Living in Morocco

Alright... I honestly just haven't been bothered to write anything so... sorry?

Now, Morocco is pretty nice to live in. I really do like it here. Well, Marrakech anyways. As you know, I haven't really seen anything else of Morocco yet, besides the inside of the Casablanca airport and the main road to Marrakech. Though it was night time, so it was just a lot of shadows. Dad said we past loads of interesting stuff, but yeah, I missed it all. Yay for me.

So, I've been here for a bit over two weeks so far. I've spent most of the time inside, but I have been out.

One of the first things I learnt when going out in Marrakech, is that the traffic, is terrifying. This is a warning to anyone who lives in Canberra, or any place like it; Do NOT drive in Marrakech. Take a taxi. Or a bus. Or a jet! ANYTHING. Just don't drive here! You WILL die! It's insane!!!! Like, there will be three cars lined up next to each other on a one lane road. You have to constantly swerve to avoid being hit! IT'S SCARY! I pray that I don't have to go out in the rain here....

Another thing about the traffic here, is the number of bikes you see. Everyone rides bikes. Or motorbikes. Or normal bicycles with motors on them, powered by the peddling. When crossing the road (and I advise not to try), you have to worry about the bikes more than the cars. And it's scary how many people they can fit on the bikes. Whilst out with my Dad, I saw a motorbike with a man on it, a woman on it, a little boy standing on the front of the bike, and the woman was holding her new born baby in her arms as they rode. And none of them were wearing a helmet! NO ONE wears a helmet here! I even saw a little boy and his older sister around my age on one of those motorised bicycles riding on the side of the road without a helmet! I have no idea how any of them manage to survive!

Also, they don't have seat belts in cars! Well, they do in the front, and I'm pretty sure your required to wear those, but you don't have to in the back! I don't wanna know how many people die here from flying out the front of a windshield...

Anyways, on a morepositive note, my daddikins took me to Jaam Alafna. It was a massive market place, and it was awesome! There were people charming snakes, lots of men in traditional African clothing playing big drums, and there was a guy with a monkey! Me and my dad walked around and he told me a lot about the history of the place. I would write it down... but I can't be bothered. So yeah, we walked through the stalls and saw a lot of cool stuff. The problem was that we couldn't really stop and look too long, because if you do stop and look, the owner of the stall immediately thinks that your interested in buying something and starts trying to talk to you into it.

One thing about Morocco is the amount of olives there are. Everyone eats olives. Lots and lots of olives. Which really sucks for me, because I don't like olives. Except on pizza. Mmm... pizza. Anywho, so when we went to the market, they had this whole corner full of different types of olives. Green ones, black ones, brown ones, red ones... it was scary! They had massive barrels full of olives!

I've also been to our local souk. Like, another market, except loads smaller. They sell meat, and vegetables. It's smells funny though. And it's infested with loads, and loads of adorable cats. Now, there's a place at the souk we go to, where you can buy meat, but you can also go to this other guy there for your chicken meat. You stand there, pick a live chicken, go away for twenty minutes or so, come back, and they will have that chicken you picked killed, plucked, skinned, everything. I saw one of the guys doing it. It was depressing. Really, you ever heard that fraze "Just because you wanna eat the burger, it doesn't mean you wanna meet the cow"? Or like that episode of the simpsons, when Lisa looks at her lamb chop and sees the little lamp saying "why Lisa? What did I ever do to you?" Yeah, it was like that, except we didn't get that chicken, so it was all good....

So, just like back in Canberra, they also have the supermarkets. I had a horrible experience with the super market. Now, I'm sure all my friends and stuff who I told to read this, you'll agree with me that a normal trip to the supermarket is walking in there with a pair of shorts on with a singlet and some flip flops. You'll go in for ten minutes max, then leave. But no. Here, I came with my dad and step mum. I thought we were just gonna go in and then straight out. So, we go in. It's pretty big, about the size of a K Mart or something. And we walk through every isle, and look at EVERYTHING. They took forever! I was going insane with boredom! And really, the supermarket's here are insane! They have a whole row full of yogurt! And then another full of cheese! Like, do you REALLY need that many different types of yogurts or cheese? It's insane! Eventually, we got out. Thank god. After spending ages in every isle. And they took ages at the counter as well! When we finally got out of the building, I asked dad how long we had been in there. Yeah, an hour and forty five minutes! WHY?

Now, about the food. The food is good. Even the take out. Like, not Maccas or whatever. Anywho, my step mum has been making loads of yummiful food. When we go to Rabat, I'll be meeting her mother, and apparently she is an awesome cook. My dad also made me what he called a traditional Moroccan breakfast. We had mint tea, with eggs. The eggs were fried in butter, like normal, except he covered them in olive oil afterwards and sprinkled them in cumin. Then we got bread and dipped it in and ate it like that. You pretty much eat everything here with bread.

The last thing, is the TV. My dad has about three thousand something or rather channels and radio stations. Some of them don't work unfortunately, but oh well. I basically just watch the MBC channels, or BBC or CNN. But what's really funny, is that the MBC MAX channel is Saudi tv. Which means that they beep out all swear words, and cut scenes that involve kissing. But they keep the horribly violent scenes. It's weird! And quite annoying. I was watching some animated kids movie called "Happily 'N Ever After", and they skipped a big chunk at the end because the two characters kissed. Seriously, it was a kid's film. But what I thought was absolutely hilarious, was when I was skipping through the channels, and I found a TV show, obviously filmed in Arabic, but with crappy voice overs in English. I love it when movies or shows do that! I wanted to watch it, but dad made me change it =(

Anywho, Dad just reminded me that it's my sister's birthday in Australia right now.

So, ta ta!

And, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHALINI!!!!

Oh, and before I forget;

Did You Know: Morocco was the world's largest exporter of sugar for 400 years?

Thanks for reading =)