12.5: First Impressions: Morocco

In This Episode...

Carson and Nicole quickly recap things they've notice from their first glimpses of Morocco.

Show Notes:

Transcript:

[00:00:10] Carson: Hi there, neighbors. Welcome back to the Next Town Over. I'm Carson Costa, and I'm here with my co-host, Nicole Bennett.

[00:00:16] Nicole: Hi.

[00:00:17] Carson: Today we're bringing you a bonus episode with our first impressions of Marrakesh. First off, let's start with Customs and Passport Control. Which I thought it was pretty easy, all things considered. I mean, the line was quite long and it took forever to get through, but you could say that about anywhere.

[00:00:32] Nicole: Yeah. And thankfully the person in our line told us about the page we were supposed to go to on the Moroccan website to fill out ahead of time. I think that probably helped.

[00:00:42] Carson: Though I don't think they really used that. I mean, the only thing that they used it for was to mark down the address that we were gonna be at. But it was handy. It went pretty quick and they didn't ask us very many questions. So Nice.

[00:00:55] Nicole: Yeah, for the amount of people that were coming in, it went pretty quick.

[00:00:58] Carson: And then immediately after leaving the airport, we had a airport transfer and I just remember thinking "oh my God, I'm in Africa" because... it looks like Africa .

[00:01:11] Nicole: Yeah, it does. It felt very real. Yeah. I kept, I kept expecting it to just look like any other city I may have been to. And there are places in Marrakesh that do. However, driving around, walking around distinctly moroccan, distinctly african.

[00:01:27] Carson: And Marrakesh is known as the Red City and... it's very red. they're not joking.

[00:01:32] Nicole: No.

[00:01:33] Carson: It's all sort of on the red spectrum.

[00:01:35] Nicole: It's so pretty.

[00:01:36] Carson: Very pretty. And the other thing I noticed on that drive was the chaos . Oh my God. The number of near accidents we witnessed. I don't know how people drive here.

[00:01:48] Nicole: I don't know... I can't handle the stress.

[00:01:51] Carson: We were watching people across the street and the cars don't stop. For people crossing the street, you just both sort of go and don't hit each other.

[00:01:59] Nicole: Yeah. They slow down. You speed up and vice versa. You just kind of near miss.

[00:02:05] Carson: Or sometimes you'll go halfway across and then you'll stop in the middle and there's just cars whizzing by you on both sides and you're hanging out in the middle of the road and it's like, this is fine. Yeah. Then we had our first walk around the neighborhood. , which was interesting because, guys, we're in a residential neighborhood. We are very, very far from the tourist areas, so we stuck out like sore thumbs. I mean, cuz we are very, very pale. Yeah. Everyone was staring at us.

[00:02:32] Nicole: It wasn't subtle. It wasn't like, oh, huh. We thought people were gonna crash their cars because they were staring at us while driving.

[00:02:39] Carson: There's lots of motorcycles here. Yeah. And people are going by on the motorcycles with their heads turning back to look at us. And we're like, you're going to crash. Stop .

[00:02:47] Nicole: I mean, for the most part it just seems pretty curious. Mm-hmm. A lot of the kids are, you know, they'll walk up and they're just staring you down. Yeah. Cuz they're like, wow. A white person.

[00:02:58] Carson: They're like fascinated cuz they can tell that you're not from here. But they all say bonjour. And we got told Welcome to Morocco. I don't know how many times the first day. Yeah.

[00:03:07] Nicole: And that was very nice. And we do feel safe here.

[00:03:09] Carson: Yes, absolutely. There is quite a bit of flirting and cat calling and stuff on the streets, but honestly it's, for the most part, it's like the most respectful cat calling I've ever come across.

[00:03:22] Nicole: My favorite was being called white cheese.

[00:03:25] Carson: Okay. That one was just weird. I don't know what that was. Yeah, we're walking by and we hear, oh, ("fromage blanche") And we're like, "white cheese?" what?

[00:03:35] Nicole: And they weren't selling cheese, so they were just talking to us.

[00:03:37] Carson: Well they also were calling us spicy girls at the same spicy time.

[00:03:40] Nicole: Girls and white cheese, those are my favorites. Although we've been told stunning Your smile made my day. Oh my gosh. You're beautiful.

[00:03:47] Carson: Yeah. Just as we're walking by. Oh, your smile. My day is fulfilled now. It is the best thing that happened to me today where I was like, okay, thanks.

[00:03:55] Nicole: Yeah, some guy leaned over, like yelled in my face that I looked absolutely stunning. I was like, cool. You could have said that from two feet further away, but thank you.

[00:04:03] Carson: It's mostly stunning and beautiful. And you say, okay, thanks. And then walk away. And they don't follow you. Really. You just wanna randomly tell me that I'm gorgeous and then let me move on with my day? That's fine with me.

[00:04:14] Nicole: Yeah.

[00:04:15] Carson: The affordability here, I noticed. The first day we went and got veggies and we got this bag of veggies and all sorts of stuff for 80 cents

[00:04:25] Nicole: fresh vegetables from across the street and the guys are friendly. You can pick out your vegetables and then they're like, you know what? It's not quite enough here. We're gonna add some more things for you. Round it up to a dollar 80.

