Casablanca

 We arrived in Casablanca and it was very exciting! The ship was cleared in the morning and I went on my first trip off the boat for my architecture class, Sacred Places. We went to an old, abandoned church first. It had extremely high ceilings and there was cool stained glass above the alter area portraying the different flags of members who had been in the congregation. It was pretty, but melancholy too to see it so empty and without the usual furnishings (i.e. pews. any furniture really). Then we went to the Hussein II Mosque (recently built in 2008 after the former King of Morocco) which was mind-bogglingly detailed and amazing in general. Every square inch was handmade and the ornamentaion was really over-whelming. The cool part was that parts of it were high-tech, like they hid the speakers in the ornamentation, the main (bronze?) door weighs several tons and is on a computer system to open, the ceiling opens to provide ventilation, and there is a waterworks part that lets water flow down the middle of the building (Mosques are generally over water b/c God hovered over the water when He created the earth). Underneath were water fountain areas for Muslims to wash certain parts of their bodies and some pool for healing. I don’t agree with Islam, but it is truly breath-taking to see what the mind can conceive and create. Finally, we went to a Jewish temple (we couldn’t take pictures there) which was also very pretty. It had interesting stained glass art (as my teacher accurately described, very Picasso-esque) symbolizing the 12 tribes (2 tribes shared 2 pics though). Oh yes, before we got to the Temple, we took a stroll through a stree-long market place which was cool but we didn’t have any time to investigate. It ended with a huge square full of many times of olives (20+), which I honestly didn’t realize there were so many kinds of olives! Then our guide pulled some strings and got the armed guards to let us go into the plaza before the royal palace (all the cities have royal residences in case the king wants to go there for a while) to see it from the front. Finally we got back to the ship. I do have to say – thir driving is pretty crazy, but they are probably some of the best drivers – constantly aware of their surroundings, able to weave in and out of traffic and account for cars coming at them from 4 different places at the same time – I know I couldn’t do that!

In the evening, I went with some friends to Rick’s Café – that’s right, they only built it a few years ago but now there’s a Rick’s café! It was kind of pricey but had excellent food and portions (so much I couldn’t finish it)! It was trying to be very high class and had waiters standing awkwardly near our table – kind of annoying more that helpful, honestly. Then, one of the guys in my group wanted to find an internet café, so we tried to find one. We walked all over the place and eventually found one. The streets at night are not that safe for women unless you have some guys to protect you – we had 3 guys and 2 girls so the multitude of Moroccan men on the street left us alone. There really weren’t too many women out, it was kind of weird. There was also a dinner happening at 11pm when we were on our way back to the ship. All in all, it was a fun day.