al-Rabat

Saturday night, Laura decided a good Sunday plan would be to take off for Rabat for the day. Two minutes later, she had talked me into not only tagging along but rather planning the trip. I nearly talked her out of it just as quickly when I told her she'd need to be ready by 8am, but after a moment's pout she resigned herself to waking at such an ungodly hour.

Surely enough, we caught a nearly empty train just before nine and arrived at our destination three hours later. It felt like we had changed continents rather than merely towns, for the wide boulevards and modern architecture looked more like LA than Fez. The ostensible purpose of this jaunt was a shopping trip, so we set off to a mall, curious as to what we'd find. Walking in the door, I entered a surreal sort of dreamworld of couture and gelatto, fancy shoes and a food court complete with a restaurant that claimed to serve mexican food, though I've never before been served a burrito with a side of cauliflower-green bean salad. This place even had an ice skating rink, so go figure.

After a thorough tour, Laura bought the makeup she'd dearly wanted and we decided to spend the afternoon closer to the waterfront. Sitting on the beach, she lamented her tennis shoes and long-sleeved shirt, which I simply dubbed "moroccan beach wear," as none of the other women wore anything more revealing. Nonetheless, she sprawled in the sand in her big sunglasses with my scarf wrapped 50's movie-star style over her head while I pulled out my book and ignored the boys behind us who had begun to catcall in French. At one point in an otherwise banal conversation, Laura inserted the non sequitur "Comparative hominid anatomy is actually one of those things that excites me for no reason," leaving me shaking my head and wondering how it is again that she can't manage to cook rice.

Eventually, we wandered back to the train station and bought sandwiches for the considerably more crowded ride home. Upon opening our planned picnic, however, we discovered that they had been garnished with the sickly-sweet goo that passes for ketchup here and that each had one whole pickle folded squarely in its center and pitted olives hiding throughout. Safely returned home, I got out the leftover pasta and we enjoyed a pleasant meal more befitting to an otherwise weirdly relaxing day.