Halloween at the beach.

(continued from previous post)

After a train delay, four others joined me in El Jadida. It was nice to be reunited with my native English speaking chums after spending the past two days pretending to speak French. We went for a quick dinner and I had my second panini of the day.
At this point, 11:30 PM, the hotel bar was closed so we walked around the corner to a place called Cafe Bar le Tit. It was a smoky, crowded bar that only served one type of beer. The man in charge greeted us warmly and pronounced that he loved Americans. Earlier, at the hotel, a man beckoned me to sit down with him and his friends and he gave me a hug because he too loved Americans.
Cafe Bar le Tit closed at midnight so we walked back to the hotel and watched a horrible American movie called 'Bloodsuckers' with Arabic subtitles. That quickly put me to sleep.

We woke up around 9 and had a delicious breakfast at a patisserie down the street (our hotel was on Avenue Mohammed V, which is pretty much the name of every 'main street' in all the cities of Morocco)
Now would be a good time to say a few words about how delicious orange juice in Morocco is. The orange juice that is served in all the cafes, patisseries and restaurants is always fresh and never too sweet or too sour. Generally, it is a little pulpy and it always comes in a tall glass with a bendy straw. It is amazingly consistent.

Our next stop was the medina. El Jadida was founded by the Portuguese and they built a magnificent walled city on the water. You can walk on top of the walls and watch the ocean break against the rocks below or you can watch the little kids jump off the walls into the extremely dirty harbor. It is a very pleasant albeit touristy place.

Five km to the South there is an incredible beach. There is a mile-long stretch of golden sand and there is very little garbage. Only a few people were on the beach aside from the five of us volunteers. Lonely Planet says that this beach is packed during the summer.
The water was comfortably chilly and the waves were massive. There was an absurd amount of seaweed floating around so it always felt like an octopus was feebly attempting to grab your leg.
Upon our departure from the beach I said to Lyall, "we are at the beach in Africa, on Halloween." It was a bizarre feeling because, up to that point, I had not seen any Halloween decorations at all.

We left the beach around 4 PM in order to catch a 5:30 train to Casablanca where we planned to celebrate the holiday and meet up with 6 more Projects Abroad personnel.

Once in Casa, we walked to our hostel which, translated from French, was named "Youth Hostel."
When walking to take a shower before our night on the town, the manager confronted me and told me that he locks the door at Midnight now because the last time Americans stayed at the hostel they were loud and disrespectful. I found it to be a very awkward time to make such an inappropriate announcement. I politely informed him that the majority of the people from our group weren't American and that we would be quiet and respect the rules.

Throughout our entire stay at that hostel, we received mean looks and stern tones from all of the employees who were all miserable old men.

But I digress. We cross-referenced with all of our guidebooks and found a nice sounding place that had food and dancing. I think it was called 'Cantina.' I wish I could convey the happiness that I felt the second that I walked into the place. They had the only Halloween decorations in all of Morocco! That excited me greatly, as did the smell.
I ordered chicken fajitas and they were delicious. The entire eating experience was great as they were playing the Moroccan version of 'America's Funniest Home Videos' on three massive TVs. We were surrounded by various groups of Europeans who seemed as happy as we were to have found a place like this.
They served fancy drinks and massive margaritas. Some of the people around us were doing shots that were served on fire.
We paid the bill and went into the next room and started dancing. For about an hour, our crew was the only one dancing but as the night wore on, many many others joined in. It was the type of place that encourages dancing on the tables. It was basically a funner, more expensive Tex-Mex restaurant. A fun time was had by all and we had to run back to the hostel in order to make our 12 o'clock curfew.
I could not have asked for a better place to celebrate Halloween in Morocco.

I slept well that night and slept on the train and slept some more once I got home on Sunday.
It was a very long weekend and I will never forget it.

This coming Friday is a national holiday. We are leaving Thursday evening to go to Erg Chebbi which is basically the desert near the Algerian border. It is a twelve hour trip. The plan is to ride camels, sleep in a Touraeg hut and sandboard down the biggest dunes in Morocco.

Also, I have been trouble figuring out a good template so feedback on the current layout of the blog would be appreciated.