Casablanca - Morocco: Part 2

Catching the train to Casablanca was a trial. We ended up leaving the Medina super late due to a last minute dash to find Noah’s lost keys. We had 5 minutes to find a taxi and then get to the station and get on our train. Of course there were no taxis in the square where there are normally a ton. A guy came up to us and said he was a taxi and could give us a ride. We knew he was not a taxi, but we had no choice so we did it. We got in his dinky car and told him to hurry. I felt like we were one of the contestants in Amazing Race because we were telling him to hurry in every language we could come up with…non of them being Arabic though. Anyway, when we arrived on the boulevard in front of the station we told the driver to stop there and we’d run because there wasn’t even time for him to drive around and get us closer. The ride to the station normally cost 11 Dr…we know because we’d just done it that mornng to buy the tickets. We didn’t have any change though so we decided to be generous and just give the driver 20 Dr. So as soon as we pulled to a stop I jumped out of the back seat with Noah on my hip and my purse, Jeff’s backpack and Noah’s backpack slung over my shoulders. I immediately took off running with Noah and the bags bouncing all over the place. I heard the driver say “no!” and I turned around to see the driver grabbing Jeff’s shoulder and them arguing. Apparently the driver wanted 60 Dr! While they were both yelling Jeff rolled down the window and shouted “Rhia! Let me out!” It turned out that there was no handle on the inside of his door so he couldn’t get out and the guy was holding on to his shoulder. I was already a fair distance from the taxi having expected Jeff to also jump out. I ran back, opened the door, and Jeff popped out. We started a mad dash to the train all the while with the driver yelling after us from where he had stopped in the middle of the main street. We sprinted (well as best as we could in 100 degree heat with a child and bags) into the station searching the billboard schedule as we ran by to see where the train was. Jeff asked an official who pointed to a train. We jumped on it, found seats and then sat there sweating to death. We were 2 minutes late and the train was still there. In the end the train left 20 minutes late…apparently departure times are a suggestion. Arrival times are the same. We were supposed to arrive in Casablanca after 3 hours…we arrived 6 hours later! THREE hours late! There was no air conditioning and we did not prepare for a 6 hour ride. Noah definitely reached his limit, but given that there was nothing else to do we just hung on hoping that train would speed up and stop stopping in the middle of nowhere for what seemed like no reason.

Upon arrival in Casablanca we were happy to find that the temperature was about 15 degrees cooler. We stayed in a really cute hotel and spent the evening eating at a great fancy-schmancy place and then walking along the beach to the mosque. The mosque is one of the more impressive sites that we’ve ever seen. It’s the largest mosque in Morocco and the 3^rd largest in the world (the other 2 are in Saudi Arabia). At night the entire mosque and square were beautifully lit up and full of Casablancan families hanging out until late at night. Noah slept in the Ergobaby while we strolled around and around the square.

The next day we decidedly spent most of our time back at the mosque which is perched right on the edge of the water. We spent hours playing in the square and also took a tour of the inside (it’s the only mosque in Morocco that is open to non-Muslims) and while we were inside they opened the roof which was a really awesome thing to see.

We didn’t do much else in Casablanca because we enjoyed being at themosque. We did manage to squeeze in a super chic lunch at one of the beach front resorts costing us a grand total of 15 bucks and then we took a series of taxis to the train station to head to Marrakech.

Two other lasting memories in Casablanca were our adventures with the little red Petit Taxis and Noah’s guide book. Jeff and I have never been big taxi-takers preferring to walk if possible, but given our lack of time, the super low cost of the taxis, and Noah’s sudden obsession with taking red taxis, we took every opportunity to jump into one. The fun part was that we had to haggle. They’d start out by asking us where we were going and then how much we wanted to pay. Having no clue about distances and costs, we would respond with something ridiculous like 5 Dr (.50 cents) and then act like that’s exactly how much it should cost. Then the taxi driver would appear offended and the haggling would begin. We’d go back and forth and then finally agree to taking a 1 or 2 dollar ride.

Noah’s “guide book” was actually a train ticket that he folded into quarters. He would open it up and read it and then tell us where to go. Sometimes he would just read it randomly and then fold it back up and put it in his pocket. He got miles of entertainment out of the ticket with Jeff and I smiling the whole way.

Fez - Morocco: Part 1

What a crazy trip! We spent 5 whirlwind days zipping around the country. We left Piacenza on a 6am train and then caught a bus from Milan to the Bergamo airport. Noah was already quite happy due to the fact that we got to take a train, a bus, and a plane.

