Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine...

Well, well, its been a bit. Im finding internet much harder to come by and keyboards much more difficult to cope with. My choices here are arabic keyboards or english keyboards where infuriatingly enough, every key is in the exqct same place except for about 5. Arrrgh.

Anyway, my family and I never quite made it up to Venice due to a bum train schedule, so we did Florence insteadd. Pretty cool little city with a much nicer vibe than Roma. Also got to see some iconic works of art up there that even barbarians like myself would recognize.

But alas, it was back to Roma so the family could get back to Canada and I could start my journey into 'The Dark Continent'. It was at this point that I had my first real disappointment of the trip. See, I was really planning on spending a fairly extended amount of time in North Africa and the Middle East. But transportation around here was proving to be a bit of a problem and multiples more expensive than I planned. Plus Im getting a little pressed for time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I realize what I just said. I do have another 2.5 months left out here, but the trips more than half over and I bought a two month Eurail pass so anymore than a few weeks I spend down here will be a waste of money, which I need to conserve for Euroland. What all this means is that I have to pick 2-4 countries along the way that I can hit and let quite a few perfectly good visas go to waste. Super bummed...but then again, Im in Morocco so its all good.

So I flew into Casablanca at about 11PM a few days ago. I was picked up at the airport by the owners of the hotel where I was staying and they started laughing when I told them I was planning on staying for 2 nights. Not quite getting the joke, I just laughed along. I realized what they meant when I got up the next morning. The place was freezing, the people were unfriendly and the city was real dirty. So much for the city of white.

The citys only saving grace was the Hassan II Mosque. Now, Ive recently been to Thailand and Italy so Im kind of churched and templed out. But wow, this was impressive. I kept tryign to take pictures that would grqb the scale of the thing, but nothing did it justice. Even St Peters in Rome with its cross shape could have fit inside this thing. It was like an opulent NFL stadium, except the retractable roof was gold plated. Seriously.

After the Mosque, I went for a quick dip in the nearby Atlantic. With the locals gawking at me, I got out to find two English girls lqughing at me. Good thing too. They hooked me up with an excellent carwash rooftop party hostel in Marrakech when I told them that I was heading there the next day. Sounds weird, but Ive actually heard of them a few times. What they do is close the doors at 9PM and let only foreigners in. They bring in a DJ and serve homebrew til dawn. The homebrew is sooo necessary since about the cheapest drink Ive seen here is about $10. I ditched my last night there and left Casa immediately after talking to the girls. Well almost immediately, the second train out of tozn was the express to Marrakech so I decided to wait for that.

Well the rooftop party was great and went until dawn when cars started showing up to be washed. I bolted the place, found a room and slept the day away. When I woke up, I found this a much better city than Casa. The people were awesome, I didnt feel out of place, plus it was warm.

With the party ball rolling in full swing, I decided to keep it rolling. I met up with some people from the night before and went to Pacha, the biggest club in Africa. Dress code is weird there since everyone here dresses up, but theres also a pool. Well, I saw it as no reason to change my twice dirtied clothes. It was also quite pricey to get in so I expected 'cheap' drinks. I ordered a beer and the bartender asked for 180 Dirhams. She was lucky I didnt take a drink forst because I would have spit it all over her. Thats $25! So no booze for me that night, although that didnt stop me from out Euroing the Moroccans.

Since I slept all day, I saw no reason to go to bed. I went and explored the souqs of the Central Medina here. Now, whenever Im on a trip, I usually get defaulted as the direction guy. One of my few talents is always knowing directions no matter where I am in the world or how drunk I get. Well I got lost today. Twice. I walked for hours and could not find a road or anything that looked like an exit. I eventually paid some kid to lead me out.

I sit here now in Djemma El Fna on the Moroccan kids computer between a snake charmer and a mobile dentist. You know, sometimes my lifes ridiculous and some other times, its just a little less ridiculous. Weird that this place has Wifi. But well, they have everything here from gypsy astrologers to goat testical kebabs to ridiculous healers to belly dancers. Im going to chill here for a bit and watch some halqa before the dentist moves from cleanings to extrqctions. Then its off to the hammam, which I wont enjoy, and then to meet up with some people to try and hit the Sahara tonight!

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