I [heart] Casablanca

Last night, me and my American friend Sophia decided to go to Casablanca. Just for the party. Actually, I texted her during the day proposing going to our favorite hot spot Yacout in Rabat and a few seconds later I got the message back saying that she was just in the middle of writing me an sms when she got mine. She also said she wanted to do something else than Yacout and a trip to Casa would be it. I went to her place around 8 PM and then after grabbing a takeaway from Mc Donald's (I love Big Macs!) we took the train from Rabat to Casa.

Our first place to go was Rick's Cafe. It's the cafe that was in the famous movie Casablanca. It's like le Grand Comptoir of Rabat. Posh, stylish, fancy and fabulous. A mix of French post-colonial and Moroccan atmospheres. I know the jazz singer from this cool place (she came for my birthday party 2 months ago) and we called her before to ask if we can get inside. She said to give her name at the door and we would have no problems with getting in. When I did that, the guys just shouted: "You are Kamil??? Welcome!!!" We entered and saw our fabulous singer inside. She was just about to start her performance so we talked for a bit and then sat at the bar. She was just great and we loved her. After singing she came over for a while and had a fun conversation with her. She is so cool. As I wrote in the previous post people here are so often so great. You can't imagine.

After a while she came back to her table and we decided to leave the place and go somewhere else with my other friends. We asked the bar-tender for the bill but he only said in French: "la chanteuse a demandé de payer votre facture" (the singer asked to pay your bill herself). We were speechless. It was not about the fact that we didn't have to pay but about the fact that a fabulous jazz singer in a magnificent place decided to do that for us. That was a wonderful start of the night.

Later, we met my friends and we went to a small pub where we continued drinking and danced for a bit. After that, we went to another place that I like to call "Miami of Morocco". It's Ain Diab (or another link here - in both cases pictures were taken last summer) in Casablanca - a district placed along the sea with a lot of restaurants, hotels, pubs, discos and cafes. We went to a night club with loud music where only rich Moroccans go. I normally wouldn't enjoy that kind of place very much but I was just drunk so I really didn't care that much. I had a lot of fun in fact.

This city last night was so much fun. It was a crazy and a spontaneous night and it was great because of being with the right people in the right places.

I love Casablanca (and Rabat as well). These are the only two cities that I will keep visiting over and over again once I leave Morocco for good.

la vie à Rabat

The most enjoyable part of my experience in Morocco is the social life - the dinners, the restaurants, the cafes, the people, the places, the music, the drinks and the theme parties (already attended - sexchange party, stripes&dots party, pimps&bitches party, pirates of the Oudaya party :). Later the Mawazzine Music Festival. Rabat has been such an exciting city recently (surprising but truth). I had a few places in Morocco in my mind that I would like to see before leaving but to be honest I think I'm done with the trips, sightseeing and travelling all over the country. I don't wanna leave Rabat (unless going to Casablanca). I honestly don't like being tourist too much but being an expat is just fabulous. I guess the fact that I want to live abroad (probably for good?) comes from the fact that I want to be a foreigner. I don't think I want to live in Poland because I'm not a foreigner there. I know it sounds crazy but it's just how I feel. My life in Poland had been so boring until I got to Morocco. The amount of cool people that I have met here since my arrival is greater than ever in my life before. I assume that people who leave their countries and go to live and work abroad must have something interesting inside and that's why it's so great to interact with them and be one of them! Obviously it's not always like this but definitely it's much easier to find a great person within a group of expats than within any other group that I have encountered.

People and life here are just unbelievable!

la soirée d'Europe de l'Est

Last weekend was very cool and the coolest part of it was Goran Bregović's concert in Rabat. It was so surreal to listen to the Balkan music being surrounded by the minarets and palm trees. It was such an exotic and intriguing mix. I liked it. It's even more interesting because I usually don't like concerts at all. I can never really feel the atmosphere and moreover I am not comfortable with crowds. That time was different and it was a big surprise for me.

