Tangier Danger

So the past two days were our first full days in Morocco, and it's been a great experience so far. We started off yesterday by wandering around the Medina (the "old city"), and chilling at Cafe Central. There we read our books over some mean mint teas and shwarmas. Later we checked out the Ville Nouvelle (new city). We stopped into a nameless bar, that has to rank among the smallest bars in the world. It was packed from the bar to it's old-west style swinging doors with Moroccan alcoholics (mind you, it was early afternoon on a Monday). There we enjoyed some bottles of Stork and Flag (two Moroccan beers), and some surprisingly good free tapas. We made acquaintances with a man named Muhammed, who claims to have lived in America for twenty years and worked at the Moroccan Pavillion at EPCOT in Disney World. At EPCOT, being the celebrity hotspot it is, he met likes of Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and "Michael"(Jordan? Douglas? I'd guess Jacskon). Muhammad was a very nice and funny, albeit sad, guy. Later, after a siesta at the hotel, we walked around the city for a few hours. Before dinner we decided to stop back into the nameless bar for a drink before dinner. There we found Muhammad to still be sitting in the same spot he was in when we had left much earlier. After conversing with him again, we ventured out to look for a place to grab some dinner. We were struggling to find any place so I got some food from a street vendor. It turned out to be snails in some weird broth, which had a pretty interesting flavor. Luke did not try any because he was "frightened" that it might make his "tummy hurt." Most of the restaurants we wanted to go to were closed, so we kept looking. Eventually we got to Hamadi, a classic Middle Eastern tourist restaurant. The staff wore "traditional" Moroccan dress, there was live music, but on this day, no belly dancing. While this was all a bit odd, the food was excellent, we both had lamb tajine. Then we returned to our hotel for the night. This morning I was woken up by the first Call to Prayer, which was actually pretty cool, largely because I was able to fall back asleep. This morning, we went to two cafes. We ended up chilling and reading at the Cafe de Paris over mint tea and coffee after getting breakfast at the Cafe Giraldo. After that we did some more walking around, and turning down hustlers on the street, most of whom were offering us "hashish" or "chocolate" (which, I assume, isn't actually chocolate). We grabbed lunch at a fast food restaurant called Mix Max, where we had some shwarmas. Afterwards we went to some museums, first the American Legation Museum, which was really cool. It is the only American National Historic Landmark that isn't in the U.S. There we learned that Morocco was the first country to officially recognize United States of America as a country. Then we went to another museum that had some cool old photographs of Tangier. After a siesta back at the hotel, we went out to the Salon de Bleu, which has a great view overlooking much of the city, for some tea. Then we went to this nice Italian restaurant called Anna e Paolo, where we both had some pretty solid pasta. Luckily we were able to avoid any Lady and the Tramp style mishaps. Then we returned to the hotel for what is our last night in Tangier. Tangier is a very cool and unique place, with a bizarre combination of Spanish, French, and Moroccan cultures. It was a nice city in which to start our time in Morocco.

On a side note, Luke wanted me to let everyone know that he has just defeated Lt. Surge in Pokemon..

Much love,
Jack

To dino ({})