Tuesday. Last day in Morocco, last day in any foreign port. Next stop Norfolk.

I must have gotten burned out on taking pictures. We got back from a short day of shopping and I have just four. My main objective for the day was to get postage stamps and to get postcards mailed. I did get that done. We visited the main post office right on Mohammed V Square. In this post office, as in Florence, you have to take a number and wait to be called. And when you go to take a number, you have to press the right button depending on what you want to do. (buy stamps, money orders, send package…other services?). Anyway in Florence we gave up. We couldn’t figure out which line we were supposed to get in. Here I approached a guard, showed him a postcard, pointing to the missing stamp, and he waved me off the ticket machine and pointed to window 100. No line! Got stamps. Mailed postcards.

We had walked from the port to the United Nations Square, and headed east planning on visiting the central market. But it was closed by the time we got there. So we walked back a different route and got into a whole other shopping area. We bought some glasses in a covered souk and asked him where the post office was. He walked us out onto the street, down 2 blocks, and pointed out the way for us. On the way there we stopped in a shop that had stovetop espresso pots like the one we used in Radicondoli.

We were seriously needing water at this point but couldn’t find anyplace that sold any. But then just shy of the Square, just before passing out, we came upon the “new medina” shopping area and found a small store that sold us a large bottle of very cold water for 60 cents. Ahhh!

We had a very leisurely lunch in Restaurant de Fleurs. We tried two of the classic dishes. Kathy had a tangine with kefta (spicy meatballs) and I tried harira which is a soup with chick peas, lamb, coriander, lemon and other spices. Both were OK, not great. Worth a try at another restaurant.

After lunch, we returned to that artisans cooperative to get rid of (spend) our remaining Moroccan currency. Our friend there showed us pictures of Regis Philbin who visited their shop and showed a wooden puzzle box he got on his morning TV show.

Loaded with treasures, we headed to the port to catch the shuttle back to the ship well before onboard time.

Goodbye Morocco. We enjoyed our stay.

On Monday we wanted to get to a grocery where we could buy a few specific food items. A “western” style grocery. Rumor had it that there was a carefour in town but I couldn’t find it on google. And if it’s not on google…. I did find a grocery via google. It was in the basement of a mall at the Twin Center. Two 28 story office buildings in a part of the city we had not yet visited. We joined up with Lois Olson who was on a similar mission, and caught a cab. The grocery was fine. Had everything we wanted. The mall was a bust. We didn’t find anything interesting. Kathy and I took our bags of groceries and caught a cab back to the ship, with chocolate, soy milk, cheese and crackers, sparkling mineral water, etc.

In the evening we went to a local family’s house for dinner. The father is Berber and Arab, the mother is from Pennsylvania. They met at a school in Morocco. At that point she spoke no Arabic and he spoke no English. They courted in French. Many (most?) people in Morocco speak both Arabic and French. Many also speak on of the three major dialects of Berber. English is not as popular, but not rare. The children in this family are tri-lingual.

We had big platters of couscous for dinner. They usually have a common serving dish but separate plates but to give us the “traditional” feel, we all ate off the common plate. Of course they brought more food than we could have eaten in two days, but we gave it our best shot.  I loaned my camera to his daughter and she took some of these pictures. After dinner, a sister and a niece offered to draw henna tattoos.

Sunday, Aug 8^th. We got some shopping for presents done today. We found a souk run as an artisans cooperative. They have posted prices and don’t bargain. (Well, they did give us a courtesy discount when we cashed out). The guy helping us is the owner’s son. He is a professor of accounting, but it’s summer and colleges are out and he helps out in the shop.  Can’t believe I only got one picture here….

And for dinner we went to Rick’s. Yea, I know. Casablanca the movie was shot in Hollywood and there never was a Rick’s in Casablanca. OK buddy, but there is one now! And it was very well done. Nice food, nice atmosphere, nice live jazz music. I had a champagne cocktail in Bogart’s honor. We took the shuttle from the ship to the port entrance (about 1 mile) and the walked the rest of the way. We also walked back after. The street is big, and pretty well lit, and a lot of traffic. Seemed pretty safe. Of course, you are always guessing about that. Anyway, made it back safe and sound to the port, and the guard there helped us get  a cab to take us the rest of the way.