Episode 25 - Casablanca
The biggest mosque in Africa, semi-professional youth soccer, and the freshest food known to man
So I ended up going to Morocco!
Morocco! The first Gavrilenko to go to Africa.
I wanted to go somewhere warm in the week off I had between the end of classes and exams, and my wonderful tour guide mentor Will recommended that I go to Morocco since he went last year and loved it. So off I went to North Africa!
First stop, Casablanca!
Saturday 12/9/2023
The journey to Morocco started with a journey to Orly Airport. Took the bus to the Denfert station in southern Paris, then took the OrlyBus to the airport. I ended up going through security at the wrong gate, so I turned around and went forward to the next gate. I charged my phone and iPad for a bit at the local Starbucks, and met another UCLA student waiting in the cafe as well!
He was an international PhD economics student from Italy, and I knew this from his bright blue “UCLA Dashew Center” (the international student department at UCLA) hoodie that he was wearing. UCLA students are proud reps of school merch.
We chatted for a bit, then I headed off to the correct gate to check-in. Along the way, I stopped at an airport boulangerie to get some food and FaceTimed my sister for a bit as well. Smooth sailing through the security check, and before I knew it, I was on the plane to Morocco!
The airline was some strange Belgian one, and pretty much everyone on this plane was Moroccan. The entire way to Casablanca, folks were chatting away in Arabic, and we all were cheering and clapping when the plane landed. The turbulence was so bad over the Mediterranean that I put up my hands in the air like it was a rollercoaster! I finished reading my book by Isaac Asimov and watched Hangover II while flying to Africa.
Once we landed, I waited quite some time to get through customs, and all the signs were in French and Arabic. Looks like I’m speaking French this trip! The customs were super cool, and now I have a Moroccan stamp in my passport. Sick!
Once I got through customs, I exchanged some currency into the local Moroccan currency (dirham, 10 dirham = $1) and hopped into a taxi to get into the city center. The taxi driver and I chatted in French for a bit, and I knew enough French to learn that he has 4 children, Morocco is a great country, Casablanca taxis are all red, and his name is Hasen.
Hasen! Just like my Tunisian friend at Urban Grill.
Apparently, Casablanca is called that because the Spanish sailors up north saw a house that was white in the town a couple of hundred years ago and were like “casa” (house) + “Blanca” (white), and the name stuck.
Lol.
Along the way into the city center, we grabbed coffee from a local seller (a bunch of people were selling coffee from espresso machines out the back of their cars along the side of the road), and we eventually made it to the hostel. The hostel was decent check-in, and all the rooms in the building were private ones. Therefore, I had a nice, large bed and workspace, all to myself!
Morocco is crazy! So different than any place I have ever been to before.
Sunday 12/10
I woke up around 9 this morning to the lovely sound of someone in the adjacent room vomiting their brains out. Seems that they got the Bali Belly, Morocco edition! (thanks @Verbeek for teaching me what that was)
I read on Wikipedia the articles about Morocco and Casablanca so that I can be prepared for a day of exploration, then I headed downstairs for breakfast in the lobby. It was a full breakfast for 30 dirham, and it was so fresh and delicious! Great orange juice, bread, and eggs, with lots of jams and sauces.
I packed up my few things (I only brought my Swiss Army and small blue backpacks) and dropped them off at the front desk. Then, it was time to explore Casablanca! The grand walk of the largest city of Morocco awaits!
My first impression are that there are a ton of feral cats running around town. I probably saw 50 cats over the course of the day, and not a single mouse, rat, or rodent. What an excellent system.
I checked out the central train station, then turned around and headed to the massive Hassan II mosque at the northern tip of the city. The city was very dusty but grand, and everything had a distinct orange haze to it. Cool stuff! Completely unlike anything I have ever seen before. I made it to the water’s edge, and was walking alongside the water until I reached the grand mosque.
The mosque was one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. Besides being the largest mosque in Africa, it has a massive courtyard that can house tens of thousands of people for prayer, and tourists can head inside for a tour of the facility.
We had to take off our shoes inside (since Muslims pray on the ground, keeping the floor hygienic is very important, so no shoes are allowed inside the mosque and on the rugs). The mosque was so grand, with so much beautiful, handmade artisanal woodwork and marble pillars everywhere. The mosque is also super high-tech, with speakers being strategically built into the mosque to amplify the sounds during prayers. Apparently, the roof is retractable as well! After seeing the main prayer room, we headed to the downstairs cleaning rooms where people prepare for prayer.
After checking out the mosque, I proceeded eastward to the main lighthouse of the town, and bought some water and almonds along the way. What is super funny and quite interesting is that I have been speaking a tremendous amount of French on this trip so far (since Morocco was a French colony, more people speak French than English here). Therefore, I find myself bartering and talking to the locals in French, not English. My French has progressed more today than any other day of my life.
I eventually made it to the lighthouse and built a rock tower by the beach. Something I have found quite unfortunate about Morocco is that there are very few trash cans on the streets and not many dumpsters, so as a result, all the trash ends up on the streets and beaches of the city. As a result, this beach by the lighthouse was the most polluted beach I have ever seen. What was particularly sad was that just near this massive mosque that cost tens of millions of euros to build were many slums where the Moroccans lived. The money of Morocco is not being well prioritized by the king, it seems.
I really didn’t have any plan after the lighthouse, since that was the last major thing I had wanted to visit on the map. Casablanca is not much of a tourist city, but rather where people live and work.
At this point, I ran into a random soccer field, where some players were warming up and were quite good at futbol. I figured that since I had nothing better to do and was on vacation, I might as well watch the soccer game that was about to start.
