Day 2: Casablanca, and onwards to Rabat.

Sitting in traffic at the moment. Kinda crazy even though it's Saturday - apparently most of Casablanca goes on a 6 day workweek with just Sundays off.

Anyways, just finished a morning of sightseeing here in Casablanca. Our driver met at 8am in our hotel (Villa Blanca) where we ended up having a chill breakfast in one if the hotel restaurant). Very carb heavy (I tried three different crepe like dishes) but delicious. Our driver is nice and has good English, and it's kinda nice jetting around with an expert in a new 4x4, instead of futzing around on our own.

Sightseeing wise there isn't a lot in Casablanca, as it's mainly a business centre for Morocco. We started off by visiting the Hassan II mosque, which was gorgeous and also gigantic - apparently among the biggest in the world, with the tallest minaret. We ended up hijacking a tour from a cruise ship, which was fun, though given that most of the group was elderly it was kind of slow. The building is a relatively new construction, and is a really interesting mix of traditional artwork and modern conveniences, like heated marble floors, and a retractable roof. The heated floors are particularly important - the marble floors are cold enough to walk around on barefoot - I can't imagine having to pray on them for extended periods of time.

After our leisurely tour of the mosque, we went back to La Corniche, the waterfront area where our hotel was to wander on the boardwalk for awhile, stopping at another super posh mcdonalds for some ice-cream. Honestly, It was nicer than lots of clubs I've been to. And super clean.

Then we drove around the downtown area, passing through some of the nice neighborhoods, and stopping at Mohammed V square - kinda blah. There's a fountain, and the supreme court building is gorgeous, but mainly there's lots of pidgeons.

On our way our of the city we passed by Rick's cafe, named after the movie. As we've pretty much seen all that needs to be seen in Casablanca, we are considering extending our time in Marrakesh at the recommendation of our driver , instead of getting back here a day early in advance of our flight to Paris.

Anyways, traffic has cleared up now that were on the highway - hopefully we get to Rabat soon, as I'm getting kinda hungry. We need to pick up some snacks.

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