Woke up early today and went to the Hassan II Mosque in Casa this morning. This was the coolest Mosque ever – mostly because I was surprised to find how modern it was – it started being built in 1987 (when I was born!) and was done in 1993. During the six years of construction, the team of laborers worked 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. It is my most favorite Mosque that I’ve visited on the trip…which is saying A LOT because we’ve seen a lot of beautiful places of worship! It’s a giant mosque and it has a large outdoor plaza as well. In total, the whole complex (inside and out) can hold up to 105,000 worshipers. That’s hard to imagine!
The Hassan II Mosque has HUGE lofty ceilings with a roof that is movable – it can open up in under 3 minutes and close back up in 2 minutes. The decorations and carvings on the columns and walls were all done by hand, which is incredible if you look and see how precise each design is. In addition, there are so many interesting details – the sound system speakers are built into the art design, so you can’t tell where they are when you look around. Also, the floors are heated so no one gets cold in the wintertime when the marble gets chilly (although it’s hard to believe that this country ever gets chilly). In addition, the basement of the mosque is a public bath – so everyone can have a place to wash before they worship. It’s a really interesting building and I’m so glad that I got a chance to see it!
After the mosque, we went to lunch at Rick’s Café – yes, like from the movie “Casablanca”! It was not where the movie was filmed, but the restaurant’s design is based on that famous café in the movie. Confession: I had never seen the movie “Casablanca” before last week when they played it on the movie channel on the ship! But it was still fun to go and see how they had translated the atmosphere in the movie to a restaurant. PLUS I had “Rick’s Special Burger” with yummy rosemary fries and THE MOST incredible fig and goat cheese salad. I can’t even begin to describe the goat cheese. So salty and creamy… with the sweetness of the fig… and a tiny drizzle of balsamic vinegar…oh my goodness. Best salad of the trip, without a doubt.
After lunch, I went with Sarah and Kasie into the Casa souk to spend the remainder of the dirhams. And guess what? I ended up getting my…very…own…TAJINE!!! I am so excited!!! Now I can make all of my favorite Moroccan food at home!!!! Horray!
Around 4pm, we headed back to the ship. As usual, I was so happy to get back to the cool, clean MV Explorer…especially in Casablanca – the pollution here was ridiculous. Our berth was right next to some sort of concrete factory and there was dust EVERYWHERE. It looked like a thick fog had descended on the port – it was so thick that the security guards for the ship were wearing those special surgical masks to avoid breathing it in! Yikes.
Anyway, after a glorious shower in my nice, clean cabin, I had dinner on the 6th deck and then went up to the 7th deck (aft) to watch us pull out of our LAST PORT OF THE SUMMER! AHHHH! I’m in denial!!! I’m not ready to leave! We still have ten days left to cross the Atlantic, but I know that they are just going to FLY by. I wish I could make time go slowly so that I could soak up every last second of the summer.
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