The another exciting thing was the fact the Goran Bregović's songs are sung in Serbian but there are also Polish version sung by the Polish singer Kayah who released and album with Bregović in 1999. So at the same time during the concert me and my Polish guest (Kasia) versus my 2 Slovenian guests (Alenka and Mira) were singing the same song at the same time in Polish and Serbian. That was so cool.

Another Eastern European aspect of the night was the fact that my French neighbor Romain has a new flat mate. His name is Rachid and he's half Moroccan and half Russian. His soul is more Russian than Moroccan though as he admitted. He speaks Russian more fluently than Moroccan or French as he was brought up in Moscow. He understand some Polish and I understand some Russian. His English is not very good but he can express himself and understand a lot. Same with my French. I also know a lot of Arabic words (not enough to make a conversation though). This means that our conversation are led as a mix of 5 languages. It's so cool even though it's very confusing. When I turn to another person I usually start speaking in the wrong language. It's so funny.

Being surrounded by all the Eastern European aspects I have felt kind of nostalgic about the region where I come from. A small doze of the regional patriotism has been released. Now, I'm listening to some music from Russia, Poland or other countries in the region (or Jewish music as before the WW II there was a huge Jewish community in most of the countries of Eastern Europe). This part of the world has its unique atmosphere that I simply adore (even though each part of the world is unique in its own adorable way:). I kind of can't wait to spend two days in Krakow, Poland in late June. It's the most beautiful Polish city with an amazing atmosphere.

I have to admit that - l'Europe de l'Est me manque! (I miss Eastern Europe)

:P

Paris, Paris

After the previous post that was very very heavy in terms of content (but I'm happy about the discussion that followed it and hoping it will be continued) let's write about something much lighter.

I'm going to Paris in June!! - I will be there between Jun 8 and 12 meaning I will spend 4 days and 3 nights of wandering within the city, drinking wine over Seine, talking to my fabulous friends and having loads of fun! J'adore Paris!

Why am I going there? It's my last time when I have to leave Morocco and come back because of immigration policies. On Sunday, I was just lazily browsing the internet, looking for some cheap flights and thinking where I could go.
Madrid? no, I've already been there
Barcelona? no, no friends there
Milan? no, too expensive to get there
Brussels? no, I will move there soon for good
Paris? yes!! relatively cheap to get there and bunches of friends living there. I've been there two times in my life already but it's never enough when it comes to Paris.

I will also spend one night in Madrid with my friends on the way back to Casablanca so it's another advantage!

I so can't wait to go there! It's gonna be fabulous!

the world is not only black and white

I’ve just seen a photo in the album of my friend on Facebook. It’s a photo of her in Mc Donalds with a description: “we are in Mc Donalds, sorry Iraq and other countries that suffer by the interference of big multinationals”. Maybe she was just joking or just being sarcastic about Mc Donalds. I don’t know that. Nevertheless, I know that there are people who hate governments, big corporations etc I don’t agree. I think these people are narrow-minded and they don't see the broader perspective of certain issues. They see only negative sides and influences of in this case corporations.

I don’t want to list either negatives or positives here. I don’t think I have so much knowledge (and I believe neither do others but still they are very judgmental). The same with governments. Everyone that I know seems to hate George Bush and his decision about starting the war in Iraq. I know that the war in Iraq brought a lot of deaths and damages of innocent people. But I’m sure that there will be some positive effects of it as well and within a few years people in Iraq will have more peace.