We actually packed the lightest that we ever have in our lives. I took a large purse, Jeff had a small backpack and Noah had his little backpack…and that’s it! The Ryanair baggage restrictions are really tight and they make their money by charging a lot to check a bag. Of course, being the cheapskates that we are, we did not pay to check a bag despite the fact that we knew we would want to buy a lot of stuff in the markets. So we put a good deal of effort into taking the bare minimum. It was really funny. Noah’s backpack was empty except for a lint roller (his toy of choice for the trip). I only took 3 shirts with the plan to leave one that I didn’t want anymore in Morocco. I wore one pair of pants and one pair of sandals and that was it. Jeff took the exact same, but left 2 old shirts instead of just one.

The plane ride gave us a good idea of what to expect in Morocco. It was total chaos! Most of the people on the plane were Moroccan and there were a ton of families with lots of kids. There were between 30 and 40 kids and about 10 of those were infants. We’d never seen so many kids before on a plane and the ensuing noise was hysterical. All you could do was laugh. Every infant was screaming and the kids were bouncing off the walls. Upon landing about 75% of the plane stood up and started to get their stuff from the overhead compartments! We were still taxiing and the attendants were yelling for everyone to sit down, but they were completely unsuccessful. One of the Moroccans gave me a big smile as if to say that he knew that you weren’t supposed to be getting up, but if the entire plane was going to do it then that’s the way it goes. Jeff and I were cracking up at this introduction to Morocco.

We got off the plane in Fez and took a taxi to our Bed and Breakfast in the medina. The medina is the historical center of a Moroccan town and it’s traditionally made up of narrow little streets that wind and zig-zag all around. The medina of Fez was nuts. There were no streets signs anywhere and the little streets were filled to the brim with shops, olive carts, donkeys (lots and lots of donkeys), and a ton of people. It was a good thing that we did not bring a stroller because it would have been impossible to use it in Fez.

With Fez as our first destination we were a little overwhelmed. It was total chaos. There were feral cats everywhere eating weird pieces of meat; lots of donkey poop; and exorbitant amounts of dirt. The smells of the city were super intense…in fact I swear my bag still smells like Fez. It was also a million degrees outside and at one point Noah definitely looked like he was melting. We were all dragging a little bit. Of course what did we do? We did as the locals do and sipped the hotest mint tea on the face of the Earth…we’re talking boiling. I’m surprised our tongues are still intact. Despite the feeling of being in an untouched part of the world, there were a surprising number of tourists…not overwhelming in any way like Florence, but there were more than we expected.

Our B&B was a beautifully restored Riad right in the middle of the medina maze in an unnamed passageway, off of an unnamed alley, off of an unnamed little street. We definitely would not have been able to find it on our on and luckily there was someone who came to meet us.

While in Fez Jeff and I got to experience one of the neatest things we have ever done. We went to get massages at a “local” Turkish Bath which seemed to have been in use for hundreds of years. When I say local, I mean that it was not a place meant for tourists by any means and the experience was out of this world and totally primal. It was nothing like the Turkish Baths that we went to in Budapest. Given how crazy my “massage” was I’m going to explain it all in detail.

When I walked in, the conversation in the room stopped and everyone watched as I tried to communicate in the worst French ever what I wanted. It turned out that the women there spoke only Berber and Arabic so I was out of luck. But we got it taken care of and then I followed their directions as best I could using gestures. They had me strip down all the way to my underwear and then my lady grabbed my hand and took me into the baths. My lady was probably about 60, but she looked a lot older. She was naked except for a pair of underwear and had her hair up in a bun. She took me into this dark room lit only by the little square skylights in the dome above and had me sit in the corner on the tiled ground while she prepared the buckets. She made trips back and forth to the baths filling up 7 large buckets that she lined up around us. Using a bowl she quickly slopped the water from one bucket to another making each bucket a little hotter than the next.

While she did this I couldn’t help but observe that the room was filled with local women who had come to wash themselves. Apparently they come to the Turkish Baths a couple times a week to strip all the way down and really wash themselves. They were all different ages and sat with their backs to the wall using special sponges to wash. Occasionally one would get up to get more hot water in one of her two buckets, but other than that there wasn’t much movement and everyone bathed in silence.

