Can't Use Moroccan Money in Morocco?

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Today we travel to Rome, and we need to get up at what feels like an obscenely early hour to catch our flight. We check our room carefully to make sure we haven't left anything behind. We seem to have developed a great talent for losing things on this trip. My Fitbit lead's still in Santorini, Issy's camera charger's still in Malta, and my sunglasses are at an unknown location somewhere in Marrakech.

To get to Rome we first need to fly to Casablanca. As seems to be the case a lot in Morocco, the Casablanca airport is chaotic. An English lady tells Issy that there are long queues because of Ebola. Issy thinks that maybe they're taking everyone's temperature. We keep a keen eye out for anyone who coughs or sniffs or looks even vaguely like they might be sick, but after a while we start to think that everyone looks like this. The staff try to prioritise security screening for those with the tightest connections. We're told to stand in one queue, and then another, and then back to the first queue. We get through only to find that our flight's been delayed by a few hours.

We've now got some time to kill. We'd been told previously not to take any Moroccan currency, the dirham, out of the country, because once you leave you can't change it into anything else. We've still got about $150 worth left, so I look for somewhere to swap it into Euros. It seems we've left our run a bit late - we're told we needed to have done this before we went through immigration. I tell Issy that maybe we should just spend it. She didn't need too much more convincing. By the time I look up she's already at the duty free store. She comes back a few minutes later looking very dejected; they won't accept dirham at any of the shops either. We're still in Morocco, but we can't use Moroccan money? I suppose that technically maybe we aren't in Morocco, because we left when we went through immigration. We put the dirham in a clear plastic charity money box. It's nearly full, so it looks like we're not the first people to fall for this one. I hope the money's put to good use.

In keeping with Moroccan chaos, the seating on the plane has apparently been arranged at random - we're sitting five rows apart from each other. I'm not sure whether my imagination's got the better of me or everyone on the plane really does have a cough or a sniffle. I hope the rooms in the Ebola ward at the Rome Hospital are nice. The Italian gentleman sitting next to me gets very emotional when he sees the coast of his beloved homeland. He starts crying, and repeatedly wailing "Italia, Italia".

It's just about as hot in Rome as it was in Marrakech. Our hotel is small, comfortable and very central - the receptionist tells us that it's just around the corner from the Colosseum. We have dinner on the roof terrace overlooking a square. The setting's idyllic, and the food is excellent.

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