Weekend in Rabat and Casablanca

This weekend, Hannah, Andrew, Cesar and I went with Karen Smith to Rabat and Casablanca. Karen is the chaplin of the Christian community at AUI and she is so awesome. She drove us to Rabat first where she had a meeting for a good 5 hours. So we were left to ourselves to discover what we could of Rabat. We went to a McDonalds first (I hate MCDo at home but seeing one in Morocco made me so happy haha) and then we walked to the Mausoleum and Mosque. We then visited the Kasbah and the Andalusian Gardens which were pretty. After Karen's meeting, we set out to Casablanca. It was Christian Unity week and leaders of several Christian churches came together. We met up with the rest of the AUI choir and sang at the Anglican Church. After us four stayed with Karen's friend, Jean-Luc, at his house. He was the cutest kids. One looks like little Tarzan and the other has the cutest afro. We walked some sketchy streets to find an open restaurant. After trying one who only had alcohol and popcorn, we ended up going to a chicken rotisserie. For $6 you can get a whole roasted chicken with rice, vegetables and bread. The next day we met up with our friend, Btissam. Her and her brother picked us up and drove us to Hassan II Mosque, which is beautiful. It cost $800 million to build and not surprisingly, many Moroccans resent the Mosque since it taxed them a lot when poverty and unemployment is a big issue. But interestingly, the Mosque is built on top of a foundation on top of the ocean to bring Muslims closer to the cleansing life force of water. After the Mosque, we went on a driving tour of Casa, ate lunch at Btissam's house with her family, went to the Wal-mart of Morocco, the Marjane, ate McDonald's sundaes again and then went to the black market. This place looks like a shanty town but inside are nice boutiques and you can buy bootleg DVD's for a buck or buy an entire dining set. It was cool. After this, we got dropped off in the center of town and Hannah and I did some wallet damage at Zara. Then we met up with Jen and Cindy at Rick's Cafe. Uhhh such a dream of mine. Our waiter was really nice and we got to sit upstairs facing the movie screen where they actually played the movie, Casablanca. We had a scumptious dinner of wine, bread and BUTTER (yay butter is rare here), roast duck and mango sauce and cheesecake. Since the waiter liked us so much, we got to leave with some memorabilia hehe. We were planning on clubbing at Ain Diab but instead we made a fire in the fireplace at Jean-Luc's and watched the Chronicles of Narnia bootleg in French, which was really really bad. We ate breakfast at a cute cafe the next day and had quite an experience on the train back. Let's just say second-class seats was an experience but let's do first-class from now on. Hehe. Even though we took the train Sunday we didn't get back until Monday afternoon because of the Blizzard that hit Ifrane and the surrounding towns. 4 feet of snow, yes 4 feet of beautiful but dangerous snow. I will get pics soon but who knew it blizzards in North Africa.

At the gate to the Mausoleum Gardens

Guards on horseback to the Mausoleum Walls

This is the cutest baby everrr Below: The Medina in RabatChildren in the Kasbah

Gateway to the Andalusian Gardens

Below: Me and Hannah in Rabat

CousCous Lunch with the family at Btissam's HouseDowntown Casablanca

The Minaret of Hassan II Mosque

Hannah and I in front of Hassan II Mosquee

In front of the ginormous door to the Mosquee
Below: Btissam showing us around the Mosque

The inside of Hassan II Mosque Below: Hamman Female Washing/Cleansing Room Mosque at Night A rich man's revolving house in Casablanca Andrew and Hannah reinacting Casablanca Rick's Cafe (one life dream accomplished)