Nippy Nights and Frantic Feats of Footwork in Casablanca....

4:30
It's 10 degrees outside and only fractionally warmer in my room..... but I don't mind too much... ODD.

8:00
11 hours of Sleep?  WOW.

But NOW I definitely DO mind the cold in my room. Because as cute as those ancient balcony doors are, they are doing a MISERABLE job at keeping the 10 Celsius outside temperature OUTSIDE.

It's a strange thing...... Whatever it is:   This place (the hotel or the city or the culture) seems to be VERY conducive to writing..... Wrapped in my warmest clothes I'm sitting at my tiny cafe table in my freezing room and I'm belching out e-mails and blog sections.   Hemingway in Africa?

But by 10:00 my feet have turned into ICICLES and I decide that I will have to move if I can't get a space heater for this room......

Alas, they do NOT have electric HEATERS ...... I regret having to move....I REALLY LIKE the derelict colonial atmosphere of this hotel

..... and the amazing staff   .... SHAKRAM !

 ... and the view of the fishing boats......

.....but I'm not going to turn into an ICICLE in AFRICA !

11:15
Things just went COMPLETELY TOPSY TURVY !
The housekeeping lady brings me a SPACE HEATER!  WTF?
But I already reserved another hotel room.  And I can't cancel for free ! Merde!
So I run down to the receptionist.... I ask her to call the new hotel to BEG for free cancellation !  Because I REALLY want to stay HERE..... LOL

Hotel Casablanca REFUSES the Free Cancellation request..... I am SHOCKED .... AND I don't really want to stay in a hotel that does that.... I'd much rather stay in the place that I am in now because they are NICE !

But my principles are not strong enough to pay for 2 hotels at the same time ;-(

Half an hour walk with all my luggage.....

Canada in Morocco !

Even though they refused my cancellation request, the front desk staff asks me 5 times whether I REALLY have a reservation with them.

The receptionist gets out a huge bell with a handle and swings it.... I FINALLY understand WHY a bell boy is called a bell boy, LOL

The bell boy (the man is at least 35 years old, LOL) shows me my room.  NOTHING like the picture on Booking.com.  I refuse to take it.  I'm going to change rooms 2 more times after this before I finally keep the room. 

 Still not as comfortably bohemian as my barren room last night ;-(  And the room hasn't been cleaned yet.... but then I'm early.... so I wait in the lobby and put my disappointment to paper (eh, keyboard).

My room is READY.....
When I get in, they turned the A/C unit to HEATING mode at the maximum setting of 30 Celsius.  But WHERE is the remote? LOL.

15:30
Time to go out into the madness....

Of course, I get lost again following my GPS (it doesn't work well with high buildings around) and walk by the Royal Palace by accident ....

I guess that means STOP ....

 but my sense of direction works flawlessly because SOMEHOW I find myself in front of last night's liquor store, LOL. 

You can just TELL that the guy in red is about to buy booze, LOL

 Add another 3 km march to my walking tally for procuring wine.

18:00

20:00
I have the heating on Max in my room and it is bearable but the floor tiles are still cold..... Outside though it is COLD.   Desert climate ?

7:45
GOOD SLEEP.....  I sleep WELL in Africa !?! 

bird bath !

9:00
There is free breakfast, I should at least check it out, LOL.
The display looks impressive but as I expected of this hotel, the choices are abysmal.

 Bread, butter, jam, cold hard-boiled egg, olives, tomatoes, and some kind of soup.

But what I have seen of 12 year old girls, very old women, and even men in their 20s or 30s trying to sell Tempo hankies or cigarettes, or just plainly holding a metal bowl in front of them with their heads bowed, I am eating a lot better than a lot of Moroccans this morning.

9:45
My room key must have somehow demagnetized overnight because I can't get back in my room after breakfast..... the door lock doesn't even realize the key is there... no red light, no green light...








Then I discover a brand new USE for those STUPID NO-STEAL clothes hangers that cheap hotels use.....  







Those straight hook-less stubs are perfect to PUSH IN the cork of a wine bottle. 





Of course, I dislodge the top of my CHEAP work table as I push the clothes hanger into the bottle, LOL.










10:30
A knock on the door and the handle is already pushed down..... I open the door, and exclaim one of my French phrases learned in in St. Malo 2013 "Il n'est pas necessaire a nettoyer".......

12:00
It should be warm enough out there to go for my Long March today..... I SHOULD buy more wine and I MUST buy a train ticket.....

Then I walk through a street which can only be called EGG STREET.  In retrospect I curse myself for being too shy to ask the old man sitting in the street-facing open room on a chair surrounded by stacked egg-carton pallets whether I could take a picture.  
There is a line of parked trucks delivering.... you guessed it ... eggs.

The entire street consists of tiny houses with open fronts and each of the front rooms is packed with stacked egg cartons and a vendor.  But I have no idea where all those eggs will go to !

Cubism?

walk walk.... 
Booze store
walk walk
I'm glad I have a GPS phone with a map.  On the other hand, it would be very manageable with a good city street map as well IF one knows one's starting location, LOL.

There is a line-up to buy train tickets, but that dissolves or rather starts moving quickly once they actually put enough ticket vendors in the booths..... 

Now I want to get to Casa Port to eat some decent food at Casa Fish again..... (I can't live on salty pretzels and digestive chocolate cookies forever).....but that's 2.5 km walk and the local train does not leave for another 40 minutes... 
I start walking .... and I cross tram tracks!  Didn't I see them in another part of town already?  I have no idea where the tram goes but if I get the general direction right it should save me a lot of walking.  There is a young guy hanging out next to the ticket machine..... the instructions are also available in English but he still tries to help....probably his only source of income.....I get my tram ticket for 8 MAD and thank him with a handful of coins out of my 'beggar pocket'.  
The tram is already arriving so I skip swiping my ticket and run through the barrier-free path.

Trying to get out of the tram station, the turnstile doesn't let me OUT.... WTF?  
Of course, I SHOULD have swiped the ticket to get INTO the other station, LOL.

I make the mistake of walking through the gate.....
THAT is where the tourists go to shop.....
you get the idea!

I walk over to Hotel Central and sit down in the lobby to check my e-mail.  The receptionist is VERY happy to see me, LOL. And she is right.... we just get along extremely well.  One of those moments when I regret not being straight ;-(

Back in the restaurant across the square..... This time I'm getting the Seafood Paella .... and in the absence of wine... another Mint Tea.

A Paella for one person is an odd thing... but I guess they realized that there are lots of people staying in the hotel next door who travel by themselves.
It's HOT when it gets to my table and with the amount of fish in it is not overly overpriced at 40 MAD.  

Time to WALK (2.1 km) back to my present hotel.

18:00

5:00
It's a NIPPY 13 degrees out there in the wind for my first smoke..... I should have bought a Moroccan cap yesterday !

Oh, what's THAT?   More work.......

6:00
I love the internet..... I just discovered that a Carrefour (groceries) WITH a Label'Vie (booze section) is located right across the street from my hotel in the city I'm travelling to today ..... No more need to go for mile-long booze-procuring walks ;-)

Where to NOW?

a HINT:

Trying to make the train..
through clear Moroccan skies ..