Unfortunately, there were no seats, and all the locals were sitting on the most rickety seating contraptions I have ever seen — tires, concrete blocks, logs, metal poles and shit. I found an ultra-rickety bench that was literally just a metal frame and put a piece of metal sheet on it to make a chair and set up my viewing camp for the game.
A ton of Arabic kids were watching the game too, and were definitely wondering who in the world this white person was and why I was there (literally every single other person there was Moroccan and chatting in Arabic). Eventually, one of them braved up to ask me where I was from (they thought I was French, because most of the white people that visit Morocco are French), and I decided to tell them that I was Russian because I figured that Moroccans would look more favorably on Russians than Americans.
These Arabic kids proceeded to be amazed by the fact that I was Russian (none of them had ever met a Russian before), and one of them and I proceeded to talk for 15 minutes, where he revealed that he thought Russian women were gorgeous and that the Moroccan women he met all want a man with lots of money. His English was amazing, which he said he learned from a combination of watching YouTube and going to school.
I told him I learned English the same as I didn’t want to blow my cover that I was, in fact, American.
The game itself was amazing, with some of the best footwork and passing I have ever seen. I was rooting for the team in white, since they were playing better and cleaner than the team in blue. I later learned from the Arabic kids that the team in white was the second-best youth team in all of Casablanca.
A city, I remind you, that has a population of 5 million people!
I also have to mention that the refereeing was amazing, and the center was making tremendously fair and unbiased calls. As a former referee myself for 7 years, I was proud of such excellent work.
The game ended as a tie (1-1) after an insane last-minute goal by the boys in blue. What a match!
By far my favorite part was hearing all the players, coaches, and players speaking Arabic. What I learned from this experience and seeing many games of soccer in several different countries is that regardless of language, culture, geography, or any other factor, every game of youth soccer will have a parent and coach screaming at the players and ref in the local language.
In this case, it just so happened to be the Moroccan dialect of Arabic.
After the game, I walked along the Main Street back toward the direction of the hostel, where I took lots of pictures, got some food, and proceeded along the day. One Moroccan man, probably thinking I was French, yelled “La Tour Eiffel!” when he saw a white guy taking pictures of a random street in Casablanca.
Lol.
The food was tremendously yummy, and I was again impressed by how fresh it all was.
I have noticed that Moroccan food, as a whole, is much more fresh than American food. The orange juice I had this morning was so fresh that when I ordered it, the man walked to the backyard, picked the orange from the tree, and juiced it into a glass for me. The loaf of bread for just 1 dirham was so fresh, the baker took it out the oven and gave it to me piping hot. The meat is so fresh that when you order it, the chicken is still squawking.
I made it past the market area and continued on to the hostel when I stumbled upon a cafe where some old Moroccan men were playing a local version of checkers.
Naturally, I stopped to watch them for a few games, and observed the slight differences in rules from the version I taught Eliana. Namely, that available captures must be done, and captures can be done backward as well. The board was tremendously well-loved, and the pieces were blue and yellow bottle caps that you flip over when you get to the end of the board.
Of course. What other way could it be?
The old men offered me a chair and some delicious Moroccan tea, and even let me play a game against one of the best old men. I was confident I’d do well, maybe even win.
What ensued was an absolute destruction of my pieces in such an unfathomably quick and brutal game. There was absolutely nothing I could do. That Moroccan man was so good that defeat was guaranteed before I even touched the board. Good stuff. He was also snorting some brown powder the entire time, though I’m sure he would’ve beat me without it.
Then, an even older man (who I was told was a doctor) took my place, and likewise schooled the man who just destroyed me. The fishermen who spoke English and was telling all this to me could not stop laughing at the situation.
I have to say, I was so humbled and happy that these random old men included me in their game of Moroccan checkers. Experiences like that do not come every day, and I am very grateful they shared their time and knowledge with me.
And on that note, I have to say that I absolutely love the way that old Moroccan men laugh. It is a deep laugh, a hearty laugh, a jolly laugh; it is a laugh that tells that no matter what, everything will be alright.
I said goodbye to the gentlemen and carried on back to the hostel. I found the central square on Morocco where there was a massive market, and I bought a flag and successfully avoided all the vendors trying to sell the so-called Frenchmen (me) their wares.
No thanks!
I ate dinner at this nice restaurant near the hostel where I had yummy couscous and met some pilots from Canadian Airlines who were in town on a couple-day layover, and they told me where the black box on the plane is located, told me to not tell anyone where the black box is located, recommended that I don’t become a pilot, and suggested a restaurant for me to go to when I head to Marrakech in the coming days.
After dinner, I said bye to the pilots and finally made it to the hostel, where I said thanks to the dude at the front desk, grabbed my backpacks, and made it to the central train station.
Turns out, that was the wrong train station, so I ended up missing my train to Marrakech, headed back to the hostel to access the WiFi, then walked 45 minutes to the correct train station. I bought a new train ticket there for the upcoming Marrakech train, witnessed a passionate argument in Arabic between an elderly lady and the ticket counter employee, and headed off to the train platform. It was off to Marrakech after a day in Casablanca!
Things to do in Casablanca:
There honestly wasn’t too much to do in Casablanca except just walk around and see how people live. So do that, I guess! The only thing you MUST see is the Hassan II mosque. Buy an entry ticket and go inside!
Some things in Morocco that just make sense:
There are cats everywhere, so there is a very robust natural rodent control in place. I saw so many fluffy cats in Casablanca but not a single mouse or rat.
The only cars that can be red are taxis, and all taxis are red. Therefore, if you need to get a taxi, you know exactly what to look for.
The electronic crosswalk signs count down how many seconds are left of the green and red light. Why isn’t every crosswalk like that??
Some more pictures:
