This past weekend I traveled to the country of Morocco in Northern Africa. It was one of the most intersting places I have ever been. I started my trip in the city of Casablanca, which is a huge city with 6,000,000 individuals that drives the economy of Morocco. We visited the Hassan II Mosque (which is seen in the featured photo of this post), which is the 3rd largest mosque in the entire world. It holds 25,000 people at once and is regularly used for large group prayers.
We only stayed in Casablanca for one night, but it was quite interesting. Our taxi driver, Hamid, spoke a very small amount of English, which created a firm language barrier due to the fact that we didn’t understand Arabic. On our way back to the hotel we were staying at, Hamid told us that we should go to his house for dinner with his family that night. We awkwardly laughed as we were unsure if he was joking since we had only known him for an hour or so. He told us that he would pick us up at 7:30 from our hotel to take us to dinner since we had made reservations at a local restaurant.
At 7:30, he picked us up and we told him where to take us. In his broken English, he seemed to understand us. However, we ended up in an unfamiliar alley where he parked the car. I asked awkwardly, “Hamid, where are we?” “My house” he answered. My friend
and I looked at each other contemplating what to do, so we just followed him. Sure enough, we go upstairs and his wife had cooked up a classic Moroccan three course meal for us. The food was delicious, his home was beautiful, and he was incredibly hospitable. It was a very strange experience, but one that I will never forget.
DU Abroad 