Four Places in One Week

 Wow. Just wow. What a week this has been. As you know from my last post, we had to switch hostels because they overbooked. Let me take you through the journey of our sleeping quarters this past week, my friends:

Bed Square and a hotel that I cannot remember the name: Overbooked and no room at the Inn

You basically know the deal with this one. They often get overbooked by Hostelworld, "so thank you for booking with us, but you must leave." This new room: hard-as-heck beds and a bathroom smell that would make any garbage man (or woman) gag. We were jet-lagged, though, so no big deal.

Another hotel (and no, I don't remember this name either)

Was this a step up? Absolutely. Soft bed, lovely smelling bathroom. But wait--let me tell you about the music. Each night we stayed there, there was a beautiful (but loud) African band playing upstairs. I want you to imagine horse clattering and loud bellowing...for three hours. Sigh, no sleep here.

Workaway stay--free apartment in Casablanca!

Part of our mission this year is to use our services for good. What are our services, you ask? Well teaching, of course! So, we signed up for three weeks volunteering our English-speaking mouths for Moroccans learning English. Basically, we just need to chat with them a few times a day. It's lovely--at least for the one day we did it.

Harim, our lovely host, showed us our apartment right next to the school. What did it entail, you ask? Well, three mattresses, some suspect sheets, and two pillows. Oh, and a lot of dirt. Needless to say, we didn't sleep well last night. 

Thankfully, Harim thought we would be better off in El Jadida (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Jadida), so we packed our bags and left at 8:00 a.m. this morning to drive to this city. This drive only took 4 hours because Harim had to do some errands: new neon lights for his pool and some new steel gates for his farm. Sigh. Travel--a beautiful blend of seeing new sights, nostalgia, and waiting....endless waiting.

Another free apartment in El Jadida

We have arrived to a better living situation (see below picture), and with a little soap, some scrubbing, and some reorganization, we can see ourselves finally staying put for the next three weeks (we have tickets out to Senegal on the 20th of September).

Whew. What a week and so many lessons learned. It's as if we haven't traveled before and all the things we knew vanished from our jet-lagged and tired brains. We'll get there, though. Thankfully, El Jadida is a port city, so there is some familiarity--palm trees and ocean breeze. Oh, and it's sardine season...have mercy!