ATHENS TO THE AFRICAN SUB-CONTINENT OF MOROCCO

WEATHER: Athens cool at 4am / Istanbul Hot and 27C / Casablanca Hot and 29C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Bag passing check-in weight

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Leaving Europe, well for 2 weeks anyway

BUYS OF THE DAY: 1.50AUD for a mini beer in Casablanca

WORD OF THE DAY: Yowch my leg hurts

Good-bye to Europe today after 78 days it’s time to get some culture shock – I am off to the sub-continent of AFRICA.

It was an early start this morning.  Up at 3am and we had a taxi pick Kaitlin and I up at 4am!  I was still a little out of sorts with the drink-a-thon in Ios.  I seriously cannot think of another alcoholic drink at the moment, and I am pretty safe to say I am not expecting Morocco to have a lot of drinking.  Well I’m hoping not anyway.

Athens airport is a fair distance from the beach, and as we were super early travellers, there was an additional surcharge.  Lucky there was the 2 of us as the cost came to 54EUR, getting to the hotel 14 days ago was only 38EUR.  There were so many people still around at this time.  The clubs looked like they were still busy, the airport had most of it food outlets and shops open at 4.30am – it was still a jiving city for the time – do these people never sleep.

We got Kaitlin checked in – her flight left 35 minutes prior to mine.  My counter didn’t open till right on the 2 hour prior, so Kaitlin said she better get through security and that she would see me on the other side.  Little did we know she was leaving from a B gate and I was leaving from an A gate, so we didn’t get to say our final good-bye to each other.  I hate them anyway, so it could have been a blessing in disguise, and I mean that in the nicest way K.

I waited in line, with the compulsory smile, plopped my ‘I know now I am definitely overweight bag’ on the scales and I couldn’t believe my eyes when it came up 17.8kg!  Now I know that is wrong, straight up, and the bag was on the scales properly, but she just moved the bag along, tagged it and it was now on its way to the African Sub continent!  Woo Hoo.  It wasn’t a good pack last night.  I have nothing extra since my last flight, literally nothing except 3 magnets but it all just packed wrong and I was lucky to get zips done up.  Stuff it, I’ll fix it all when I get to Morocco – I am still so tired.

Athens Airport has free internet terminals throughout the airport which is pretty cool, and free Wi-Fi but you still have to pay 1EUR for the trolleys – go figure.  I went through security here, no dramas and my 1 hour 20 flight from Athens to Istanbul was uneventful.  I flew Turkish Airlines and even for such a short flight we got served a mini Greek salad, a roll and some crackers with cheese.  We literally only had around 20 minutes to eat it all before they were coming back around so they could get ready for landing.  It was a 737-800 aircraft 3x3 seats and they seemed roomy enough and plenty of baggage space.

My transfer time in Istanbul was 1hour and 10 minutes.  So not really that long and I knew that I couldn’t dilly dally.  Thank goodness my bag was checked all the way through, so it was just a matter of walking the 10km to get to the boarding pass security, to get you to the duty free and gates, to then get to baggage security, where I need to add my scissors were finally confiscated here.  So they made it through 13 airports and Istanbul got the better of them, damn it.  I was standing at this security check handing over my scissors, when I head a last boarding call for my flight!  Crap, I wasn’t that late, but the problem was it was a bus transfer to the plane, we weren’t leaving from a proper gate, so I had to haul arse to get all my stuff back in my bag and to the bus doors all full of apologies.  Well the bus ended up with way more people after me, they were just making the final call to get people moving.  Once we were driven to the plane and I boarded, it was still flippin empty and we sat there for another 40 minutes as the busses pulled up to drop people off, sneaky devils!

Once again I flew Turkish Airlines and they operate a larger aircraft an A340-300 with a seat configuration of 2x4x2 and the plane seemed fairly new.  It also has in seat TV’s with on demand movies and games etc….. This is the first time I have had this since my first flight 12 planes ago on Qantas leaving Australia.  This flight was 4 hours 20 minutes, and even with the TV I tried to sleep most of the way, but my leg was so sore and kept throbbing as well as my elbow, it was hard to get comfortable the whole flight.  I really am in a lot of pain.  It stings like hell.

We arrived into Casablanca 30 minutes late, and the customs line took forever.  I find that the Arabic countries seem to take forever; I remember in Dubai once it took nearly 2 hours to get through, they are in no rush.  I had a transfer pre-booked for here and when I came out of immigration I could not see my name anywhere.  So I scooted out, did 2 laps craning to see the signs and trying to work out what my game plan would be and this fellow tapped me on the shoulder and scared the bejesus out of me asking if I was Bernice Jamieson.  Thank-goodness – where the hell have you been?

Welcome to Casablanca!!!!  After walking out of the terminal we had to walk to the car that was literally 10 minutes away.  Thank-goodness Casablanca supply free trolleys and the sun was high in the sky and I rekon it was around 31C.  Cool – I am thinking I will still be able to get some sun and work on my tan for the next 14 days! 

The drive took around 30 minutes and our hotel was in downtown not too far from the beach.  I am not sure what I expected Casablanca to look like, it was a Sunday, so most of the shops were closed, but it looked dirty, run down and messy.  The buildings seem to be in some bad shape and it just didn’t seem to have a good vibe.   I am thinking I am glad I only have one night here.  The trouble also being it is an Arabic country, so there are definitely more men than women on the streets and especially in the cafes.  All the men sit outside smoking and drinking tea – Paris style with the seats facing front on the footpath.  60% of the population speaks French, Arabic is the official language and throw in some Berber, and you just don’t know what language to use when saying please and thank-you.  My Spanish has still stuck – so I I’m just throwing it out there and using that for a while.  Gracias and Si seem to be working out okay for me.

I turned back time coming into Morocco – 3 hours behind Greece, so winding back my watch and resetting my mobile, after I got to the hotel and used Wi-Fi to upload Ios pictures I decided to have a nana nap.  My room phone rang at 5.15pm (according to my watch) asking where I was as the arrival meeting had started!  I had set my clocks wrong and hadn’t wound them back enough – CRAP, so I grabbed my vouchers, passport and insurance details and rocked up to the meeting looking like I had just woken up – which I literally just had.  Great start Bernie J

We have a group of 10 plus our tour guide Issam.  As most tours, he ran through what to expect, what to pay for things, transport, taking pictures of people and things etc.  Beside tomorrow and the last journey into Marrakech we will have our own minivan so I will be able to store my winter stuff in the van and just hope it doesn’t get stolen.  So tomorrow, I am going to have the backpack, front pack, side bag and handbag to carry onto 2 trains and 2 stops.  I still look like an idiot, but I still need all my stuff.

So tomorrow we depart Casablanca for Meknes with half a day in Rabat.  Welcome to Morocco and the sub-continent of Africa.