Casablanca

Let me just come clean up front...I've never seen the movie. Sunday night, a group of five of us set out to Casablanca - Morocco's largest city - which is about an hour away from Rabat. The evening included visiting the Hassan II Mosque and dinner at Rick's Cafe.



First of all, the beautiful mosque... The Hassan II was commissioned to be built by King Hassan II, and was completed in 1993. It is the largest mosque in Morocco, and the third largest in the world. It's minaret is the world's tallest at nearly 700 feet. It can hold up to 105,000 worshippers!! They don't do tours at night, so we only got to see the outside. I hope to go back another time to see the rest, because the outside was quite impressive! The mosque is built on a ledge that juts out over the Atlantic Ocean. Some of the cool features that I will never see (most sections are for Muslims only) are a gigantic glass floor through which you can see the waves below, and a retractable roof. Apparently, the purpose was for those who come to pray, that they may ponder God' sky and sea. I heard it cost around a half billion to build, and is already falling into disrepair because of the constant ocean air. Hmmm...

We then made our way to Rick's Cafe. It was a wonderful little restaurant that was built as a replica of the cafe in the movie. I had heard that it was American style food, but it turned out to be more french cuisine. I tried the souris d'agneau, which is French for lamb shank. So.... the bread was delicious, and the potatoes were yummy. The lamb - not so much for me. :-) We splurged and ordered a bottle of Moroccan wine to share and we each indulged in yummy desserts. I went for the apple tart. Delish! Because of the novelty of the place, they can charge whatever they want. It turned out to be about 350 Dirhams each - about $45.

So, here's the kicker. Beautiful scenery, wonderful ambiance, and yet I found myself very out of place with this crowd. Because they all work for the Foreign Service, they talk about destinations such as Bangladesh, Marseilles, Timbuktu, Kuala Lampur, etc. in the same manner that we talk about Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, or Muncie... as if it's just their back yard!

They also speak another acronym language that is beyond me... "yeah, I completed the AR100" "how many 3160's do they have up there in RAO?" "the DNG is completely different than is was in KL" Ugh.

I was particularly put off by one gentleman - I'll just say he works for a certain U.S. intelligence agency that goes unnamed in most countries. He is arrogant - and I'm being nice. Pompous and pretentious. Well, during his 21 year career, 14 years have been spent in all kinds of God-forsaken places, so maybe he's earned it...? Anyway, the dinner conversation covered topics such as politics, sub-Sahara Africa locales, wine tasting in France, and delicacies such as crocodile tail. After going on and on for hours, this guy looked at me and said, and I quote:
"So, have you been able to deduce that these aren't the kind of conversations you usually hear in Indiana?"
Yep, my new condescending friend, somehow, I figured it out.