People also like to demonstrate against what they don’t like. I will stick to the examples of corporations and governments. They like to show what they think about corporations or governments. E.g. Mc Donald produces junky, unhealthy food. In some countries, the corporation employs cheap work force and abuses the basic rights. I don’t say it’s a bullshit and I would stop such things from happening if I could. But why doesn’t anyone protest against small and middle-size entrepreneurs who also cheat their employees or evade paying taxes? Why doesn’t anyone protest against taxi drivers in Marrakesh who never turn on the meters and demand exorbitant prices for driving you a distance for which you would normally pay 3 times less? Why doesn’t anyone demonstrate against shop keepers who want to cheat me (and many others) seeing that I’m a tourist only because I don’t look like Moroccan. I guess that not only corporations want to make profits by stealing. People also like to demonstrate against governments. But why doesn’t anyone protest against the terrorist in Iraq who maybe killed more innocent people than the US Army? Why doesn’t anyone protest against Osama Bin Laden but only against George Bush?

To summarize: I don’t think that corporations are good or bad. They just exist. They bring us different products that we buy. They employ people but as well they abuse human dignity providing people with horrible working conditions and pay so little to them. I don’t think that war in Iraq was good or bad either. Many innocent people died but on the other hand a horrible dictator was overthrown. These are much more complicated issues and we can’t just put a label – good or bad. I prefer to see to both sides of an issue before I judge it.

The world is not only black or white. It has a lot of tones of gray.

Happy Birthday!

I missed it!! Three days ago, it celebrated its first anniversary. It is exactly one year old. What am I speaking about?

It is about my blog!
I started it on May 10, 2007!

Happy Birthday! :)

life goes on

I just have to say that I feel really proud of myself because of preventing a grouse guy in the bus from stealing my mobile from the pocket. Luckily and early enough to stop it, I felt his disgusting hand close to my body almost grabbing the phone. I was getting on the bus and he was getting off so afterwards I only pushed him out. He even didn't turn around. And I only wish I had used the deep knowledge of Arabic curse words that I posses.

Besides that everything (well, except my professional life) is going very fine. I hang out with great, funny, intelligent and interesting people, attend the fabulous and fancy parties in some posh places, drink wine or gin and tonic. Last Friday, I went for the pirates of the Oudayas party. It was more than awesome. And my French is getting closer and closer to the state of fluency (and surprisingly so is my English - it just shows who I hang out with).

Soon, I will receive bunch of friends from different parts of Europe. I make the most of my experience here!

...

Paris Latino

Voilà, il y a une chanson que j'adore tout simplement!
Je la connais depuis longtemps mais je viens de tomber amoureux d'elle. De plus, je l'aime parce qu'elle est chantée en trois langues: le français, l'anglais et l'espagnol. Par ailleurs, elle me donne beaucoup d'énergie. C'est ainsi que je l'écoute sans arrêt, ce qui rend mes colocataires folles !Amusez-vous bien!

Merci à Mourad de me corriger :)

Si youtube ne marche pas sur mon blog, suivez ce link-ci.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItxKVQz4_oQ

the desert trip

As some of you may already know I went on the desert trip. I won't write too much. It was awesome although I missed the city atmosphere a lot! I discovered that I don't necessarily feel great when I'm out of the city for too long (but this is a topic for another post).

I enjoyed the desert trip a lot and I even enjoy it more now once it's finished :) Having seen the pictures you will probably say that I'm really strange to be complaining after such a wonderful trip. Probably, you are right. But it's just me. I don't regret though. It was an interesting experience.

The trip started on Sunday at 7 AM in Marrakesh. That day, we drove until Zagora passing casbah Ain-Benhaddou and Ouarzazate (the Moroccan Hollywood where movies like Gladiator were filmed). We rode the camels and slept the first night in the desert tent. The next day we drove to Merzouga near Erfoud (just 20 km from the Algerian border) where we also rode camels and slept in an even more beautiful desert than the night before. The third day, we were heading back to Marrakesh and we spent the night in a hotel somewhere between Ouarzazate and Efroud. On the fourth day we were back in Marrakesh and I took the train back to Rabat.

I'm uploading here the map (with the route marked red line) and my four favorite pictures (there is me on each of them:) There is more of them at picasa of course. Amusez-vous bien!