Rabat- Morocco's Beautiful Capitol

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Today we headed in to see Morocco's capitol, Rabat, which is a short distance from Bouznika. We caught a shared taxi from Bouznika plage to Bouznika, then took the train to the city.
The morning was overcast and a little cool. We found our way to the Hassan tower, a minaret of an incompleted mosque from the 12th century, and the mausoleum of Mohammed V. Then we walked down to the waterfront- such a beautiful area, with the mix of old and new, the view of the Kasbah of the Udayas in the background, and people taking rowboats across the river from Rabat to Salé. We found a restaurant along the walkway to have a little break from our exploring. Monica had a healthy detox booster, and I had a nutella brownie 🤣
After, we headed towards the kasbah, but first got distracted by a side street, which led into the market. We loved that, we wandered around for quite a long time- beautiful lamps (I bought one, hopefully it makes it home in one piece), pottery, leather goods, vendors with spices, foods, clothing, textiles. We left and went to check out the kasbah, and then decided to go through the market again while we made our way back towards the train station. We stopped for a small pizza to share- we didn't want to eat much, as we were headed to Latifa and Rashid's for dinner, but as we didn't know what time dinner would end up being served, we thought it was better to not go over starving.
Latifa and Rashid had offered to pick us up at the train station at 5:30, so we made our way there to wait for them. Then we went over to their home. A beautiful home, huge living area with a sofa that wrapped around along 3 of the walls. Latifa showed us her wedding album (they've been married for over 30 years, they have 2 sons who are 23 and 28, who are working in Paris), and she explained about Moroccan wedding traditions.
Dinner was a soup starter, and then there were a variety of Moroccan vegetarian dishes (carrots, eggplant, green beans) as well as fish. We were very full at the end!
We had great conversation- my french is getting a real workout 😊 We learned about their school system, and the differences between their private schools and public schools (like Honduras, they have many private schools, that anyone with a bit of money opts for). The majority of people speak Arabic at home, and start learning French in school- in the public schools, it's just a French class for all the lower years, and the other subjects are taught in Arabic, it's not til lycee level that they have a few other subjects taught in French. In the private schools, French subjects are introduced earlier. We've found a fair number of people that we've met (in shops, on the train or wherever) who don't understand French.
We got dropped off around 10:30, a very full day!

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