Everybody Goes to Ricks

So, day 2 of this crazy adventure.

I awoke to the sound of honking. And not in the Rolling STones ‘Honky Tonk Women’ kind of way. But a rhythmic and pulsating orchestra of car horns reverberating through the district at 5am. Later, i would find out that this is the way many Morrocon’s start celebrations for a 3 day wedding. But, for now, it acted as my own Call to wake up explore the city of Casablanca.

After joining with part of the team yesterday, we focussed on two main things, looking at the Old Medina, and exploring the Mosque.

First, the Mosque.

It is apparently the 3rd biggest mosque in the world, and it is certainly one of the most imposing. It’s marble pinnacle sits on the coast stretching its reach across the city. While it is a beautiful building,I really struggled to connect with it. There could be a heap of reasons for this, but i think the biggest one for me was time. It is hard to describe how vast a space it is. It seems large enough when you approach from the outside, but inside it has walls that stretch to the heavens. Verticality is a very limited turn of phrase for such a space. And yet, even with such space, we were driven through in a hurried manner. If i was to have the time again, and the ability to do so, I would have loved to just sit in that space in silence. To sit in that vast echo chamber and just listen to the world around.

But hey, not everything is about me. That would be a horrible world to live in.

Following the Mosque, we started to meander to the Medina. It is a market, much like many others, with sprawling alleyways of hustlers and Hermes and Honky Tourist gifts. But, much like a lot of other things, it is the day to day. Getting completely lost in that space for a few hours, it was a delight to watch the world just go about its business. But look, that’s not what you want to hear about, nor what i want to write about.

I want to write about Ricks.

In between the mosque and the Medina, we found Rick’s Cafe, a tribute to that delightful cafe of charisma from my favourite film Casablanca. For those of you that are not aware, Casablanca is one of my favourite films. It is ingrained into my subconscious, and I probably could quote half the movie to you very easily. The film critic in me will tell you that I adore the cinematography, the brilliant use of lighting and the simplicity of the screenplay. But if we are being completely honest, it is probably because Humphrey Bogart is just the epitome of cool.

Inside, it was definitely inspired by the film, if inspiration is considered a loose term. Space is at a premium, and the light touches that reflect on the core staging of the film are overwhelmed by the quantity of people that tey try to facilitiate in such a small space. That said, i had a champagne cocktail, and could picture myself inserted into the classic little black and white film, listening to Sam play it for old times sake.

Today, i am in transit. I am sitting on the backseat of the bus typing this away onto my iPad, the heat of the sun warming the window on the bus. The world is passing by 80 KM/hr at a time, and I am enjoying every moment of it. The raucousness of the Medina, the quiet contemplation of the mosque and the unashamed tourist-bait. Much like the final scene of my favouarite film, Morocco, I think that is the beginning beautiful relationship.

Fade to black.