Casablanca Day 1

MaryAnne and I had a nice weekend in Casablanca. Filled with interesting people and sights.
On Saturday we set out via First Class train for a 50 minute voyage to Casablanca. It's interesting that a First Class ticket is only $2.50 more. So we decided to splurge and treat ourselves to a reserved seat.
This trip also marked my very first hosteling experience. (Mom: you can relax, I'm alive! lol) The hostel in Casablanca is a cute little place at the edge of the Medina so it wasn't too hard to find.
The best part of staying in the hostel is meeting new people. We had two very diverse roommates. Linda a nurse from Australia on a couple month art infused trip to various parts of Africa and Europe. Our second roommate was Hib-be-ba who actually lived at the hostel and spoke zero English and a bit of French. By the end of our stay we gathered that she has 8 children and works 10-12 hours a day making carpets. The last day she showed us her portfolio which was complete with a letter on Royal stationary. I can't read Arabic but I imagine she is very good at what she does.
So back to the rain... By this point we were over being wet and cold. Like WAY OVER being wet and cold! Like any North American women we set out to find the mall! It is the largest in Africa so we needed to see it for ourselves. We ended up taking the scenic route (aka getting lost) on the tram and inadvertently breaking the law. Thankfully the people working at the tram were understanding and explained that we couldn't just walk across the tracks to change directions. Oh well, thankfully we are cute and looked confused so no harm done.
Once we arrived at the end of the line we had a 2 kilometer walk to the mall. It had stopped raining at this point so we were able to take a couple of pictures of the beach and enjoy the view. When we got to the mall I was like a kid on Christmas morning. I kept telling MaryAnne how happy I was. lol I think I was just so excited to be warm and surrounded by one of my favorite things. Shopping! I never expected to lay eyes on a Starbucks in Africa so I was overjoyed to see the mall had not one but TWO Starbucks. I do have some self control so I opted to get coffee from a local place instead. It was glorious though.. 16 full ounces of Cafe au Lait! None of these petite 8 ounce teasers!
Once caffeinated and dry we set out to explore. MaryAnne purchased a new coat and we made our way back to downtown.
We grabbed a quick meal at a cafe near the city center. One of the things I love about MaryAnne is that she's not afraid to stand up for herself. It didn't matter that the waiter didn't speak English. The waiter tried to keep an extra 10 dirham from the bill and when MaryAnne called him out on it. He brought over the menu, a calculator and 10 dirham on a tray. I'm not sure why he didn't just apologize for the "accident" and give her the money back. He added up the items on the calculator, proved himself wrong and handed the money back. Strange experience but it worked out in the end.