A Little Late But the Final Blog Entry

Alright friends, even though I have returned already for 11 days I did not officially complete the travel blog so here it goes...the final 5 days.

Our last full day in Marrakesh included a trip to yet another palace...they all kind of start blending together despite the fact that they are pretty. Following that we went to the Majorelle Gardens a far more appealing gardens than the ones we went to the previous days. The only problem was as we were standing in line we noticed we no longer had the button for the camera that allows you to take picture so we had to use a pen to push down on the tiny button within the big button that actually takes a picture. Pretty ghetto but at that point we really didn't care that much.

The afternoon was spent doing some shopping, getting hit on by a man (told me I was a very handsome man and made no comment to Nadine), and bargaining some of the ludicrous prices they were asking. One of the friends we met joined us for some dinner and drinks on our final night in Marrakesh.

The following morning we got up and took a "first class" ticket to Casablanca via the train. It was like $7 extra dollars and it was a six person couchette, hardly first class. The drive was really quite nice scenery-wise. We arrived in Casablanca mid afternoon and just walked along the coast line towards the main Mosque (Hassan II) in Casablanca which is the third largest Mosque in the world behind Mecca and Medina and one of the few that actually allow people inside. We didn't go in on that day (we went in on our last day) as it had closed for prayers.

The next morning we decided to take a city tour after going to the tourist office. We were expecting some professional looking guy with a car of his own but it was a really nice older gentleman with one tooth and who had to order cabs everywhere we went. Not the most professional seeming but the guy was great and the tour was interesting (by the way the guy's name was Lucky). The tour took us to the new medina (we were staying in the old one), city hall, royal palace, through the European part of town, and again to the Mosque. We then went to Rick's Cafe which is designed like it is in the movie Casablanca. They have it playing all day long and we sat and had a crazy expensive drink in the room.

Our last day we took the tour of the Mosque which is really amazing inside. It took 6 years to build which is quite something given it's size and intricate nature of the design. All the products are Moroccan except for some Italian marble which is pretty neat as well.

After we headed to the lighthouse along the coast and then walked around the souks in the old medina in the afternoon. We just packed up after dinner and had our last sleep before our return.

The route home was pretty clear sailing except for the 5 babies all around us on the flight from Paris to Toronto who didn't stop wailing for 8 hours. Really didn't make me want to have kids but anyways that's besides the point.

That is all for this blog. Hope it wasn't too boring to read those of you who read most or all of it. Maybe one day I'll get to do this again.