Friday, February 6, 2009

casablanca and points beyond...




Starting this entry at 9:30pm ship time (6 hours ahead of Central time, 7 hours ahead of Mountain time, 8 hours ahead of Pacific), our position is:
Latitude: 27 degrees, 52.77 N
Longitude: 13 degrees 51.13 W
Course: 218 degrees
We passed the Canary Islands a couple of hours ago and got these photos. It was spectacular!

Our stay in Casablanca was very memorable. Many on the ship took trips to other places, including Marrakech, Berber villages in the High Atlas Mountains, Ourika Valley and Rabat, and hearing their stories when they returned was lots of fun. Since we had arrived a day late, our city orientation tour was moved to Wednesday, and many of those who had planned to participate had conflicts with overnight trips. Nonetheless, we went on a bus with a group of 24 and had a wonderful guide, a Muslim woman named Naima.
Naima explained there were four quarters in the city and proceeded to show us all of them. We drove around the French quarter first, where one can easily see in the buildings the influence of the days of French colonization. The administration quarter contains a beautiful city hall building that has tiles in the colors of Islam and beautiful stucco carving. The royal quarter has a palace for the use of current King Mohammed VI and his family when they are in Casablanca (the main palace is in nearby Rabat). And the old city is just that -- the original parts of the city that are close to the port. The port itself is huge -- John and I attempted to walk into the city from the ship when we first arrived, and it was an experience that we could have done without!
Naima talked about many Muslim traditions as the bus was taking us to see the grand Mosque Hassan II. The Mosque was magnificent and is able to accommodate 25,000 people on the inside and 80,000 on the plaza around the outside. It took only 6 years to build and was completed in 1993. (John and I were noting that it seems to have taken much longer than 6 years to extend the LRT in Calgary -- maybe we should suggest to the mayor where he might get some advice...) There is still work being done in the area on further buildings that will accommodate libraries. Two thirds of the Mosque has been built over the sea -- it is quite a sight!
And who could come to Casablanca and not see Rick's Cafe Americain? Of course, the scenes at Rick's in the movie were not filmed anywhere near Casablanca, but there is a restaurant here run by an American woman. (I understand there is one in Cape Town as well.) The website is http://www.rickscafe.ma/. Bob Balsley, one of our fellow travellers, is a jazz guitarist and had a gig there on Thursday afternoon. He said that in the evenings the owner will only allow a piano player, but she is a bit more flexible at lunchtime as long as the musician sticks to 40's music. So we enjoyed Bob's music and had a great chicken curry while sampling a local beer.
After our lunch at Rick's we had an unforgettable cab ride -- a really nice cab driver who asked if John was a teacher and asked him to "read my mind" when he learned John was a psychologist. We discussed the traffic, which is as bad as any I have ever seen in any European city. John commented that the lane markers seemed to be "suggestions" to the drivers. Our cab driver laughed and said that the reason it works is because everyone thinks alike. He pointed to the driver in front of us who had a right turn signal on. He said, "Look, he is signaling that he will go right, but he will go left." And sure enough...
We left Casablanca last night, and just as when we came into the port, we had to leave with the stabilizers up. This time the captain warned us twice that the ship would be rolling, that everything should be packed away, and that it was best to be seated during this time. We had been watching strong waves all afternoon. The rolling of the ship was frightening this time. I heard things falling and people shouting, but we fared pretty well -- our table fell over and we had a stack of books that fell (I really thought they were secure, but the table had been part of my plan). I heard an announcement "Code Blue in 5020" and recognized that as the room next to ours, so opened the door to learn that the fellow in the next room had hit his head and required stitches. We lost part of the power in our room for a time, and it was apparently related to the damage in his room. I learned this morning that a friend down the hall was thrown across her room with the chair in which she was sitting landing on top of her. Then the tv broke loose and flew over her and the chair and hit the door. Fortunately she escaped major injury. We heard other stories this morning of minor injuries and tv's and in some cases the small refrigerators breaking loose. The amazing thing -- John slept through the whole thing!
We did finally get through the worst of it, although it was rocky all night. We were all glad to see daylight today. Things are much calmer now. We are now headed for Dakar where we will refuel and not get off the ship, similar to our Gibraltar stop. Monday should be Neptune Day, when we cross the equator. We've heard there will be lots happening that day -- and no classes!

Monday, February 2, 2009

in casablanca!

When I got up this morning at 6:00 to go to the gym, I looked out and saw that we were bunkered -- the refueling ship had arrived and looked like it was successfully connecting to the ship. Waters were much calmer and by 10:00 we were on our way. Seas did not stay calm and we had a very rough ride. John and I spent most of the day in our cabin, resting and reading.

