33rd - 38th Stops: Casablanca, Rabat, Malaga, Valencia, Barcelona... and Nice!

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I would be flying back to Casablanca to drive my car back to Nice and spend a couple of weeks with my son. Well, now is the time! Let’s consider this a vacation, so I won’t go into too much detail. I would like to thank some people that helped me over the 3 weeks from Casablanca to Nice: Nezha, Cornelia, and Adnane in Morocco (great to see you two again, sorry I missed you Cornelia!), Andy from Malaga, Virginia from Madrid, Judith from JCI Tarragona, Jean-Luc who car-pooled with me from Perpignan to Nice, and Anaïs for hosting me.

Love this photo of Louis

JCI Tarragona

Knax at a hostel in Barcelona

Scouting mission for JCI European Conference in Tarragona

Andy hosted me in Malaga

Thanks Andy for the nice night out to the San Miguel Feria! Thanks Virginia for meeting up with me in Valencia! Thanks Judith for inviting us to lunch in Tarragona; looking forward to the JCI European Conference next year in Catalonia! Thanks Anaïs for hosting me!

Next stop: Kuala Lumpur!

19th Stop - Casablanca, part 2

On Thursday, we drove out past the Corniche for an afternoon at the beach. We got there kind of late and didn’t get as close to the water as we would have liked because all of the tables were taken. This actually was to our advantage. After an hour or so, the tide came in and surprised the hell out of everyone right up close to the water, washing away sandals, food, bottles and other beach goodies. In the end, we had some prime seafront property, until the tide rose even further and Nezha got trapped on a chair!

That night, I had invited my Moroccan colleagues for a meeting at the Scala Café to discuss corporate social responsibility. Thanks to Nezha, a JCI member from Tunisia, and Nezha’s friend Ichrak for coming. We listened to some great live Moroccan music while we spoke about CSR.

Time to get clean, time for a hammam. I worked on planning the next legs of my tour for most of the day, then went to the Pacha for a full body scrub and relaxing massage. I highly recommend the Pacha. Everyone was very friendly, it was clean, and parking was easy. Hammam’s are great, you go into the steam room for 15 minutes or so, then come out and someone scraps all of the dead skin off of your body using a coarse washing glove. Then a shower, followed by a relaxing massage with argan oil.

Last day in Morocco, we decided to take advantage of our Saturday to go on a hike in the Beskoura forest. After our walk, we picked up the business cards I had made. Thanks Nezha for helping find the right people to do this! If you’re in Casa and need some printing done, be sure to contact Mostafa Drissi from Imprimerie Dima Press (dimapress@gmail.com or 0654 142 184). We had just enough time to stop in at the high-tech piracy hub of Morocco called Derb Ghallef to get my phone flashed.

Well not really enough time. By the time we got back to Cornelia’s and I got my things together, there wasn’t any time for me to take the train to the airport so Cornelia dropped me off. Thanks again Cornelia, you’re a lifesaver.

On a side note, I didn’t manage to sell my car as planned. Too complicated without the registration papers and too expensive with the €6000 customs tax--three times the asking price for the car! So I left my car under surveillance in Casablanca and am actively looking for someone who would like to drive it back to Nice. If you are interested and want more details, please contact me!

Thanks again to Nezha and Cornelia for making me feel most welcome in Morocco and Cornelia for hosting me. A friend who asked to remain anonymous also donated $50 in Nezha’s name to buy 5 bednets and thank her for her hospitality. See you all in Osaka I hope!

Next stop: Cameroon!

17th Stop - Casablanca

I want to start out by reiterating what I said in a previous post about how welcome I felt in Morocco, and this is mostly thanks to two of the people I spent most of my time with there: Nezha and Cornelia. But before I tell you more about Nezha, Cornelia, and Casablanca, let me tell you about the drive from Rabat.

Moroccan GPS

I was just about to get on the highway when I saw a hitchhiker. I was getting sick and tired of driving all alone and not optimizing my carbon footprint so I decided to pick him up. Rachid was his name and he was on his way to Agadir to get his daughter and bring her back to Rabat for the summer holidays. We talked at length about the differences between Rabat and Casablanca, especially the restaurants since Rachid works as a waiter. As we got closer to Casablanca, I told him I had to go to the Institut Culturel Français in the center of town and asked him where he wanted me to drop him off. Then he offered me to use his phone so I could call Nezha to find out how to get to the Institut. He told me he would go with me to make sure I found it ok and not to worry about him. In the end, he also came with me to Metro to meet up with Nezha and then went on his merry way. Indeed, no worries, he asked the first person he came across for help and was on the road again.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Nezha is a member of JCI Casablanca with whom I had been in contact before arriving and who was helping me to coordinate my stay in Casa. She works in supply-chain management for Metro and has a great philosophy about work. If she no longer likes what she is doing, no longer has any passion for it, she quits and finds something that inspires her. Good for you Nezha; I think there would be a lot less depression in the world if everyone had your courage to face the fear of pain and the unknown that comes along with change.

Nezha and Cornelia

When Nezha got out of work, we headed over the the Scala Café by the port, not too far away from the Rex Café, made famous in the movie... be the first to name this movie and I’ll send you a post card. Cornelia joined us after she finished up work. Cornelia is originally from Switzerland but has been living and working for Novartis in different countries for several years now. Interestingly enough, I met her high school pen pal by sheer coincidence in a grouped Facebook message sent by a translator colleague of mine. Small world made smaller thanks to FB.

Optical illusion

After dinner, we went back to Cornelia’s apartment where I would be staying and had a drink on her “balcony of noise.” Now I know, every major city is noisy but Casa stands out among all others. Cornelia explained one reason why: the traffic lights are in front of the intersection and there are no small lights on the side of the traffic lights for the first line of cars. Basically, this means that you have to wait for the people two or three rows back to honk that the light has turned green and you can go! When you stop and listen attentively, you can hear an almost magical orchestra of honking throughout the entire city.

Nothing special about the training I did on Tuesday except that I was pleased to catch up with Magali, a colleague, client, and former trainee from France who came all the way to Morocco for the training (not really, she happened to be there and the timing was right). At the end of the day, I went to pay the €4 we owed for using the library and the person in charge said not too worry about it, it’s my lucky day. Indeed, my luck is on the up and up.

Casa to be continued... Coming up next, day trip to Marrakech!