January 23, 2007

• Morocco – Day 9-10: Eid Celebrations

   

   

  Date: December 30     Location: Rabat     Weather: Warm and Sunny     Slept in ’til: 12

  After 3 days of going around Marrakesh, we returned to Rabat on the third night and took the next day to just sleep in and relax. Nothing of note went on today; we only made plans to celebrate Eid-al-Adha in Casablanca for the next day.

   

   

  Date: December 31     Location: Casablanca     Weather: Warm and Sunny     Sheep: 4

  Ah… Eid-al-Adha. The celebration at the end of the period for Hajj. I didn’t go into mentioning it, but this year my father went (and last year, if you recall, my mother went). This was only the second time we’d celebrated Eid-al-Adha in a Muslim country (the first time was in Bangladesh several years ago). The first luxury this afforded us was this cute little sheep to the right.

  We ate him. He was delicious.

  Usually, butchers this day are busy going house-to-house and slaughtering the sheep. And yeah, I did watch. I must admit, I was rather surprised at how clean and quick the process is (unlike the non-halal and non-kosher way of slaughtering animals, which is another thing altogether… but anyway).

  The entire family got together to eat outside as the meat was being grilled. This was around lunchtime (2-3PM).

  We had the rest of the day free. Since my mother and sister hadn’t yet seen the Hassan II mosque (which I saw the first day we arrived), we visited there. It was closed after morning prayers (I assume), but we still were able to get a closer look than I had time for the first time we were there.

  

  We also caught a glimpse of Rick’s Cafe Americain on the way back. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. But, I’ll have to save a visit to Rick’s for the next time I come.

  

  (Note: Rick’s Cafe is only a few years old; the design inside is supposed to be modeled after the Hollywood classic. Apparently, it’s nice, but nothing to devote an entire vacation too–not that I won’t try and visit the next time I’m able to go to Morocco.)

  And, that’s that. The following day we flew back to the United States and went our separate ways. I’ll make a post tomorrow to recap everything, and that will be that. KF

  • 7:49 pm
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