Retracing Old Steps

So I lied.

I left the internet cafe earlier today in El Jadida and suddenly had a small panic attack. I started thinking about all the things that could happen on the way to Spain, and decided that it would be better to start the journey today, rather than tomorrow.

So I am back in Casablanca today.

What do you do if you in a city that you already know, and which you do not find all that exciting? You go to the internet cafe and write about it, thus ensuring that everyone that reads your blog will think that you are a complete loser that writes about doing things instead of actually doing them.

It's not as bad as it looks, I promise.

There is one thing that I really want to see in Casablanca, and I arrived too late to see it today. It will have to wait until tomorrow. The Hassan II mosque is the third biggest mosque in the world, and from what I have read it is truly an amazing building. Other than that, Casablanca is much as I remembered it--not a bad city, really, but nor is it anything to get all lovey-dubby about.

It is strange being back in a large city. Suddenly everybody wants to sell me hash again, and tons of people on the street randomly talk to me. Most of them end up wanting to sell me hash as well. It is really sort of sad sometimes, because many people in these big cities capitalize so much on the widely-acknowledged friendliness of the Moroccan people. After all the spontaneous friendships that I have made in Morocco, all the amazing things that have happened to me, I am forced to return to the familiar safety mechanism of thinking that everyone that talking to me wants something from me. And here, unfortunately, I think that I am usually right.

My favorite opening line so far (I have heard it or a similar variant three times today) is -- "Hey, man, I haven't seen you in a while".

"No," I always reply, "You've never seen me before." Do these people think I am really going to psych myself out, think that, yes, indeed, I have met them? I don't think so, but I guess the line works, because they always end up saying that I look just like someone that they met before. And then they run on into their usual schpiel. (Is that how you spell that word?)

So today is a relaxed day, a day of walking the markets a bit and eating strange street food (I just ate a corn on the cob with kernels so swollen they looked and tasted sort of like garbanzo beans). Tomorrow I will check out the Hassan II mosque and then on the 30th I will head to Tangiers, where I will catch the boat back to Spain.

And that is all for today. I promise.