9/6/18

I left you all yesterday rubbing your noses in my first class experience. Actually, in hindsight I’m kind of wishing I hadn’t done first class.. Partly, because I now have another “thing” experienced which means one less that I can wish for… and more importantly because now I’ll always be doing the “wish I was flying first” and I can tell you that I can’t afford to fly first class!!

Yep the flight was certainly memorable, Casablanca, probably won’t be! The guide book had warned me that there isn’t much in Casa + I’d agree with that sentiment. Its a bit like travelling to Brisbane.. its a nice city, but there isn’t much to do/ see that you can’t do/ see elsewhere. Casablanca (for those who need a quick geography reminder) is one of the largest cities in Morocco and is located on the Atlantic coast. In my mind, its always had a bit of a glamour about it.. words that I would have associated with Casablanca would have been exotic (as in unusual), beautiful, mysterious… like many fantasies the reality pales in comparison.. It was once known as the Paris of Africa and I guess it’s glamour probably comes from those days (the very infamous movie also helps!), actuality:- concrete jungle perched on the Atlantic coast.

Its not the worst place I’ve visited but it certainly isn’t very memorable.. In fact, some parts remind me of South Africa (Port Elizabeth springs to mind), some remind me of Turkey or Egypt and others remind me of Havanna! Yep, out of all the cities Havanna and Casablanca have a fair bit in common. Both have that French/ Spanish friggin’ amazing architecture in differing states of repair, coupled with besa brick ugliness that pervades the remainder of the two cities.

We organised a driver to take us around the city to “see the sites”.. by far the best site (and the only real one Lonely Planet talks up) is the Hassan II Mosque. It is pretty damn big… certainly doesn’t have the pizazz of somewhere like the Blue Mosque but it is still impressive in its own right. Its perched out on a rocky outcropping overlooking the Atlantic- takes up at least two city blocks and is the main landmark that can be seen from many parts of the city.. The loud hailer also ensures that you can’t miss it! (Yippee for our 4am wake up call tomorrow morning (and all those that follow whilst in Morocco))

Our driver dropped us back around about 2pm (its Ramadan so thank goodness we had a massive brekky on the plane or we would have been pretty hungry!) and by 3pm we had decided to head back out using our own transportation (our two legs) to see some of the French “friggin’ awesome” architecture up close. The walk achieved two things.. got us both moving our arms and legs + staved off the “must go to sleep”, which would have meant another night of being more awake than asleep!

Its just clicked over 19.30pm and i’m starting to see double so have decided that it is high time I hopped it into bed.. Day 1 of the mayhem over and out! BTW.. why is C for Cat and not Casablanca, you might ask?!?! Cause this town has more cats than people it feels like! I swear on every street we saw at least one if not a family of stray cats… we also saw a rat so I guess there is plenty of cat food available! Casablanca is now officially done and dusted.. tomorrow its off to Barcelona and the twist in the Moroccan chapter.