Bonjour!
It's Anna and Kim again, with a new post.
So this weekend, we traveled to Azemmour and El Jadida, two cities on the coast, south of Casablanca. While there, incredibly enough, we stayed in our first hotel since arriving in Morocco (due to the considerable generosity of our friend, Francois, who allowed us to stay in his villa for nearly the first three weeks we were here). We stayed at the Riad Azama in Azemmour, which is a traditional "house" built around an internal courtyard. Although it was built in the 18th century, this one still had the original painting on some of the ceilings and was lovely, with delicious meals. It could have used a bit more hot water in the morning, though. Like some hot water.
On Sunday morning, we traveled by local bus to El Jadida, which was a Portuguese city that has been designated as a World Heritage site. It is supposed to be the next big thing around here, and while it has charm and a great setting, it's not quite Dubrovnik yet. There's a bit too much garbage around (and as Anna points out, a few too many people peeing in the streets) to pull it off.
On the way home, we experimented with traveling by "grand taxi." The grand taxis are big, old and (always) white mercedes sedans, without seatbelts naturally, that pile in about six passengers all headed in the same direction for a lower price than a regular "petit taxi". The petit taxis aren't permitted to leave the town in which they work, but the grand taxis are. So, we didn't love the train schedule on Sunday and decided to take a grand taxi to Casablanca and then catch one of the many trains to Rabat. It turned out that the ride was just as slow, more expensive and less comfortable. Suffice to say, next time we'll just take the train.
On "learning to relax," well, we'll see. I'm trying, but it's not easy for me, especially when our lovely maid, Rachida, is running around cleaning and scrubbing our house, cooking us these wonderful meals (giving the kids a huge stack of French crepes with Nutella after school today), and serving me tea. I'm signing up for French classes and joining an exercise facility, so I have more structure to my day. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'll enjoy it here, especially now that I have finished running around and finding/buying the key items for our villa. Just not my make up.
Finally, on the "end of the weekend," Anna had a challenging morning today, trying to get up for school. She really didn't want the weekend to end ("it's not long enough"), and she really didn't want to go to school and listen to all French. As Anna says, it can get pretty boring when you don't understand a lot of what is being said -- and it is hard having people think that you just aren't smart because you can't communicate well. It was a sad taxi ride to school.
Fortunately, as it turns out, Anna reports that the day "was better than she expected." Still, she and Tommy are quite excited for their two week break beginning on February 20.
Anna says this blog is long enough. I'm getting a lot of sighs from beside me. So she'll be in charge of adding some new photos and captions.
Tommy trying not smile... (left)
Anna and Tommy reading, (bottom).
Anna and Tommy still reading, (left).
Hooray for pictures! The house looks lovely--but perhaps you took the picture of the only room with furniture? David and I can't wait to visit you guys this summer...at which point the problem will probably *not* be the lack of hot water. I've bookmarked the blog, so we'll be eagerly reading the updates. Anna--I expect reports on all the books I recommended for the Kindle!
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