Casablanca!!

Today was a great day exploring Casablanca, Morocco!  We arrived in the morning after a pretty rocky night – the first we have had since originally crossing the Atlantic.  Customs took a really long time this morning and the ship wasn’t cleared until 11:00am.  I had a great morning and slept in before getting up around 10:30am to get ready.  I at lunch on the ship around 11:30am then had a SAS tour of Casablanca that left at 1:00pm. 

The first stop on the tour was to a large market that sold fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and even turtles!  Our guide swore that they don’t eat the turtles and that they are just sold as pets but they were lined up in food crates just like the fish so I’m not so sure about that.  Next we went to the Royal Palace of Casablanca.  We didn’t go inside but we went to see the fancy front gate that only gets opened on special occasions twice a year.  We are back to seeing all the Islamic/Arabic influenced decorations like in Spain which is cool.  Then we went to the only church that still remains in use in Casablanca called Notre Dame de Trapani.  The entire sides were stained glass windows so it was really pretty on the inside.  Then we went to the Hassan II Grand Mosque which is the 3rd largest mosque in the world (after Mecca and Medina).  It was so enormous and beautiful!  It also has the tallest minaret of anywhere in the world and you can see it from almost anywhere in the city.  We spent about an hour touring the mosque and it was incredible how modern it was – including a retractable roof to circulate air, earthquake proof retractor things, and even a laser beam that points toward Mecca from the top of the minaret.  This mosque was the highlight of the trip and is definitely the pride of Casablanca.  Then we stopped at the United Nations Square for about 30 min of shopping.  It was fun to look around but I was saving my shopping for the market in Marrakech where I can use my superb bargaining skills.  The rest of the trip was a driving tour around some of the neighborhoods in the city.  We drove by the public beach which was really crowded and then saw the king’s residence including his royal golf course and race track.  The neighborhood where the king lives (only when he is visiting the city of course) was really nice and pretty while the rest was just pretty average.

We got back to the ship around 6:30pm and cleaned up a bit and changed before Andrea and I went out to dinner.  We went to Rick’s Café which was a popular spot for everyone from SAS because it was so close to the ship and was built after the movie Casablanca.  For your information, none of the movie Casablanca was actually shot in Morocco, but it brought a lot of fame to the city so they are proud of it.  Rick’s was built after the movie became famous and was definitely a splurge dinner but was really fun.  It was such a classy place with a live jazz band and delicious food.  Andrea and I had appetizers, entrees, and dessert along with our sophisticated martinis.  My appetizer was a goat cheese salad that was absolutely delicious – probably my favorite thing I ate all night!  It was just lettuce with a vinaigrette dressing with 4 HUGE pats of goat cheese!  (Mom, each pat of goat cheese was like equivalent to 3 from Nibbles so it was like having 12 of those Nibbles ones with an even smaller salad!)  For dinner I had the swordfish which was delicious and came with a pesto sauce.  Then for dessert we split a giant warm brownie with ice cream on top.  It was so delicious and our last free night out of America so we are glad we had a nice delicious dinner even though it wasn’t really Moroccan.

We got back to the ship around 11:00pm and now I am headed to bed because we leave for our trip to Marrakech at 8:00am tomorrow morning.  I have heard that Marrakech is amazing and the best city in Morocco so I am very excited to be headed there for the next 3 days!