Morocco

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Just as I went to Spain due to having participated in semester at sea over sea over the summer I also had the chance in visiting Morocco. It was nice that I got to come back to this country because unlike this cruise where Morocco is the first port we visit on Semester sea it was the last, and by then I was extremely exhausted.
Over the summer I did get to go to Marrakesh, but I was only there for literally a two nights and we did not get to see any of the monuments due to us having to take a 12 hour bus ride to the middle of the desert. Anyway our day started off with an extremely early morning, waking up at around 6:30 we then set off for breakfast. For breakfast I had really sweet refreshing pineapple with some cups of coffee to wake me up. Next, we then headed to the Manhattan bar, located on the ship, to await the calling of our group over the intercom. After about 30 min our name was called and then proceeded to board our air conditioned motored coach, which would take us on a fabulous three hour bus ride to Marrakech. Throughout the bus ride I had the great delight of sitting next to this sweet Italian man, though we could not communicate due to the language barrier between us I still loved sitting next to him. He was nice and polite, the few times he sneezed and I saw God bless you, he said. “Thank you,” in Italian of course. I find that in America when someone says God bless as opposed to when you say it in Europe people usually never say thank you, Europeans, especially older Europeans have manners which I believe many people in our world greatly lack.
Any way eventually we arrived to the place where we where to have an authentic Moroccan lunch. Our lunch took place in a tent where there were at least 10 tables, each able to sit at most eight people. The tables were set with silver silverware, two drinking glasses, and exquisite china plates. The first course consisted of different kinds of vegetables, from what I gathered there was a potato salad, purred carrots, which were extremely sweet, something that looked like green peppers or celery, and some other really strange thing which was really good. Along with all this there was some bread which probably the best bread I have ever tasted, it was nice and fluffy, but at the same time crisp and crunchy, also it had a kind of sweet taste which I find only Moroccan bread has. The next course was a piece of chicken for each of us sautéed in a sauce along with olives. The chicken had a kind of orange taste and was nice and tender, not something you would find in the Publix deli. Next, up was couscous topped with lamb and vegetables, couscous is a type of rice usually cooked with different types of spices. However, due to us being with a tour the owners of the restaurant go lightly on the spices so that tourist enjoy the food and not want to go running to the nearest McDonalds or Wendy’s. So if you want an authentic Moroccan meal then I suggest going out on your own and find a restaurant, which does not attract many tourists. Finally, after all those courses desert came, which consisted of freshly picked fruit, apples grapefruits, and oranges and mint tea. Moroccan mint tea is amazing, Starbucks has nothing on this, what they do is fill a glass similar to a shot glass about a quarter of the way, with extremely hot mint tea, but they pour it from a tea kettle from a few inches above the glass. This lets mint ferment in the tea giving it an explosive blast of awesomeness and heaven. Before I forget, throughout our dinner there were belly dancer, musicians, and other various types of performers entertaining us throughout our amazing meal.
Next, we then proceeded to head to a famous mosque located in the city, however on the way I noticed a few things. First, unlike America there is no separation of classes where houses are concerned. For example, in West Palm Beach you have Palm Beach, which is where all the extremely rich live with their mansions on the beach, with their Ferrari or corvette, and then you have all the other parts where the middle and lower class live. However, this does not hold true for Morocco, in Morocco you have mansions surrounded by crumbled down, abandoned or condemned houses. There is no class separation in Morocco the people see themselves living in one country and that it should not matter where they love or who they are living with. The second thing I found interesting, which is something I found out last time, was that the reason why many of the houses, which are occupied are not finished is because in Morocco lets say you have a big family and instead of building separate houses away form each other what they do is just add on to the house they already own by building levels. So as you move up in a house in floors you are moving up in generations of one family.
Eventually we reached the Mosque, which is a place of worship in the Arabic faith. The mosque was a giant stone tower similar to Big Ben, with some small windows, around the mosque was a beautiful garden filled with orange trees and some exotic flowers, also there was a pond, man made, which unfortunately was not full with water. After gazing at the mosque we then ran to meet our bus and go to the next point of interest. Before I continue I want to say one thing about tour guides, they are Nazis; no I am sorry they put Hitler’s Nazis to shame. I felt like our tour guide was on crack. If he was not talking a mile a minute he was walking almost as fast as the roadrunner could run from Wild D. Coyote. Not to mention every time we took a picture he got annoyed; I am sorry but who made you the photography police!
Next, up on our thins to see was the Moroccan royal family cemetery, in other words a place where if your extremely rich they will bury you in a palace, which costs a fortune. Each room held the body of a different person of the royal family, but besides them there were also some soldiers buried there. The walls of all the rooms were covered with multiple colored mosaic tiles: red, green, blue, purple, yellow, and etc.
After the cemetery we then proceeded to the main square in Marrakech; however, before going to the square our tour guides decided to take us on a unscheduled stop to a perfume/drug store, I know wicked sketchy, well eventually we arrived at the store. Here they talked about all the different spices, and medication, which Morocco is known to have developed. For example, saffron, a spice made from the stem of a extremely rare flower, usually used for cooking chicken with lemon or paella, also Moroccan oil which is good for your hair, different creams for acne, eczema, herpes, and etc. After what seemed like an eternity of people buying creams, lotions, spices, and etc we finally set off to the main square of Marrakech. The square of Marrakech is gigantic not to mention all around is a maze known as a bazaar, where really eager Moroccans are ready to get the next big sucker to pay triple, for a typical souvenir, which you can get for $4.00 anywhere else. We had at least half an hour before we were to get back on our bus for the long three-hour bus ride to the boat. In the square you have many different kinds of restaurants and fruit juice stands, also people selling hookahs, lamps, ceramics, Moroccan clothing, and etc. However, there are two really big surprises about the square. First, is that they have monkeys tamers and snake charmers who will come up to you and put either a monkey or snake on you and then demand payment to get it off of you. Also, they have a sixth sense in which they sense when someone takes a picture of them holding the animal, once they sense this they then run over to you and demand compensation for the picture. If you decide not to pay them, they will continue to follow and pester you until the end of time for some sort of payment and then decide that is not enough and demand more. The second really big surprise if the amount of beggars in the square who are allowed to go up to people and try to get money from them. Literally in five minute you could have ten different people who would come up to you and ask for money, and even though the police are right next you and can clearly see you are being harassed they will let it happen. Finally after walking around the square we departed for our bus and took the three-hour bus ride back to the bus.

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