Culture Shockage

So I arrived in Morocco on Halloween morning having freshly stepped off the ferry from Tarifa. No sooner had I stepped out of the terminal doors I was faced with about 5 men wearing funny hats and dresses to the ankles. It took my rattled brain a second to kick in and convey to my mind that this was in fact the local style of dress and not a convention of drag queens.

The train trip to Casablanca was relatively unevenful and rather pleasant. (A Moroccan guy cept forcing me to eat fresh baked cookies!) And a local family that I'd met on the train insisted on driving me to my hotel. (Though the driver did try to sell me a computer on the way.) My GOD Casablanca is a madhouse! The local family was very concerned that I was only staying on day. They thought that was too long! The traffic in this city is along the lines of Bankok and Delhi, sheer madness! Cars driving everywhere, four abrest in any given direction, hand drawn carts carrying eggs and crazy motorized cyclists weaving in between the cracks. At one point the driver turned around, pointed to the traffic and said "Ever been to China?".

But the mqdness didn't end there. When I arrived at the hotel they had no record that I'd paid for that night, so they weren't going to give me the room. After some talk he agreed to give me the room on the condition that the tour guide would be able to prove it the next day (today, which he did). This gave me enough time to leap out into the crazy masses of Casablanca's streets ("thronging hordes" is a phrase which comes to mind) and find an internet cafe where I could print off proof that I'd paid. This seemed to smooth things over. Pretty much just collapsed in bed after that.

Met up with some of my fellow tour groupies today and took a tour of the Hassan II Mosque, third largest in the world and probably Casa's only tourist sight. Lovely place. Absolutely MASSIVE. Cavernous even!