Since…no, no, no. I’m not going to start off this blog post by quoting an atrocious song by Staind that I probably enjoyed throughly throughout my youth but now looking back on it with a better head on my shoulders, I do realize it’s atrocious. I probably should have back then too. That’s not the point. The point is that I haven’t been blogging all that much. And that’s a problem. A problem that will be fixed. I can’t promise a set amount of posts that will be coming but I can say that they will become more frequent. Even if it’s me rambling on about the political turmoil of Morocco. I don’t even know if there’s turmoil, I’m just writing words. And you’re enjoying it. Moving on. This was a busy weekend. So busy that this blog post will be divided into two parts mainly because I should have posted one last night and I didn’t because I had been walking around the medina of Fes for eight hours prior. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. Labour Day was Friday so we had the day off. Also the mosque in Casablanca, the only one in the entire country that non Muslims can enter decided to take the day off. Which would have been fine provided we weren’t informed that it would be plenty open and left early in the morning to rush to it ultimately to find that it was closed. It was pretty great though. When I say pretty great, I also mean it was the third largest religious building in the world behind Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It was quite gorgeous from the outside at least, I just wanted to see the inside because the entire floor was glass so you could see the ocean underneath your feet. Oh, and it cost 600 million US dollars to build. Though we’re adaptable people. If one plan doesn’t work out, then we’re well on our way to improvising something else. We didn’t actually do that; however, just taking pictures and walking around before we ended up at Rick’s Cafe. Yes. Casablanca Rick. Humphrey Bogart Rick. The movie I watched a grand total of forty five minutes of the night before because I wanted to have some idea what I was getting into. At least it taught me that Rick is the main character and he owns the restaurant, or gin joint or whatever it is in the movie. I’d go on and on about the dated qualities of Casablanca, but this isn’t a film review, this is sentences upon sentences of something. In full disclosure, I am completing writing this post a day after I started it even though I started this entire post going on about how I’d be producing more content. I can’t help it, I was exhausted, and I’m not a big fan of the heat without humidity thing. Some people say the problem with humidity is that the cold gets into your bones, well that sure doesn’t apply when you never experience the cold. So my opinions on the lack of humidity seem to concern that it felt like my blood was boiling inside of my body with no form of release. But that’s talking about Sunday. Oh golly, am I still only on like Friday? I don’t even know where I am because I refuse to re-read what I’ve already written because I don’t want to taint my brilliance by even considering correcting it. Let’s assume I’m on Friday. Our time spent in Casablanca wasn’t too long, nor was the intention to stay there long, off we went on a five hour train ride to Fes. Or Fez. I saw it spelled both ways, but more often than not it was spelled Fes so I’m just going to go with that one. I would talk about the train ride but there aren’t many ways to make a five hour train ride sound exciting. I read a book. I listened to some music. I slept. That was it. Fes though! Almost 700 words in and I haven’t even begun to talk about it. Other than what I’ve already said about it. It’s a pretty magical place. And I actually remembered to take pictures so I have photos a plenty as well. Whenever I hear the world medina, I always end up thinking it has to do something with a market maybe only because it starts with an M but I think it’s more because you do see all the vendors and stuff while in there. It doesn’t mean though. It just means it’s the oldest part of a city, that could be hundreds of years old if not more, and it’s something that won’t look like anything you can find anywhere else in the world. I mean, like the US, or even most of Europe world. It’s also becoming obvious to me that I’ve been out of the blog writing came for a little bit because I keep trying to make actual coherent thoughts and then going on these random tangents and whatever I do I can’t seem to stop it so I just accept my fate and continue to do so. Fes, founded in 808, has over 9,000 alleys in it’s medina. Just to get to our hotel, or riad (because there’s a difference), we had to have the driver walk with us for fifteen minutes winding and zig zagging our way through the streets. To fully experience Fes, you need a guide. A guide for the entire day. A guide that took us on an eight hour journey of the city. A trip that included mosques, Koranic schools, vendors, shops, lots of donkeys, free samples, carpets, leather making, you name it. It was just nice to explore a city so rich with history where the entirety of the journey wasn’t spent shopping. I’m not complaining about the shopping adventure of the week prior, because it allowed the ladies to get some great souvenirs, but I am thankful that I got to experience a city completely with the help of a great guide. Sure, there could have been instances where it seemed he took us places where he was chummy with the people except those were still places that we wanted to go to. Did I personally buy an expensive Moroccan rug? No. Was I tempted even though I have no place to put a rug and I have no idea how things match to give it as a gift to my parents? Yes. They sure are convincing. Or they’re convincing enough to separate each of us into different rooms and not take no for an answer. I refused though because of my strong mental fortitude but it wasn’t easy. As I mentioned, or at least alluded to, another woman in the party did buy one. They also bought the hand crafted ceramics we’d see later. I would write on and on in great detail about Fes, but I can’t. At least I have photos to show from it. It was just that we learned so much about the history of the place, of Morocco itself, that it was going to be impossible to remember any of it even just a few minutes after the fact. What I want to remember from the experience was that it was what I thought Morocco was like before coming here, and not just seeing shops. Because that stuff is great, but I can get objects anywhere, I can’t get history. Though I am sad about the lack of rose petals in my room. The weekend before it did seem like they thought I was on a honeymoon vacation with my new wife and they made sure to set the romantic tone. This weekend, it was like they knew I was just a single guy on a trip. A single guy who apparently liked to take showers while sitting on the ground of his shower because the shower/tub combination was created with the intent of someone washing you apparently. You can’t win ’em all. So it goes.