Essaouira

Sorry again for the delays in posting - the first couple of days have been pretty busy at HEC. In any case, here's what I wrote about Essaouira:

Luckily, I was able to find a direct flight from Paris to Essaouira, Morocco on Royal Air Maroc. The flight went very well, although it wasn't very full and no one was sitting in first class. Being an American, the Moroccans said I had to see the doctor before I would be allowed to leave the Essaouira airport. However, this turned out to be a simple yes or no questionnaire about whether or not I had H1N1 flu or if I had been in contact with someone who had. Certainly nothing like China!

Essaouria is a smaller town on the western coast of Morocco. I chose it since I knew that I wanted to visit Marrakech (the second city I visited), and Essaouira isn't too far from there. I arrived at the place where I was staying, called the Riad de la Mer (Riad, which is used I think to describe a converted house into a place for people to stay, and de la Mer, which means of the ocean). It was very conveniently located, as there was a square nearby with a number of cafes.

As a town, Essaouira was pretty laid back, as no one really hassled you to buy anything. Other than to walk around the city area and see the ocean, there really weren't any 'sights' to see in the normal sense, which was ok with me as I have certainly seen many in the past 3 weeks. Rather, Morocco has some of the best people watching you can imagine.

Moroccans don't usually eat at restaurants much, so those are more or less just for tourists. There are two Moroccan specialties that you can find at almost any restaurant serving traditional food - tajine and couscous. Tajine is sort of like Moroccan pot roast, only it's served with different types of cooked fruit/vegetables and meat like beef, chicken, fish, etc. Couscous, I assume you know about, and the time I had it there were also some cooked onions and chicken on top of the couscous. These two entrees made up the bulk of the menus, so if you were looking for something different you more or less had to go to an Italian restaurant, for example.

Next up will be Marrakech and my exciting/terrifying trip to get there!