Casablanca

I went to Casablanca today, and I am exhausted now. We did so much walking. The whole program went, but not on the bus: SIT gave us train tickets, meal vouchers, and the addresses of sights in the city, and then left it up to us to go. We took the train this morning (about an hour) and made it to Casablanca in time to go to the 11am tour of the Hassan II Mosque. It’s the third largest mosque in the world, and one of the only ones in Morocco that allows non-Muslims inside, for a fee of course.

The Hassan II Mosque

The Hassan II Mosque took only 6 years to build, but workers and craftsmen were on the job 24 hours a day in shifts. The cost is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars (US$). The materials are the best money can buy: local and Carera (Italian) marble, cedar wood, titanium, and Venetian glass. The whole building is marble, something like 10 hectares, our tour guide told us. The cedar wood and titanium were chosen because they resist corrosion. One-third of the mosque is built on land reclaimed from the sea, and hangs out over the ocean. Hassan II built the mosque like this because a verse in the Qur’an says that the throne of God is on the water. He took it literally. The central portion of the roof can also be retracted, like a stadium, to let daylight and fresh air in, especially during Ramadan when the mosque is filled to capacity, 25,000 inside and 80,000 outside. It’s an enormous complex, and you can see the minaret from miles away.

the opulent interior of the Hassan II Mosque

On our English language tour, we met up with two other travelers. These two guys were friends who worked in London, one was Australian and one was Danish. We all (6 from the SIT program and these 2 guys) walked along the coast to Ain Diab on a super sketchy abandoned road and then on an equally abandoned sidewalk. We had lunch at a McDonald’s, if you can believe that. They were one of the only places that accepted our food vouchers. The McDonald’s here are so classy they look almost like Panera Bread back home.

After lunch we walked along the beach and enjoyed the ocean until the beach suddenly ended. A nice man let us through a gate and into Ain Diab proper, right into the parking lot of the movie theater Amine had told me about the day before. Weird coincidence. We went to the Al-Saud library, one of the sights that was recommended to us, only to find the staff had no idea we were coming. We had an awkwardly short tour and then left.

We walked along the main drag of Ain Diab, which looks strangely like Manhattan Beach with all the palm trees, beachside cafes, and expensive houses. Our group split because the guys wanted to find a bar, and some of us didn’t. 4pm is a bit too early to start drinking if you ask me, and alcohol is expensive here too. I had avocado juice instead, although it was more like an avocado smoothie (so tasty!). We took a taxi back to the train station, bought relatively expensive munchies, and then spent an uncomfortable hour on the train back to Rabat because it was so crowded we had to stand.

I have never been so glad to get back to tea. My feet hurt from all the walking and I got a bit of a sunburn. I like the French: J’ai attrapé un coup de soleil. It literally means “I caught a sun cut.”

I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow, but whatever it is, I’m going to sleep in.