where I've never been : 04/17/14

Mikey and I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, security was easy-peasy and we left 20 minutes early!! Watched an in-flight movie, “Saving Mr. Banks”, and was served a pretty good supper together with some lovely white wine. KLM sure has awesome service! I knew how tired I would be upon arrival so I tried to sleep but it didn’t come easy. Mike managed to get more zzz’s – he had had a very late night before we left.

It is always so amazing when flying east. It seems like you are travelling as fast as time. The sun just doesn’t go down, and it’s daylight again before you know it. Breakfast was served only a few hours after supper it seemed. Because we left early, we arrived early! I had been worrying about transferring to our next flight with only an hour and 20 minutes in between. Memories of the trials and tribulations of past trips came flooding back to me. I couldn’t believe our next gate was only a very short distance from where we arrived and no customs line to navigate! There wasn’t much to do in that terminal so I tried to sleep without much success.

Although the next flight said KLM on the ticket, it wasn’t them, rather a budget airline they likely code share with. We easily made the connection, boarded then waited and waited and waited. Apparently someone had checked in and their luggage was on board however they weren’t. It had to be found and taken off – a process which delayed us by well over an hour. I didn’t care so much about that flight being the late one. I finally got some zzz’s while waiting and during the 3.75 hour flight. I can’t recall ever being on a plane that doesn’t even give you water, coffee or tea to drink. Well, they offered it at exorbitant prices. We were full anyway so we passed on food and water, but we hadn’t factored in the long wait.

At long last we arrived in Casa, that is, Casablanca! The first order of business was customs and that line was at least half an hour. Then we thought the luggage would never come. Thank goodness it did! After exchanging our USD for Dirham, we went through the gates to look for our ride, wondering if perhaps he may have left due to the delays. Surprisingly he was there, although it wasn’t easy to spot him. He had others to pick up but they weren’t on our tour. The ride into Casablanca was a long one and several times we thought we would hit someone. It didn’t seem as crazy as I recall Egypt being, but I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be driving.

Our hotel is right by the ocean and check in was easy. Mike wanted to lie down but I was game to explore. This fellow was repairing the roof on a outdoor cafe nearby.

It was my goal to gather some sand and walk in the water of the Atlantic Ocean, which I did. We walked quite a ways along the boardwalk to find beach access but finally turned around and got to the water by wandering down various pathways on our hotel grounds.

The breeze in Casablanca is cooling and glorious, especially by the ocean.

We couldn’t spend too much time there as we had to meet the group at 6PM.

It seems like a varied group of people and Mike is the youngest by far. Our guide, Abdullah, gave us a run-down of where we are going then we walked about 20 minutes along the ocean again to our restaurant.

The meal was the same for everyone. I thought the first course was the meal and was quite surprised by the second course.

There were calamari rings, shrimp, fish with lots of tiny bones and some 6 inch creatures that looked like some type of lizard – tails and heads with eyes and all.