First Report on Trip

12/17/09 - Day 1
We decided to stay up all night (12/16/09) to make sure we were extra tired for the flight over the pond ... and .... We are so tired. We have a 4 hour layover in Newark International airport ... we're hanging out trying not to fall asleep and giggle every time Ganin (ja-nine-a) is paged for "a very important message." We're also flipping through our guidebooks that Alex's brother got us for Christmas-learning how to say "get away from me" in Arabic, the books keep mentioning that it's a good phrase to know! Anywho, we meet John and Caroline at the Lisbon airport @ 8:00 am and take off to Casablanca at 2:00 pm arriving at 3:30 pm. John and Caroline took a flight from Seattle to New York to Paris then to Lisbon. CAN NOT WAIT to try the food in Morocco-sounds like they are all about the spices! Looking forward to the whole experience ... Can not wait to check out the markets ... Wish I Had a bigger suitcase! Adios my friends! M'a ssalama

12/18/09 - Day 2
We arrived in the Lisbon airport around 8am and checked our email. John and Caroline's flight from Paris to Lisbon had been canceled and their luggage was lost 're stuck in Paris until Sunday when they'll arrive in Casablanca at 11:00. We camped out in the Lisbon airport for about 6 hours. For lunch we had a mini smoked sausage sandwich and French fries (that you eat with a mini fork). I forgot about the no Mayo and mustard on sandwiches in Europe ... most of the time they just butter the bread. After our lunch we found a set of empty chairs and napped until they called for boarding. We arrived at the Casablanca airport and waited in line at "customs." Seeing all the signs in Arabic was surreal and exciting. After we filled out our "swine flu" informational card we stood and got our passports stamped, then went to pick up Alex's luggage (I carried mine on). Carried The belt that our flight's luggage was no longer moving ... Alex's bags-not there. We spent about 2 hours trying to find out where they could be ... we were finally told to call back before midnight to see if they had located them. We met up with Pete (who was easy to find with bright blonde hair) right out side of baggage claim around 6pm. We took the train from the airport to a train stop, and then took a cab to Hotel Astrid petite. Our hotel is nice and clean and has a lot of ornate details (see pictures). We ventured out to find some dinner ... there were a lot of pizza joints (including Pizza Huts-every-where) ... We could not find any Moroccan restaurants. We ended up finding a place that was pretty good. Anywho, after dinner we went to an "night time establishment" where people were getting annoyed with Alex Because he did not speak Arabic or Ffrench-they assumed he did and thought I was being a jerk by not answering them. More than once they tried talking to Pete and I then looked at Alex with a look of "can you please translate?!" Mostly we've met PS Ffrench-not everyone speaks Arabic.

12/19/09 - Day 3
Alex's luggage is still "lost." John and Caroline are still expected to arrive tomorrow. Today we walked around Casablanca. We saw the "developing" side of town and we saw the "developed side of town" ... Tijuana compared to the Gaslamp. It was an amazing first day in Morocco. Five things I saw in Casablanca that I would not see in San Diego:

1. The 3rd largest mosque in the world
   a. It was beautiful. We were lucky enough to see the inside and out.

2. Some sort of celebration for a toddler
   a. The little boy was riding on a horse down the street with his father (I'm assuming) not diggin 'the ride AT ALL. A small band playing horns and tambourines followed them ... a car following them and honking their horn to the beat of the band.

3. A dead puppy on the sidewalk ... it had been raining all day so ... you get the picture.
   a. Besides the dog on the roof I saw outside my hotel, this is the first dog that I saw ... this place is covered with feral cats.

4. A Barcelona soccer game where I was the only female in the entire joint.
   a. This was a place were men hung out and drank tea or some other hot drink and watched the "football" game. The satellite went out when it started raining really hard, there was no grumbling ... everyone waited patiently until the picture reappeared. They did not serve food here, however, there were street venders (male) that ventured in every so often and sold sweets to the patrons ... they were pretty good ...

5. A little boy looking at Pete in amazement.
a. We were walking through a market and some little boy (probably around 3 was standing next to his mom singing while kicking the side the building. When I saw Pete (tall guy with bright blonde hair) I stopped mid kick and mid song and watched, stunned, while Pete Walker by ... as soon as Pete was out of sight, he continued with his kicking and signing ... I guess he does not see too many blondes walking around the medina?