[00:04:36] Carson: We're like, what?

[00:04:38] Nicole: Sure. Okay. And at one time they gave me some tea to go along with my purchase. They just handed me a hot glass of tea and I stood nearby and drank it and enjoyed it and went on with my day. They were like, okay, cool. See you next time. Was it 85 degrees? Yes, yes it was. But I drank that piping hot tea. Not mug, not teacup. Glass.

[00:05:02] Carson: They're like, okay. All right.

[00:05:04] Nicole: It was great. It was very tasty. Yeah.

[00:05:05] Carson: The tea here, they really wanna push the tea on you. When I was paying for lunch today, they were like, do you want tea Moroccan mint tea? I was like, I, no, we're, we had our drinks. We're leaving Now. We're I'm good. And no tea. Tea. You want tea? And I was like, no, I really don't. . They're like, free. It's free. The tea is free. I was like, Okay. Thank you though.

[00:05:27] Nicole: It's very good.

[00:05:28] Carson: It's very good.

[00:05:28] Nicole: Yeah, it's just very hot. And when it's hot outside and hot

[00:05:31] Carson: I know. It's 90 degrees and they're offering me hot tea. I was like, that was the last thing I want.

[00:05:34] Nicole: I'm melting. No, thank you.

[00:05:36] Carson: The other thing that I noticed walking around the neighborhood is like the smells. You'll walk past somewhere where they're cooking something and it smells phenomenal and then you will move past that and you'll be standing next to a junkyard and it will smell awful.

[00:05:52] Nicole: You walk past a spice shop and it's divine six feet down, and it smells like just hot garbage

[00:05:58] Carson: because the garbage is everywhere. Except in the trash cans. Actually, no, it's in the trash cans too. It just,

[00:06:03] Nicole: it's spilling out and piling around?

[00:06:05] Carson: Yeah. Or there's that empty lot that I'm pretty sure they're just using as a landfill but I don't think that it was originally intended to be a landfill. I think that people just started tossing trash there.

[00:06:15] Nicole: Yeah, probably. Yeah. Or the winds take it and because it's a ravine, it catches.

[00:06:21] Carson: So yeah, the littering and trash here is kind of a problem. Yeah. But you know, it is what it is. And then you go to the Medina and... they're cooking all these fabulous things. Oh. And it just smells heavenly. But everywhere you go it smells. It's just, is it a good smell or a bad smell? Yeah.

[00:06:37] Nicole: and the majority of the time it's a pleasant smell. It's just when you're walking by mountains of trash and you're like, well, maybe I'll just hold my breath for the next six seconds.

[00:06:44] Carson: So then our first walk through the Medina. The selling is exactly as bad as you think it's gonna be.

[00:06:49] Nicole: They're very straight forward. Yeah. You can't stop to look at anything before they're on you and they're like, they're on you. Hi, do you wanna buy something? Do you want this? Do you want that? You want this?

[00:06:57] Carson: I have also gotten, I mean, I've always been like, oh, we're just looking. And they're like, that's fine. You come in, you look, it's free. Like you can just look. It's okay.

[00:07:05] Nicole: They're very pleasant. You just have to be direct with the Hey, I'm, I'm looking. I'll let you know. Keep an eye on your stuff. pick pocketing and all that.

[00:07:14] Carson: Yes. Which we haven't had any problems so far.

[00:07:17] Nicole: No. But it's very easy to, to do in those spaces

[00:07:19] Carson: because it is crammed full of people. So you really wanna keep a hand on your, your things.

[00:07:24] Nicole: Yeah. Everyone's yelling and you're distracted and you're trying to figure out your way through. And there are people brushing up against you in every way. Mm. So, yeah. I can understand why it's so easy to pick pocket in the Medina.

[00:07:35] Carson: And the other thing that I just want to touch on is the spices, because A, the variety is insane, and B, the way that they stack these things. Mm-hmm. , it's like there's a bowl and then two feet above the bowl is the top of the pile of spice. I don't know how they do that, but it seriously looks like it's defying laws of physics.

[00:07:55] Nicole: Yes. And it's so pretty.

[00:07:56] Carson: I have no idea how they scoop that stuff. Part of me wants to buy something just to see how they do that without toppling the entire thing.

[00:08:04] Nicole: Practice.

[00:08:05] Carson: Yeah. I'm sure it's practice.

[00:08:06] Nicole: But we do have a spice shop right around the corner. Yeah. And they're very nice and sweet and they, they know that we're staying nearby and so they're very patient. Yeah. And helpful.

[00:08:16] Carson: So those are our first observations about our time here in Marrakesh. Tune in to episode 17 on April 11th to hear all about our time in Morocco and everything we learned while here. All right, neighbors. Thanks for joining us today. If you heard something you liked, please support the show by hitting the subscribe button and reviewing us wherever you listen to podcasts. You can email us at nto@carsoncosta.com. Find us on Facebook @NTOPod or find us on Instagram @nexttownoverpodcast. We would love to hear from you. We'll be back on Tuesday to keep making your world a little smaller.