea? I've always liked sweeter tea and so this felt like something I'd been waiting for my entire life. So, yes, the food.
I traveled with an eclectic bunch. We giggled our way through the Arab world. My two friends, Lulu and Hallie, had their hair braided in Ghana, known as "Rasta braids". We couldn't step outside our hostel without hearing "Hey, Rasta woman!", "Sister of Bob Marley!", "Rasta pasta!". It was amusing at the beginning and teeth-gritting at the end.
I, thankfully, was ignored the majority of the time. I credit this to my short hair and cargo pants yet again. There were multiple incidents in Morocco where again my gender was ambiguous enough to cause confusion. I certainly didn't do anything to stop this, and if it meant I wasn't harassed in the streets, all the better.
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Marrakech was like a fairy tale. A smelly, loud fairy tale. Wandering the streets of the medina was unlike anything we have experienced yet. I don't think any picture could capture what it felt like to get lost in those cobbled streets. You learn to glance over your shoulder when you hear the clip-clop of donkey or the drone of a motorcycle.
We stayed in a crazy-awesome hostel, which we stumbled into the first day without having made a reservation. They were gracious enough to welcome us in and give us beds the first night, and couches on the rooftop the next night. We watched Aladdin that night and looked at the stars and everything felt unreal.
Our afternoons and evenings were spent wandering the medina or in the Jamaa El Fena square, another place that felt surreal.
I don't think any of my pictures really captured it.
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Purr. Meow.
There were a lot of cats in Marrakech.
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And now, how we went surfing in Morocco.
The original plan had been to make our way to Essouria after Marrakech, but after doing our research we realized there was no reliable way to get back to Casablanca from Essouria with time enough to get to the ship. We tossed around a dozen ideas before deciding to train to Rabat. On the train we met an American woman who has been teaching abroad since she was our age, now currently working in Munich, and her German boyfriend. I wouldn't mind having her life in a couple years. We talked to them for three hours, before they got off in Casablanca and we realized we hadn't even learned their names. They did tell us, however, to see the beach and cemetery and the surfers who walk through the cemetery.
We arrived in Rabat, hungry and tired, and found our way to the Medina. We ate and were entertained by a bunch of young boys who thought it was fun to play the air-violin and sing for the foreigners.
Wandered down to the ocean (trying to find the beach but instead found a bunch of black, harsh cliffs) to watch the sunset, realizing we had no idea what we were doing next. We ate the last of our chocolate-covered Oreos and watched for the green flash, laughing about the fact we had no idea where we were staying that night. At one point Hallie turned to me and said, "When you have no idea what's happening next, it really makes you appreciate what's happening now." I was struck by how incredibly profound that was, not just for our current situation but for the future.
Realizing we would soon be stuck in an unfamiliar city in the evening, we found an internet cafe and googled hostels. That led us to "Medina Surfing Association", and we showed up on their doorstep (after inevitably getting lost in the medina) exhausted and laughing. The young Moroccan surfers looked at us like we were insane, but gave us beds.
In the morning, they threw three wetsuits down on the table and asked if we were waiting for the waves to come to us.
We walked through the cemetery to the beach with our surfboards, just as the couple we met on the train described.
The water was chilly and the salt made me cry and spit every minute or so, but the sun came out and we were using muscles I had forgotten I had and everything was perfect for those few hours.
Hallie, who speaks beginner Arabic, was given a practical lesson in surfing Arabic during our lesson - the only thing I remember is that "moog" means "wave".
In the waves, I thought about watching my brother surf in California and had this odd sense of coming full circle. Oddly enough, I proved to be the best of the three of us, catching waves and standing up myself without any help.
The walk back to the hostel, and to the train station, was exhausting.
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We didn't go to the desert, or the mountains, but I feel incredibly satisfied with my Moroccan experience. I look forward to going back.
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I wrote my last test this morning, so I am officially done third year. Tonight is the Alumni Ball. Life on the ship is winding down, but the trip isn't over. I still have a couple weeks, a thought that is both exhausting and exciting. However, I keep thinking back to what Hallie said on the beach as we watched the sun go down.
I'll try to write once more before we disembark.
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