I may have wanted to post this blog post earlier, or yesterday, or what have you but Morocco isn’t known for their internet. I have no idea the veracity of that claim, but I think it applies regardless. The internet is spotty, there have been nights where it cuts out completely for the entire night and then there are nights where it goes away for an hour, a half hour, and just comes back in patches. I’m hoping the blogging won’t take a toll because of it and if issues continue to persist, I’ll figure out some way to make sure I get up at least three of these babies a week. Maybe more, I’m aiming for 100 posts before I return home. I’m getting there. Okay though. This post is mainly about my weekend in Marrakech. It could have other ways of spelling the city’s name but that was how it was spelled for the password to the WiFi at the hotel so I’m going with that one. I didn’t spend much time in the New part of Marrakech (i.e. none at all), but I should say that the first thing I saw when entering the city was that Snoop Dogg would be making his first appearance in Morocco there. I don’t know when it is, all I know is that I’ll be there. That is almost completely untrue, especially knowing that Pharrell is coming to Rabat! I do hope I return to Marrakech though because it’s one of the only cities known for camel rides and I feel that if I’m here for forever, I must do as many touristy things as I possibly can because camels seem to be a bit spare here in the ‘ol USA. Did you know that you use five parts of the camel for leather? I sure didn’t. The benefits of going through a tannery. Also hearing an Arabian man say “pigeon shit” repeatedly and talk about it’s natural ammonia. Nothing better than working in pigeon shit daily to make leather for foreign tourists to buy. I also went through a Koranic school, and got to see how those old scholars spent their days studying the Koran. In cells. In barren, dark cells. No, no, they didn’t work there, they slept there. That must have been fun. I am curious though, and this doesn’t apply to just Islamic architecture, that why do you go through such painstakingly specific minute details to make the buildings so elegant and ornamentative just for Muslim priests to work in. Men that probably choose to live a life of abstinence, poverty, and all around craptastic life (by our shallow American standards), and yet they get these masterpieces of a building to work in. This doesn’t apply to the Muslim world when you see it in all these churches and mosques and synagogues, but in this case it’s more similar to a convent and even those are elegant too. I mean, I get it, religion was king back then, it was different, it was put on the pedestal, these people are royalty in their own way, it’s just crazy to me. It could be my ignorance shining through. I’m appreciative of it though. It’s great to look at it. It just seems like so much work for these men who are just studying a Holy text and most likely do not care at all about what surrounding they are in when they sleep in dark rooms on the ground. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to dwell on it. It was a cool place. And then the shopping, oh the shopping. Hours upon hours of shopping. Not me though, as people know, I’m a cool, collected guy, that isn’t phased by the constant cries of attention from the vendors in the medina. I just walk on by and stare intently at the ground. Of course, I bought one souvenir after ten hours of browsing because I need time to find the perfect thing. Or I was so tired of walking around looking at different spices and tangiers and magnets that I was drawn to something that reminded me of home. Old school Coke signs. I’ve already showed the photos to those who matter so if you haven’t seen it, well sorry sucker. It was just quite an amazing city, which the joy of it all could be encapsulated inside the hotel that we stayed at. I set myself up earlier to say I was with two other women. I just noticed that I did not actually state that I was after the sentence that I wrote as a set up to that reveal. Well, there ya go. I was with two other women. We stayed in a great hotel, and the all knowing staff, knowing I’m a single man who seems to be entirely deplete of romantic interests, made sure to put rose petals all around my bed, all around my sink, all around my entire room period. The food was amazing, so much lamb was given to us, the hotel house cat was great, the swimming pool that was a tint of green wouldn’t be what I would call amazing but I’m just in the habit of listing stuff right now so I’ll keep thinking of things to say. It was great. The city is great. I really wish I had written this like a day or so ago because I know there are details I’m already forgetting and leaving out. There were snake charmers, monkeys were put on me. Monkeys which I tried to avoid because I knew they’d expect money from me and I know there’s a single photo out there in the world with my face in a grimace as these two monkeys are crawling on top of me and I’m trying to pull my arms away. I somehow didn’t get pickpocketed which is always nice because I felt always on edge in regard to that. And oh jeez, good grief, how did I forget the motor taxis? Why am I calling it a motor taxi? I don’t know. It’s a motor scooter. I could change it but I’ve written this much and I don’t want to have to go back and correct sentences and titles. In the streets of the medina, the old market, it was a constant flurry of both motor scooters and bicycles. They would occasionally beep when you were directly in their way, but outside of that they seemed to scoot along at top speed narrowly avoiding pedestrians. I emerged unscathed because I’m known for being quite nimble and graceful like a ballerina. The women I was with also emerged unscathed and they’re no ballerinas so I’m just going to go with them being lucky. That’s it though for my trips until, well, this coming Friday. Then I’m off to Casablanca for the day which will be followed by Fez. Since we’re apparently going to Rick’s on Friday, I’m going to make sure to actually watch the film Casablanca prior to that to know what Rick’s is other than some bar that Humphrey Bogart I assume is a patron of. Until next time my loyal readers. So it goes.