Saturday, March 30, 2013

Casablanca

I arrived safely in Casablanca after a very warm and uncomfortable train ride through beautiful scenery. Beaucoup de moutons et de chèvres avec leur berger, et des villes et villages ici et là.
I took a taxi to Mélanie (Sarah's friend)'s house, and the family was reunited! After lunch, we went out for a walk and... got an unwanted welcome to the big city:
As we were walking, I heard Mélanie scream, and then a motorbike zoomed past me. The motorcyclist had stolen her shoulder bag! A BMW zoomed after him, trying to catch up and get the bag back, but the robber was long gone. You get told about these things all the time, but you always hope they'll never happen to you, or to one of our group.

Après cette première impression peu flateuse de la ville (supposément) blanche, j'avoue que j'avais plus ou moins envie de la découvrir. On s'est quand même rendu sur la corniche, le long de la mer, et c'était bien joli, même si les édifices autour tombent un peu en ruine, et que c'est plus facile de marcher sur la rue que sur les trottoirs, parce que les trottoirs sont pleins d'obstacles possiblement dangereux, comme des trous ou des dénivellations. Bref, très différent de Marrakech.

Mélanie assured us that Casa is not really Morroco, and from the little I've seen of either so far, I would agree. Although today I was slightly reconciled with Casa, as we went down to the Hassan II Mosque, 3rd largest mosque in the world. It was pretty impressive. And then we had lunch on a very nice little terrasse, where we almost felt like we were in the South of France, with a nice sun warming us. On our way there, our taxi driver talked to us about religion and the different kinds of Muslims, and he talked about tolerance, and how the Mosque, which cost (at least) millions of Euros to build in the 80s, was too big, too beautiful, and the money should've gone to help the country, since it didn't really matter where you prayed. He was really friendly and interesting.

Demain, pour Pâques, on fera une chasse aux oeufs dans l'appart de Mélanie, suivi d'un brunch de Pâques.
Joyeuses Pâques à tous!

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