Thoughts of Casablanca usually bring up images from the movie (which incidentally was filmed in Burbank, CA) but other than the hotel bar in the Hyatt, there really isn’t much here that resembles Hollywood’s portrayal of this town. It’s a large, industrialized city that doesn’t offer much more than the enormous Hassan II mosque. We decided to spend a day here to recover from our jetlag before moving on. Morocco is the first Muslim country for both of us. The bars, restaurants, streets, and cafes are full of men (and only men) sitting around talking at all hours of the day and evening. I suppose Moroccan woman are forced to stay home to keep the house clean and cook the meals. Kelly suggested that perhaps the Moroccan women prohibit these men from returning home until a certain time of night so they can have some peace.

I have always read that Morocco is not a good place for women travelers to go alone and I can see why. Even though we never had any problems, Kelly constantly got looks and stares from men in all places. I’m not sure if it was because we looked like foreigners or due to the skimpy tube top she was wearing (just kidding!).

We did visit the Hassan II mosque twice--during the day and the night. This mosque is one of the biggest in the world and was very impressive, as you can see by the photos. To get there, we decided to walk through the medina. Medinas are the "old city" or central hubs found in most Moroccan cities (two largest ones being in Marrakech and Fes). They consist of a large area of winding labyrinthine streets. It’s as if someone took a huge garden maze and put up many small shops. Once you get inside, it can be very difficult to get out. If not for the moon and the very tall mosque to guide us, I think we would still be in there. Once inside, we found a slew of people meandering around and selling everything from goat heads to fake Rolex watches. As far as we could tell, we were the only non-Moroccan nationals, which was kind of cool.