more moroccan adventures

What can I say? It's so awesome here.

I went to a "cultural dinner" last night. It was this Fantasia Folklore etcetera whatever something or other thing. (I signed up for a bunch of guided tours while I'm here since, I have no clue what else I would do by myself. Keep walking around the Medina spending money? Oh man...five days of that and even "good price for you" gets too pricy).

The dinner and show was great. The restaurant was....man, it was like Morocco Las Vegas or something. It's this huge palace, and you spend the first 15 minutes just walking through taking pictures and watching these dancers and drummers dance around. The dancers weren't like, totally authentic looking to me...some of them looked like they really hated their jobs (stood their picking their noses and swaying a little bit), which I thought was really funny.

I ate at a table with two girls from England, a couple from Scotland and Ireland, and a French married couple. The French man was sitting at the end of the table where the dancers would walk by, so every 10 min or so a train of dancers would come through and he'd always get picked on to dance with them. It got ridiculously funny after a while...he was a good sport. It was a four course meal. We started with soup. Then I was so excited when they brought out this HUGE rack of lamb for dinner. The guy set it down and walked away, and we waited for about 5 minutes for him to come back and start cutting it (he didn't leave a knife for us to cut it or anything). Then we realized that everyone else was starting to cut into it with their own utensils (butter knives and forks), which was a little gross for all of us westerners, but...what else were we going to do? We also had to serve up the cous cous with the spoons we had just eaten our soup with.

I have never had couscous before, and I made the mistake of asking the French lady next to me (who spoke English), "Do you know what this is called?" EVERYONE at the table looked up and answered me: "Couscous!" I knew we were having it that night but I didn't realize that was it when they set it down. I felt so American and uncultured.

Then we had the show. There was this big rodeo grounds-like area with stadium seating around it (this restaurant was seriously huge - it was like 15-20 restaurants linked together around this big stage). I had no idea what to expect. I think that's the best position you can take in Morocco, though. I've decided the catch phrase or motto for this country should be, "Who the hell knows what's going on?" (And who the hell really cares?)

First these riders came out and did a bunch of dangerous stunts on their ponies. Standing up in the saddle, hanging from the back, etc. One guy even ran alongside his horse, which I thought was quite impressive. The ponies (I think they were ponies) were very impressive. I noticed after a while that they were stepping in time with the music. I did not know it was possible to teach any animal to do that...then, later on, they seriously were dancing to the music. I'm not kidding - the rider would pull their reins and they would like, DANCE. I don't even know how to describe it. They danced better than I could.

It was all a bunch of random stuff that didn't connect into a story or have any sort of explanation whatsoever, hence the country motto. There was one point where the lights went totally black and Star Wars music (the Vader theme) came on and the horsemen came marching ominously down the field. I couldn't figure out why I was the only one trying not to die laughing at that. They had the whole cast of the production walk around the field several times to music, and they played more Star Wars music. The best part, though, was the belly dancer.

All in all, it was such a great night. I'm so glad I go to do it.

The only thing I didn't like was going back to my riad (that's what they call hostels here) by myself at night. I was hoping a taxi would pull right up to my derb (street) from my drop off point in the Medina, but apparently taxis can't drive through the Medina at night. So I walked through, which was cool and not too scary in the main square because there are still huge crowds of people and snake charmers and all that. Walking through the derbs, however, is pretty scary. There was a crowd of youngish men loitering around my corner, and as I walked down my narrow, walled-in derb I saw them all turn their heads (being a white female alone is something that definitely draws attention). I was a little panicked as I walked toward my hostel, hoping that it wouldn't take me very long to fiddle with the keys and get it open (and freaking out in my head anytime I saw a person walking by me), but right when I walked up to the door, the guy who runs the hostel was opening it to go out. Nice timing.

This morning I did a tour of some palaces and took pictures of the Moorish architecture. We got rained on, but it was nice.

I'm super tired and ready for a nap.