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In my semi-serious effort to see the whole planet before I die, I am off on another Road Scholar tour. It has been a long day, close to 24 hours of travel that included a long layover in Detroit. I but I have made it to Rabat.
Memphis looked lovely as we took off. I can see the pyramid. Can you see the pyramid? And that dark spot in the middle has to be Overton Park, right?
I’m off on the road to Morocco. Ever seen the movie? I watched it before the trip and found it to be pretty stupid but sorta fun anyway, which is about the best I could have hoped for.
It appears I am looking forward to the adventure.
We had a short delay in Detroit. As we were sitting on the tarmac I noticed snow flurries.
And then the pilot announced we were going to be de-iced. What fun.
The white cliffs of Dover are under there somewhere.
We've arrived in Sale, Morocco, which is where the airport is. Across the river Rou Regreg from here is the city of Rabat. Apparently there is a rivalry between the cities -- Rabat is the capital but Sale got the airport.
Pretty much all the Road Scholars arrived on the same plane. We're headed for our bus. That's Don in the hat.
Queuing up for a ride. We'll be doing a lot of this over the next two weeks.
These are the Road Scholars. We haven’t really met each other yet, but they do seem a nice group.
Our first unusual sight from the bus. It’s an office building under construction. I thought it looked like a rocket, but our guide, Nabil, is not impressed. He said it looks like a cucumber.
He really liked this building, though. It is a new concert hall, the Grand Theater of Rabat, designed by Zaha Hadid, a famous Iraqi architect.
Sarah is taking in the sights of Rabat.
That is the view from my hotel window. Now I am going to take a nap until 5 o’clock when we will get together in the lobby and ride the bus to an orientation and dinner.
Two hours later after a nap and a shower I am refreshed and we are back on the bus. The Medina is behind that wall — the old town. Most major cities in Morocco have a Medina.
The Medina is big and so is its wall.
There’s even a big cemetery back there.
Now we are looking for dinner
That’s our guide, waiting for everybody to catch up.
His name is Nabil and I think he is going to be yet another fantastic Road Scholar guide. He seems to know his stuff.
We are going into an old large home which has been turned into the Center for Cross Cultural Learning, the organization that manages Road Scholar tours in Morocco. This type of building is called a "riad."
A riad is a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an indoor garden and courtyard. The word “riad” comes from the Arabic word for “garden”. Riads are typically a few stories high, with rooms and windows that face completely inward. The inner courtyard acts as a sanctuary and respite from the outside world. Beautiful tile work, plants, and water features commonly grace this space, giving you a real feeling of peace and quiet. Riads are generally attributed to Persian gardens that spread during the Islamic period.
Nabil gave us a lecture on the history of Morocco and then we had dinner.
Both the lecture and the dinner were excellent.
The main course is bastilla.
Chicken bastilla is Morocco's famous chicken pie. A light, crispy
warqa pastry shell conceals savory saffron chicken, spicy omelet
stuffing, and a crunchy topping of fried almonds sweetened with
orange flower water. A garnish of powdered sugar and cinnamon adds
to the unique blend of flavors.
We had fruit for dessert.
Followed by Moroccan mint tea. It was tasty, and pretty sweet. We would see tea poured like this many times over the next two weeks.
Time to find our bus and ride back to the hotel.
Along the way we passed the walls of the Medina.
Crowds lined the street as we drove back to the hotel. They were not necessarily out for a reason other than to just enjoy the evening air.
Don is enjoying the ambiance of our hotel's rooftop restaurant. Actually it's a little chilly out here tonight.
Don's an old friend from 1995 when I spent a year in Washington DC representing NASA at the Inter-agency Learning Technologies Office. It was the Bush White House's idea to bring together people from various Federal agencies who had experience in developing and implementing technologies related to education. Don was the representative from the Dept. of Education. Don loves to travel, much more, in fact than his wife does. So she gives him permission to go off on trips like this. In fact, as I've already mentioned, this whole trip was Don‘s idea in the first place. I think we are going to have fun! Thanks for talking me into this, Don!
The view from the roof of our hotel.
The restaurant piped music all over the rooftop area and this guy was the disk jockey. There was no escaping the loud music, no matter where we tried to hide, so Don and I gave up and went to our rooms for the night.
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