In Rabat, the way people get around is quite different than in Canada. Here are the major modes of transport:

1: petit taxis: These are small coloured taxis (blue in Rabat, red in Fes etc.) that go within the city limits. They only hold 3 passengers and the fare is determined by meter- similar to Canada. Petit taxis are notoriously crazy drivers and will often create their own lanes to try and get around traffic.

2: Grande Taxis: These are white old Mercedes which hold 6-7 people uncomfortably. Unlike blue taxis which you can hire to go anywhere, these ones leave from one specific ‘white taxi terminals’ to another, often in another town. These taxis will will only leave when completely full and are charged by the seat i.e. the cost for one seat from Rabat to another city is predetermined. They are often more expensive than blue taxis and aren’t often used.

3: Tram: The Rabat tram...

I know a bunch of friends from back home wanted me to talk about this in my blog, so this one’s for you.

Contrary to popular belief, alcohol is very much legal here in Morocco. The major difference, however, is that consumption is very covert. If you want to buy alcohol here, you have to know where to buy it. Most Moroccans either a: won’t know where to go or b: will know but won’t tell you. If one does manage to find a liquor store, there will be a large counter and all the major types of alcohol behind it (gin, vodka, whiskey, wine etc.). You have to tell the clerk what you want and he’ll bring it for you. The cost of alcohol is about on par with what you would pay in North America, making it grossly more expensive relative to the price of other things here. After purchasing, the clerk will wrap the bottles/cans in newspaper and will put it in a black bag. One is also expected to...

Coming to Morocco as a brown guy with a muslim name who has lived his whole life as a Canadian, I’ve had to confront and deal with a small identity crisis- that is how do I call myself.

In my family growing up and my muslim friends, I’ve always been called KKKhalid with a hard K sound and an A like when the dentist asks you to open your mouth wide- aaa. However this name has always been hard for the average Canadian person to pronounce so I altered/ it was altered by others as a child to Khaaalid (rhymes with salad) as most people in Canada know me. In fact, even when I think of myself, I see myself more as Khaaalid (rhyming with salad) than KKKhalid (as my family calls me). Just out of habit, I introduce myself as the former rather than the latter.

This has continued in Morocco where I subconsciously introduce myself as Khalid (salad) to people who are Muslim just because it’s how...

I was going to write a post about Orientation Week here and how it’s different from Canada, but most of that just fits into this post.

1: GINGER ALE: In Morocco, they say it takes about a month to get used to the food and spices. As such, your stomach becomes a battleground when you least expect it. What’s the best cure for a stomach ache (or just a refreshing drink on a hot/cold/any day) Ginger Ale.

2: Good Canadian Poutine: The reason this is on the list is because a bunch of us (mostly Canadians) went out to a pub and saw poutine on the menu and naturally got SUPER AMPED, and obviously ordered it. However it was the WORST poutine I’ve ever had. The gravy was sweet and only on the bottom and there was just melted cheese on top. And to make matters worse, my stomach became the worst battleground after it (see point 1)

3: Laundry Machines: Just like how we were promised a three...

As Sunday was the last ‘real’ day we had of holidays, my roommates and I decided to take a day trip to Casablanca. We hopped on the train at about 9am with our buddy Luigi, however both Hajo and Caleb were feeling very under the weather so the trip was a bit much for both of them. After accidentally sleeping through our stop, we got off at the edge of the city and had to pay a pretty large cab fare ($6 is a LOT for a cab in Morocco) to get to somewhere near the middle of the city.

We started our adventure at the Hassan II Mosque right on the ocean. It’s the third largest mosque in the world, after two in Saudi Arabia. After paying about $8 to get in, we had a nice tour of the insides. As a Muslim however, I thought it was exorbitant to have to pay to get into my own place of worship. It seemed like a scam to me, but I wasn’t willing to wait an hour and a half for prayer time to go in...

After a whole month of everyone else in Canada being back at university, and now starting midterms, I finally started school today. And what a day it was! Hajo, Caleb and I woke up early and left the house for what we assumed would be a 30 minute commute to the school. Oh boy were we wrong! The tram took closer to 50 minutes, and we showed up super late on our first day- really making a good impression.

The day started with breakfast, which almost everyone had finished already, but before we could finish, we were sent off to write an Arabic placement test. Now as three guys who speak a combined total of ten arabic words, taking a test entirely in arabic was horrendous. We all basically looked at the test then turned it in with just our names on it. We were then (thankfully) allowed to finish our breakfasts.

Afterwards, we were told we had to take an arabic oral test, which like the...

It’s the night before school starts and I’m so excited to finally begin. Tomorrow morning, the school is hosting a breakfast for us which will be good I hope. I’ll talk about this more after school begins. I want to update y'all on my first tour in Morocco

We left last Sunday from Rabat, amidst huge soccer protests and pouring rain, to the city of Fes in the Middle Atlas. After the train was delayed for a couple hours, we finally arrived that evening in Fes.

We checked into our (very nice) hotel with a swimming pool then went to wander around the city and have dinner.

The next day we went wandering around the medina. The Fes medina is the largest car-free zone in the world and is stunningly beautiful. Titus Burckhardt describes Fes when he says
“Nothing stirs the memory more than smells; nothing so effectively brings back the past. Here indeed was Fez: the scent of cedar wood and...

My blog has a lot of words so here’s a post of mostly pictures from Rabat!

This is the view from from the front of our flat overlooking the ocean

And this is the view from the back overlooking everyone else’s houses

The first Moroccan meal- a chicken sandwich and fries. Morocccan fast food seems to be grilled meats and bread most of the time.

This is the Chellah (pronounced shell-ah)- an set of ruins where we saw a jazz concert one evening. Such a phenomenal setting

The jazz concert

My two flatmates and I lost in the Kasbah des Oudaias (pronounces cas-baa day oo-da-ya), the oldest part of Rabat.

And then we found our way to this beautiful lookout over the ocean and the Bouregreg River

The End (till next time)

It’s been just over a week since I arrived in Morocco! Now that I have some bearings (some being the key word) I wanted to share some of the major differences between Canada and Morocco. I wanna give a shoutout to everyone who’s been in touch and who has asked “what’s Morocco like”. It seems like such a harmless and easy question to answer but it’s so incredibly difficult to try and summarize a whole country in just one word. This will be a long post, but I hope it helps answer this question.

The one word which best describes the difference is uniformity. In Canada, if you buy a pack of gum at any convenience shop, the price will be more or less the same. Walking down the street, we expect that the sidewalks to be more or less even. Even if you go across the country (except maybe Newfoundland or the North) you can expect people and cultures to be slightly different, but nothing drastic...

After almost 48 hours of travel on 3 different continents and 6 different airports, I have finally arrived in Rabat…. however without my luggage.

As many of you who are following my travels know (TL;DR Air France on strike, flights rerouted) instead of leaving at a civilized hour like 12:30, we ended up on a 6am flight… On United. When we got to the check in, the agent told us that while we were booked for the correct flight, we had booked through Delta so they could not check us in. However after much pleading with the travel agent and the gate agent, they finally let us on.

Everything was going great from there- long layover in Chicago, long layover in Amsterdam, long layover in Spain, bags arrived in Spain- however in Spain our luck turned Kate-ish (Kate is a friend of mine with the worst travel luck… Hi Kate) The flight to Casablanca from Madrid was delayed by 30 minutes and we...