Paris

It turns out that it costs a lot more air miles to fly back to the United States from Casablanca, since it's in Africa, than from Europe, so we ended up going to Paris for one night in order to fly back more cheaply. In fact, there's actually a direct flight from Paris to Cleveland, which was really convenient. Most flights to Europe stop in Newark (at least on Continental), and not having that layover really saves a lot of hassel.

This was my fourth time in Paris, so it didn't matter that much that we didn't have a lot of time to see things. Paris is France's capital, one of the largest cities in Europe at almost 10 million inhabitants, and the most touristed city in the world. Downtown is divided by the river Seine into two halves: la rive droit (the right bank) and la rive gauche (the left bank), and one could easily spend weeks there and still not get to see everything. Since we only had one night, we spent most of it taking a boat cruise down the river Seine.

Here's a map of the city so you can kind of figure out where some of the main landmarks are located:

We took a taxi from the Charles de Gaulle airport to le Tour Eiffel, which was completed in 1889 by Gustave Eiffel for the World's Fair. The tower was actually almost torn down in 1909, but saved due to its use as a telegraphy antenna. Now, it's the symbol of Paris and the lines to go up it are very long. The first time I was in Paris, we waited hours in order to get to the top, so we didn't really feel like wasting all night doing it again this time around.

le Tour Eiffel:

Even though many people speak English in Paris, it's hard to get around not knowing any French. Through being in Morocco and Paris, my year of French II in high school started coming back to me little by little, though it's nowhere near the level of my Spanish or German. But hey, at dinner I did manage to ask for french fries by saying "Il y a pommes de terre?". I was proud of myself. =) Here are a few good words to know in French, in case you're going somewhere where they speak it:

Bonjour: Good morning
Bonsoir: Good evening
Merci: Thank You
De rien: You're welcome
Je voudrais...: I would like...
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinc...: one, two, three, four, five
S'il vous plait: Please

French has a very archaic spelling system, like English, and several letters are not pronounced, mostly at the ends of words. S's and T's aren't pronounced at the end of words, for example, unless the following word starts with a vowel. It's hard to learn spelling and pronunciation in French at first, but pretty soon you get the hang of it. There's also a lot of cognates with Spanish, so sometimes I can get away with "french-ifying" Spanish words that I already know.

After dinner next to the Seine, we left on our boat cruise down the river:



We passed L'île de la Cité, an island in the middle of the city that is home to Notre Dame Cathedral, made famous through Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and Disney's movie of the same title.



One of the many bridges we went under on the Seine:

On our way down the Seine, we noticed about 15 policemen looking at something on the docks and sidewalk next to the river. Then we noticed one of them holding up a body bag...uh...

Anyway, after about an hour on the boat (actually a little more since one woman got sick and had to have an emergency evacuation to a hospital), we got back to le Tour Eiffel, which was at the moment having an impressive light show:

Another shot of le Tour Eiffel at night, complete with cars passing in front:



And one more:

It took us about 20 minutes of fighting with other tourists to flag down a taxi back to our airport hotel, but we finally made it back around midnight. Since this time around in Paris I didn't really get to see too much, I thought I'd post some pictures from a few years ago of the major sights.

The Louvre art museum, on the banks of the Seine:



A better view of Notre Dame, during the day:



The Moulin Rouge nightclub in Montmartre, on la rive droit, is now mostly the home of tourist shows reminiscent of Las Vegas:



Sacré Coeur Basilica is near the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre and overlooks the rest of Paris:



Champs Élysées, Paris' famed shopping street, with l'Arc de Triomphe silhouetted at its end at la Place de l'Étoile, a massive roundabout where over 10 streets come together:



One of the art nouveau styled entrances of the Paris' metro:



La Palais de Justice and Sainte Chapelle Cathedral:



Sainte Chapelle, known for its large proportion of stained glass, is in my opinion much nicer inside than the more visited Notre Dame Cathedral:

Of course, that really only scratches the surface of Paris. It all depends on how much time you have there. We flew out of Paris Tuesday morning and I got back to Cleveland that afternoon. I'm still a bit jetlagged (I got up at 4:30am yesterday, being unable to sleep any later!), but I need to start getting ready for the upcoming school year. I will keep posting on this blog when I travel somewhere interesting, and if you want to keep reading it please keep it in your bookmarks as I will no longer be sending the summer email list notifications when I update. I hope you all take care and enjoy your last few weeks of summer!

Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris:

Casablanca

The last city in Morocco that we stopped in was the famed Casablanca: Morocco's industrial capital and largest city at almost 4 million inhabitants. Casablanca, which in Spanish means "white house", was named by Spanish traders in the late 18th century. Casablanca is on the Atlantic coast, and was much cooler than pretty much anywhere else I had been except maybe Asturias, so it was very refreshing. Despite the nice weather, however, the city isn't really host to a lot of tourist attractions.

Casablanca is much more cosmopolitan than many of Morocco's other cities, like Marrakech and Fès, and we noticed fewer women wearing head scarves and people in general wearing traditional clothing there, although there were certainly some.

The sign on the train station as we arrived in Casablanca:



A Moroccan McDonalds we passed on one of Casablanca's major throughfares:

Casablanca's biggest tourist attraction is the Hassan II mosque, built only about 20 years ago. This mosque is one of the few open to non-Muslims (although only at certain times, in between prayers), and is the second largest mosque on the planet after the mosque in Mecca. As we discovered, it's also a popular place for people to spend time and promenade...a haven for people watchers. Unfortunately we didn't get to Casablanca early enough for a tour inside, but we did walk around the outside for about 20 minutes before dinner.

The minaret of the Hassan II mosque:



Part of the mosque that is still being built, which I believe is supposed to serve as a school:



Beautiful tile work:



A woman and her baby in front of the mosque:



And some men in Moroccan robes:



Some children:



And some young women:



After exploring the mosque, we got dinner at Rick's Café, which claims to recreate the famous café in the movie "Casablanca". Supposedly every night, the piano player plays "As Time Goes By", but there was strangely no piano player when we were there:



The inside of the restaurant where we ate:



The lower level of the restaurant especially looked like the movie:

After Casablanca, we left for Paris...only one more stop!

Marrakech

After Fès, we took a train south through Rabat (Morocco's capital) and Casablanca to the city of Marrakech. Marrakech, known as "the red city" because of the color of the clay and rock that comes from the area and is used in many of its buildings, sits at the edge of the Atlas mountains. Marrakech is the third largest city in Morocco and is the most heavily touristed city. It was actually nice to find ourselves in the company of some other tourists, after feeling a little culturally isolated in Fès.

The train system in Morocco is fairly modern, but the air conditioning had trouble compensating for the 45˚ heat outside (that's over 100˚ Fahrenheit):

The countryside around Marrakech is very desert-like, cactus growing over the red ground:



The red clay is used in many of Marrakech's buildings, such as the old city walls:



The first thing we did in Marrakech was go to the Majorelle Gardens, which were designed by a Frenchman but use plants that grow well in Morocco, like lots of cactus:







There was a lot of Aloe Vera growing in the gardens too (Yes, it's the plant where aloe vera lotion comes from! In fact if you break a leaf off, soothing gel comes out of the plant.):



On our way back after the gardens, I noticed that nearly all the palm trees growing in Marrakech were in fact date palms. Dates are an important element in Moroccan cooking, probably because they grow so well there:



And, of course, we passed several Arabic stop signs:

It was really different seeing Arabic everywhere, a language where I can't even read the alphabet. In the past I once tried to learn it, but got disheartened after how hard it was, for me at least. Arabic is written backwards and most letters have four forms, depending on where in the word they occur. I'm sure that after a while you'd get used to it, but it's very hard at first! While in Morocco I learned a whopping four words of Arabic:

Salaam: Hello
Naam: Yes
La: No
Shukra: Thank you

For the most part, we relied on French (Morocco's second official language, since they were ruled by France for so long) and English to get us around.

