The Guild of Lady Adventurers rides again...
Well, here I am on my adventures, with time to get my head in order, sort my lfe out, find myself, become a better person, and all that bullshite ;) Not sure how it's working out so far, but my French is improving and I'm slowly mastering the Arabic keyboard system, which appears to view qwerty as some kind of quaint Western idiosyncracy. So please excuse typos/appalling punctuation...
I'm not sure how adventurous it's been so far; being a woman alone out here means I'm not really "immersed" in the culture, which seems to comes with a side order of dirt, stench and constant low-level harrassment. Seriously, I know I'm not ugly, but that really doesn't account for the sheer volume of male attention, ranging from the hopeful "ca va, madame?" when I pass a shop to what sounds like something off-colour in Arabic, accompanied by kissy noises. I wonder if it ever actually works for them, or if it's just a point of pride...
In any case, my route has so far taken me through Casablanca (sorry to destroy anyone's romantic illusions about the place based on the film, but it's a shit-tip, except for the souk which is a LRPer's wet dream of shiny bling) and down the coast to El-Jadida. I've found a bit of peace and quiet in my hotel, run by a friendly if strictly religious family (went out to dinner last night and had to tiptoe past one of the sons praying in the lobby), the beach of all places (funnily enough, I don't get hassled when scantily-clad), and a lovely restaurant in the old town that's become a favourite haunt, mostly because it's run by a woman and is very family-friendly.
The town itself is crumbling and beautiful, an old Portugese stronghold just about kept going by a long-ago Unesco grant (it's a world heritage site). In the evening the kids hang out on the bastions, and the old cistern was apparently the site of Orson Welles' Othello - definitely my favoutite place so far, for its quiet, the spooky film of water reflecting light from a tunnel above, and massive old vaults.
Tomorrow I'm going to (try to) go further south to Essouaira, another beach resort. I've found the bus depot, managed to ask in French for the times and the fare, and avoid the touts. It's the little things like that that make me proud to be able to challenge myself and get through it, but we'll see how I get on tomorrow with getting a long-distance bus when everything is labelled in Arabic, if it's labelled at all :P I do keep having to remind myself to be ballsy about this; the time alone is giving me a bit too much time to think, and the loneliness occasionally gets to me, along with a massive bundle of regrets and mixed feelings about leaving home and what waits for me when I get back. I'm trying to just throw myself into it, but it's more difficult now, at 30, than when I did this at 18.
I'm not sure how adventurous it's been so far; being a woman alone out here means I'm not really "immersed" in the culture, which seems to comes with a side order of dirt, stench and constant low-level harrassment. Seriously, I know I'm not ugly, but that really doesn't account for the sheer volume of male attention, ranging from the hopeful "ca va, madame?" when I pass a shop to what sounds like something off-colour in Arabic, accompanied by kissy noises. I wonder if it ever actually works for them, or if it's just a point of pride...
In any case, my route has so far taken me through Casablanca (sorry to destroy anyone's romantic illusions about the place based on the film, but it's a shit-tip, except for the souk which is a LRPer's wet dream of shiny bling) and down the coast to El-Jadida. I've found a bit of peace and quiet in my hotel, run by a friendly if strictly religious family (went out to dinner last night and had to tiptoe past one of the sons praying in the lobby), the beach of all places (funnily enough, I don't get hassled when scantily-clad), and a lovely restaurant in the old town that's become a favourite haunt, mostly because it's run by a woman and is very family-friendly.
The town itself is crumbling and beautiful, an old Portugese stronghold just about kept going by a long-ago Unesco grant (it's a world heritage site). In the evening the kids hang out on the bastions, and the old cistern was apparently the site of Orson Welles' Othello - definitely my favoutite place so far, for its quiet, the spooky film of water reflecting light from a tunnel above, and massive old vaults.
Tomorrow I'm going to (try to) go further south to Essouaira, another beach resort. I've found the bus depot, managed to ask in French for the times and the fare, and avoid the touts. It's the little things like that that make me proud to be able to challenge myself and get through it, but we'll see how I get on tomorrow with getting a long-distance bus when everything is labelled in Arabic, if it's labelled at all :P I do keep having to remind myself to be ballsy about this; the time alone is giving me a bit too much time to think, and the loneliness occasionally gets to me, along with a massive bundle of regrets and mixed feelings about leaving home and what waits for me when I get back. I'm trying to just throw myself into it, but it's more difficult now, at 30, than when I did this at 18.