So once the buckets were ready for me my lady starting throwing water from the various buckets on me--in my face, over my head, against my back, and down my front--and each time the water had a different temperature which made my skin tingle. Then she washed and combed my hair and started scrubbing me everywhere with a dark red scrub that I was later told contained 48 spices that help to purify the body. She patted my shoulders to show me how she wanted me to lie. I was constantly moving…on my stomach (always on the ground), on my back with my head in her lap (and her breasts hanging down in my face while she scrubbed), sitting up with my back against her, etc. The ground was slippery from all the water and I felt like a fish out of water trying to flop over when she patted me. After the scrub came another round of bucket water dumping and then she started applying argin oil which is a famous oil only made in Morocco. At that point came the massage. This was no relaxing massage and yet at the same time I’ve never been so relaxed. Within the first couple of minutes of the entire experience I realized that I needed to just go with the flow even if it was out of my normal comfort zone. The smell of the Turkish Bath, along with the dim light, the heat of the room, and the total silence blew me away. It was entrancing. I lay on the ground staring at the little colored skylights above while my lady massaged away and all I could do was smile.

Jeff’s experience was about the same as mine minus the locals. In other words, it was just him and a half-naked man slapping him around in a dark room. He did his at 10pm and the local men had already bathed and gone home.

We both agreed that this experience was absolutely awesome on every level and we’re really glad we did it.

From Fez we caught a train to Casablanca, but of of course catching the train turned out to be an adventure in itself of which I will explain in the next blog entry. Stay tuned!

The Winter-Shirey’s Come to Visit

During the last 2 weeks of May, Asa, Erin, and Jeff came to visit us and we had a fantastic time hanging around Piacenza and doing a bit of traveling.

Our big trip was down to Tuscany where we spent 3 nights in the countryside. Our apartment was in the tiny village of Gambassi Terme and it gave us great access to the Via Francigena which is the old pilgrimage route between France and Rome.

The route goes right through the wine country and has lots of nice hiking offshoots. We had a lot of fun exploring the trails, one of which turned into a huge adventure.

We took the Bob strollers on this hike thinking we’d be mostly on the dirt road. It started out by going up a mountain and straight back down the other side at which point we came to “The Decision.” The Decision involved us being at the very bottom of a canyon and deciding whether to turn around and go back up the steep LONG hill that we had just spent 30 minutes coming down or to continue on a path that kind of looked like a path that went straight up with a 75% grade. I mean it was straight up. We decided to continue onwards, but it took both parents to get the strollers up the hill. The moms pushed the Bobs and the dads pushed the moms. We got to the top after a lot of laughing and sweating and then our mouths dropped open because the so-called path completely disappeared. We looked down at a meadow borderded by forest and a river and with a big “what the hell” started down. Jeff Shirey went ahead to scout out a way and Erin and JJK slid down the rocky dirt until reaching the meadow.




Once in the forest we found a trail that crossed a stream. Erin and Jeff took off their shoes and Bobbed across while Jeff and I threw big rocks into the stream to create a bridge. Making it across we continued on only to find that the trail turned into a water-logged mud bath. Luckily Erin found a way around through the trees and we made it through with only a little mud. Of course we ended up at another stream-crossing at which point we made a another rock bridge and pushed the strollers across. At the other side, Jeff Shirey magically produced a bottle of wine and 4 cups from his backpack and we lounged at the stream with a glass of wine while the boys threw rocks into the water.


Once we connected up again with the Via Francigena we felt obbligated to stop at the closest winery to finish off our long hike with some wine-tasting. It was a fabulous ending to a fabulous day.

Other than the Tuscan countryside, the Winter-Shireys also saw Florence, Venice, the little town of Bobbio outside of Piacenza, and Parma. The Parma visit occurred around 5pm when we decided to simply head to the train station and catch the next train to Parma. It was a fun, spontaneous decision and we had a good time having an apertivo and picnic dinner in Parma. The only glich was that Noah became ill and ended up vomiting during the entire trip. This stomach flu brought him down for a number of days of endless vomiting, but the rest of us somehow managed to mostly avoid getting it. We all had a bit of something, but nothing getting even close to Noah’s full-blown sickness. We were super lucky considering this happened right at the beginning of their trip.

At home in Piacenza we had a lot of fun just hanging out. The boys enjoyed click-clacking around in their hot pink, plastic, high heels. The whole trip was absolutely fabulous with "BIG SMILES" all around.