Thoughts on Morocco: Part Three

First off I want to apologize, got my timeline messed up. A special thank you to Professor Angry for correcting my mistake. We went shopping for rugs on Monday so that story will be in Part Four not in Part Three. And now part three of my thoughts on Morocco.

So Sunday we woke up pretty early to get breakfast which for me consisted of a hard boiled egg and two croissants, orange juice and a cup of coffee, (this was to be my breakfast for the next 6 days). Omar was on time.

Omar being the gentleman that he is gets us into a cab and it's off to the medina. First we did some site seeing at a sultan's palace. Which was packed with tourists from all over. I don't remember the sultan's name but from what I gather he had a lot of wives and slaves buried in his garden. From there we went to another palace that was just beautiful. I got some great shots of the interior. I can't do that place justice with my words so I won't try. After we took in some of the historical sites we were off to the medina.

The medina is one big market place in where you can see live snake charmers, acrobats and monkeys. The place is WILD and freaking hot (but it's a dry heat). Omar takes us into the serpentine alleys, on our way to the carpet store we are approached by beggars and merchants selling their wears. Omar acts as buffer between us and the beggars so we don't get our pockets picked.

While walking through the durbs we managed to stop in a nice antique store. There was so much jewelry Professor Angry couldn't stand it. Hell I even was blown away by some of the pieces in that store. Professor Angry took great pleasure in trying on some nice necklaces and I was on a quest for a nice lion ring and some jewelry for my mom. After trying on about six different necklaces Professor Angry asked me to call on Omar to negotiate the price. In Morocco if you buy something the merchant will always give you what he calls a "good price" but that doesn't mean you have to accept it. Rule one of shopping in Morocco: Every thing can be negotiated in the medina. So Omar and the merchant go back and forth and finally come to a price both can agree on, Omar shows then shows the piece of paper with the price on it to Professor Angry, it's too rich for her blood so we move on. We move on down antique alley to another store that is more elaborate than the one we just left. The place looked like a museum. The manager knows Omar so it's cool to look around, I notice how he has a wall of fame that includes people like: Michael Keaton, David Bowie, Bill Clinton, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. I'll admit it I was impressed.

After moving on from that store we walk down further. To our left we see a nice candle holder shop. The inside of the shop looked like something right out of New York's Greenwich Village (funny how familiar surroundings can make you feel comfortable huh?). Very nice stuff all around and all the art work was done by the guy and his partner running the place, I know this to be true because I actually saw him doing work while I was there. He had some interesting stuff. Professor Angry was also very impressed with his wears. At one point I decide I'm going to buy something. Fellow blogger NominalMe asked me to get him something so I figured now was as good a time as any to get him his gift being that he was one of the few people that wanted something from Morocco. We sit down and we look over the candle holders the nice young guy makes us some tea and gives us some bottled water (in most stores they will serve their customers Moroccan tea). So we chill out and hang for a few.

Professor Angry is just chatting up a storm about the many different lamps he has for sale and begins to start wondering if she can purchase a lizard lamp that is on the wall behind me. Thank goodness she didn't end up buying that thing because there was no way were going to be able to bring that on the plane with us. While Prof. Angry is chatting I start to look around and I notice a blank octagon looking candle holder. It's simple and very sturdy and it is a blank. I decide that in addition to the two candle holders I'm going to buy this octagon looking one and have the artist put some designs on it, of course Professor Angry sees what I'm doing and decides she's going to bite my style and asks if the artist can do one for her. So once again we have Omar negotiate the price and we make arrangements to come back and get the finished product by Wednesday. And so we moved on further down and got lunch. The place Omar took us to was a very basic looking Moroccan dinner. But don't be fooled by appearances just cause the place looked basic doesn't mean the food was. The food was GREAT. During our meal we bonded with Omar as he asked us about Harlem, and race in America. He found it to be very unfair in the way black people are portrayed in the media. We agreed that is was very unfair and explained to him that black people have limited control in how they are perceived in the media. Omar told us about how he went to NY and people warned him about Harlem but when he finally went up there he didn't see much to worry about. Funny how people lie huh?

After our meal we went back to the hotel for a nap. That night we went out to another nice restaurant and ate a wonderful meal. We got to bed pretty early for tomorrow we shop for Kilim (rugs).