Morocco: day 2

Beach trip anyone? Noting the giant jellyfish to your right you might be intrigued about day two. The day started with a casual morning breakfast on Anne and Isaac's balcony (can we say jealous!) accompanied by a sandy stroll along the beach. That's when we ran into...you guessed it, more wildlife! And yes, please take the phrase 'ran into' in it's literal sense. Apparently getting washed up on shore is a rather violent way to die as there were detached appendages scattered about... No stinging however...




Here is Matt gallantly thinking about how to protect me from any further critter harm. (beetles, jellyfish, what is this, one animal attack a day or something?)

Shaking off our jellyfish encounter, we decided a little ocean swimming was in order. That's when I hopped into my itsy-bitty teeny weeny polka dot bikini and ran Baywatch style into the surf....or not. Lets back up and explain a few things first. Morocco just happens to be a very modest and conservative Muslim country. For me this translated into a one piece suit and shorts combo that would have made an Amish mother proud. I'm not sure what difference it really made in the end though as I still felt under-dressed sitting next to women wrapped from head to toe in layered robes.

But, well, what can you do really but go on baring your ankles and hope you're not breaking too many cultural norms in the process? Thus I made it my goal not to think about my naked appendages and dove in. Which was amazing by the way.
Imagine the scene: sun, sand, surf....sand...oh crap, lots of sand! Which brought me to the realization that the jellyfish must have really had an awful ending. What I had failed to notice was that the shore sloped down rather sharply where the waves started; and therefore, the moment I started body surfing I would be riding along inside a wave, feeling the rush of it all, when suddenly I would slam into a pebbly wall of sand and the trip would end just that fast. There were two problems resulting from my sandy faceplant each time: 1) the next wave would come along and if you didn't get your butt up fast enough, you were heading towards faceplant number two and 2) thanks to that lovely swimsuit get-up, all that sand would go down my suit and settle at my waistline. Which left me with popping up out of the water only to discover that I had rather large fat roll around my midsection, and honestly, what girl needs more of those? Of course that meant swimming out to deeper waters to empty myself of all that sand (an art form I quickly found out!) and going through the process all over again with the next wave!

Next we were off to visit Anne and Isaac's school which is just outside of Casablanca. It's an American-run school but actually manages to pull off being tri-lingual with English, French, and Arabic. Not too shabby, ay? Well it didn't take me long before I was drooling over the the state of the art premises, classroom sizes (six times the size of mine with the same amount of kids!), and cool international environment. Ironically one of the few pics I took of the school was actually the giant piles of empty water bottles pictured to the right here. Meeting the staff was a whirlwind of languages and nationalities--I quickly started taking cues from Anne as to what language we were supposed to speak (not kidding you, it changed about every minute or so depending on who we saw).


Here we are taking a break from the language craziness...where else but the playground...

















Of course, Matt just had to seize the opportunity to get one of his GQ shots in...




















Meanwhile I got to swing with my way cute nephew...

















Anne, my sister-in-law, working on her swing pumping skills... (useful when you work with children)
















Next we were off to dinner... Now this is the part of the story where we'll separate the true travelers from the tourists. You see, a true traveler would be appalled that here we were in Morocco and we were going out for Mexican. I, however, am more than willing to look tacky if it means a burrito and decent guacamole. (Let's just be nice and say that France has not quite mastered the art of the burrito quite yet...or any spicy food for that matter...) My favorite part about the whole thing is the giant sombrero table light hanging over our heads in the picture. In another life I would have plopped right there on the table and pretended to wear it....

Mexican fix out of the way, we headed off to the souks for some real Moroccan authenticity.
Here's the entrance on the right...




















...and a back alley view of the market...


















Matt fell in love with the piles of cheap sunglasses and got his first experience with bargaining. At a mere 7 euros he was rather happy with his purchase. So happy in fact that his inner cool guy came out and we just had to snap a picture documenting the occasion.




Our last stop on day two was Rick's Cafe. Yes, for all you Casablanca fans, the Rick's Cafe. For all you who are clueless and are wondering why I keep repeating the name of the cafe, let me explain. Ever seen the classic Casablanca? Yeah well, I hadn't either. But I got to, on a giant screen tv inside the cafe. And from what I can understand, it's this movie about a girl and a guy, and another guy, and she falls in love and there's trouble and then they never see each other again. What makes it different than every other chic flick is that it's set in Casablanca at a place called Rick's Cafe. Which turns out these days is a fairly posh, swanky place for tourists to go visit and relive the romance (on the big screen tv of course). And thus we ended our day sipping drinks on a giant pool table turned dinner table, laughing and chatting with Anne's teaching friends, and wondering what the next day's adventures would hold...