After seeing the Majorelle Gardens, we hired a guide and took a tour of the rest of the city. On of our first steps was the Koutoubia mosque, which of course we could only look at from the outside:



Then we went to the Saadian Tombs, which were only discovered in the 20th century. There were three rooms: one for kings, one for women (there were no queens per se in Morocco), and one for *I think* princes and children. Beloved servants were buried in the courtyard as well:



We walked through a lot of streets that looked like this, getting from one point to another:



And this:

We walked through Marrakech's medina, which unlike the medina in Fès, was not hilly or as labyrinthine. It was also a lot more touristy, but most of the goods sold were still authentic. In the medina, you're expected to bargain on prices. I ended up buying a pair of knock-off Prada sunglasses for only 60 dirhams (about $6), and some saffron for only 80 dirhams a bag. (Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world and can go for upwards of $80/oz. in the United States!)

A street through the medina:

Spices in the medina:



Some wool blankets hanging in a store:



A cat waking up from a nap near a stall selling Moroccan lamps:



Another cat sleeping in a palm tree's pot:



And a Moroccan opening an elaborate door on a side street:



And finally, a culturally interesting sign on the door of a bank near the medina, stating its hours. Notice that the hours are shortened during Ramadan, the Muslim holy week of fasting that occurs once a year. During Ramadan, almost all restaurants and food souks close during the day, and one can only eat before morning prayer and after evening prayer. Supposedly Ramadan is a really bad time to tour Morocco, for obvious reasons, so we were pretty glad we weren't there for it:

Next on our tour, we stopped at the Ben Youssef madersa, one of the largest madersas in all of Africa:



On our way out, I saw a picturesque moment between an old man and a kid on a bike, so I took a picture:



Our last stop was the Djemma El Fna square, which is one of the largest squares in Morocco. It was home to lots of stands selling oranges, along with...that's right....snake charmers:

The guy in the picture above started coming up to us after I took that picture, and wanted to wrap the viper he was holding around us for a picture. (And in case you can't tell, that's a cobra to his left in the picture.) Supposedly the snake charmers milk the snakes of their venom in order to make them safer, but sometimes they get lazy about it and so it can be really dangerous to get too close to the snakes. We kept our distance...

Click below for a video of Djemma El Fna:

The next day, we took a tour to the Ourika valley, about an hour and a half outside of Marrakech, to experience Berber culture in the countryside and to hike up to a waterfall. Morocco is basically inhabited by the Arabs and the Berbers. Our first stop was a traditional Berber home, in which we were treated to a traditional breakfast of pita bread and mint tea.

Here, our tour guide explains how the Berber woman was preparing our tea:



Preparing the mint tea, which the woman called "Berber Whiskey":



Our breakfast, which was very good:



Next stop after breakfast was to ride camels, which was really fun! I'd never ridden one before, and the best part was definitely getting off, when the camel knelt down:



Next stop was a womens' coop for making Argan oil, which is similar to olive oil but which comes from a tree that only grows in Morocco and is in danger of extinction. Selling products made from the oil, like soaps and oils, helps to protect the trees and support the women working there:



We finally got to the river in the Ourika valley that we would be hiking up, which apparently is also a very popular weekend getaway for local Moroccans:



As we hiked up to the waterfall, we passed lots of little restaurants along the way that looked like this:



And this one, complete with red clay tagines filled with cooking food:



We also passed lots of stores selling wares like rugs, tagines, and beads:



Finally, we made it up to the waterfall:

I found it interesting that almost all men and children were the ones swimming around the waterfall, and all but one or two women were standing on shore, with at most their ankles wet. Although women have equal legal rights in Morocco, most women still wear head scarves and dress conservatively. Children are exempt from this, and young girls dress just like any kid would in the United States. Of course we saw several adult women dressed in Western fashion and showing their hair, but this was definitely the minority.

After our hike, we began the drive back to Marrakech. First though, we stopped at a restaurant for traditional Moroccan food, overlooking the valley:



One of my favorite parts of lunch was the cinnamon and sugar covered couscous:



While we were eating, a group began performing Moroccan music. Somehow they convinced my brother and I to dance with them, but unfortunately only my parents have pictures of that one:

More coming soon on Casablanca and Paris! Stay tuned!