Arriving in Casablanca the captain announced that the stablizers would have to be raised in order to come into port, but that there were swells of 5 meters so we could expect some rocking. He advised us to tie down anything that wasn't already. He wasn't kidding. We did survive and are now docked in Casablanca, although no one will leave the ship now until morning.

One of the programs on the ship is "extended family". Some of the students like to have contact with the more adult travellers on a regular basis, and John and I volunteered to be part of this program. The idea is to be in contact during port activities, birthdays, occasional "family" dinners, and so on. We have now been notified that we have an extended family of four students, none of whom we have met. I will be contacting them by e-mail tonight to try to arrange our first meeting. Should be fun!

It is nice to hear from everyone who is responding. I haven't figured out how to respond to you -- maybe just by posting a comment myself, but we have been trying to keep up by e-mail. For those who post -- nothing gets posted until we moderate and post when we log on. So when you save your comment it might not be published for a couple of days, depending on our access to Internet. And for anyone wanting photos -- I will try to sort through and post a group in a day or two.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

leaving spain and refueling in gibraltar

Latitude: 36 degrees 8.8 N; Longitude: 5 degrees 22.6 W

We had a great time during our last two days in Spain. I had been battling a bad cold for several days and finally felt some relief, so we were able to spend more time walking in the city. We
found a Burger King and a MacDonalds, and walked by them shaking our heads, but I must admit we gave in to the Ben and Jerry's! Other than that, we sampled the local cuisine and tried out our limited Spanish. People in Cadiz are friendly and tolerant.

The guide on John's trip the first day had shown his group the city market so John and I went back there. It was full of beautiful fresh seafood and fish, meat and poultry, breads, and very colorful fruits and vegetables. It was too bad we had been told not to bring anything but sealed packages back to the ship -- we had to leave those wonderful cherries behind!

One thing we had read about and decided we wanted to visit was the Torre Tavira (Tavira Tower). This is one of several towers in Cadiz attached to houses and used in the 18th century for business families in the city to look out to the harbor and see the merchant ships arriving. In this way they knew when the items they are expecting were arriving. The towers are often named for the people that owned or operated them. The Torre Tavira was part of the palace of the Marquis of Recano and was named after its first watchman, Antonio Tavira. In 1778 it was named the official watchtower for the town because it was the highest lookout point.

The Torre Tavira also contains a camera obscura and being at the top is a bit like being inside a camera. Through a system of magnifying lenses and a mirror projecting on a screen that is a large horizontal bowl, various parts of the city can be seen and focused by moving the bowl up and down. It was fascinating and I'm happy we were able to locate the tower and get in to see it.
Our last day in Cadiz we took a bus tour that allowed us to see some beautiful beaches and gardens. This is something that would have been better to do at the beginning and I think we would have if I had been feeling better. We learned there are some sections of the city that are quite new and that the gardens are very beautiful.

On-ship time was 1800 yesterday, meaning that everyone had to be on board by 6 pm. If any passenger is late, he or she receives "dock time" at the next stop. (My junior high teaching background brings to mind detentions!) This applies to every single person: students, faculty, staff, family members, deans, everyone. For every 15 minutes late, the violator receives 1 hour of dock time where he or she must remain on the ship, missing any activities or planned trips. It's quite an incentive! There were no latecomers yesterday.

We left Cadiz last night at 2000 (8 pm) and headed for Gibraltar for refueling. Weather was very rough and about an hour after departing some cups and water bottles we had on the shelf hit the floor with an enormous clatter when the ship rolled sharply starboard. John slept right through it, but I was up for a couple of hours after that happened. We have been warned to pack everything away tonight, and after having seen all the ships plants, trash bins, tables, chairs and assorted odds and ends tied to the walls during the day today, you can be sure we have followed our cabin steward's suggestions! The sea was too rough today for refueling. A ship was dispatched to us for that purpose, but after about three hours of attempting to assemble the necessary plumbing, everyone gave up and we are now anchored for the night off the coast of Gibraltar. Another attempt will be made tomorrow. Since we were to arrive tomorrow morning in Casablanca, we are now behind schedule. The Field Office staff are working overtime tonight to try to reschedule the trips that were to take place tomorrow. John and I had a city orientation tour planned, but that will probably be fairly easy to do on Tuesday. Others who were travelling longer distances will have more difficulty. More about Casablanca can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca for those interested in looking.

We had a presentation this morning on Morocco from an American who has been living there for the last 20 years and learned a lot about the country, its history, and its relationship with the US. I did not know that the Normandy invasion was planned in Casablanca.
Tonight we had our logistical pre-port to talk about getting on and off the ship, documents required, health and safety issues in Morocco and so on. Staff have worked hard to make these sessions appealing, humorous and interesting for the students, and I think everyone pays attention as a result.

If the weather calms down tonight we will be on our way and will probably get to Casablanca by tomorrow evening. Stay tuned -- I'll let you know!