Layover in Lisbon

Alrica and I are in the midst of a week of travel. We left Morocco on a Wednesday. (At the present, in our past.) We will reach Albania the following Tuesday. (At the present, in our future.) And in between are the doors. (I'm paraphrasing someone else's quotation.)

We flew from Casablanca to Lisbon, Portugal. From Lisbon we flew to Bilbao, Spain. But in between were the doors. (No, I already did that.) In between, we had a 21 hour layover. What would you do if you had a 21 hour layover in Lisbon?

Naturally you would suck it up, stay in the airport the whole time, and play some sort of mindless match three game on whatever electronic device you had, wrestling fellow denizens of the terminal for outlets, and paying exorbitant prices for whatever food they would sell you in that transit trap. That's exactly what we did. End of blog post.

Wait! No, that wouldn't be worth posting about. That's not what we did, and I'm sure it wouldn't be your choice either. We did a quick, but eventful trip into the city.

Ah! Ah! My hand is cramping!

One awesome thing about Lisbon is that one of its metro lines runs right to the airport. So we took the metro into the city and had lunch at some street food carts. Then we headed into another part of the city to check into a hotel where we left our things and did some more exploration.

Monster art! Maybe a troll, as it was under a bridge?

Our big trip was to the aquarium in Lisbon, the Oceanário. It is a very impressive place with many species of plant and animal. They have the central aquarium around which is built several other exhibits. And you get to see the exhibits from the upper floor and the lower floor. In the outside exhibits, the upper floor is the surface of the water and the lower floor is under water. For the central aquarium, both levels are under the water. But your perspective on the inhabitants is very different.

And cue the theme from Jaws

We learned a lot about the plants and animals. We also appreciated the Oceanário's missions for conservation and rehabilitation.

Dough it costs to see this place. Ray, a fish with spread out wings.

Alrica had a meeting and I had classes to teach. This meant we didn't have as much time to just freely explore as we might have liked. Also with the time zone difference between where I was and where my students were, it meant a very late night. And we had to be up early the next morning to catch the flight to Bilbao.

No body shaming, especially for hydrants.

We had been to Lisbon before, when we traveled with Carver and Syarra years ago. That first time, it rained the entire visit. This time we had much nicer weather to enjoy the city. Lisbon is definitely a place I could see us visiting again.

Between Two Cities

I haven't posted in the blog in a while. I've gotten some grief about it, though not much grief. I only have about 14 regular readers, so not that many people noticed. The reason is that I have been doing some other writing of late.

I wrote a sock puppet parody that I hope may get performed. It's called Dye Hard: The Siege of Sockatomi Plaza. I bet you can guess what bloody movie is being parodied. That was actually a very challenging movie to write in sock puppet form. A lot of things happen in multiple locations, there are major effects like explosions and dangling from a fire hose. And how does one handle a major plot point that is being barefoot with sock puppets which literally don't have feet (but could cover them)? Hopefully my ideas will work. We'll see.

The other thing I have been working on is a book. It's Alrica's idea and I am cowriting it with her. A lot of people ask on various online forums questions pertaining how to live abroad. Alrica gives detailed answers on many subjects. So we are collecting them into a book that will hopefully help people who are interested in this lifestyle.

But that does mean I have neglected to give much of a report of our remaining time in Morocco. And tomorrow we leave Morocco, so I should get caught up.

Mural in Casablanca

We are living in Mohammedia, which is between two major cities: Casablanca and Rabat. Those two cities are about 70 minutes apart by train, not too far. So we took a trip to each of them, separately.

An escalator alternative at the mall

The Casablanca trip was partly necessity. Alrica needed new pants. One pair of hers had worn out, and there is plenty of shopping in Casablanca. We took a bus to Casa Port and then walked from there. You know what is in the shopping center we visited? Krispy Kreme. I don't think I expected that. You can't get Krispy Kreme in Minnesota, but you can in Morocco.

No, we didn't get any doughnuts

We also visited the Old City of Casablanca, the medina. It's not as cluttered and full as the Medina of Fes, but there are parts which still have some of that market atmosphere.

In the Old Medina

Overall, Casablanca feels like a big city, a New York City that happens to be in French and Arabic. It has neighborhoods with distinct character, much like New York. It has good public transportation, much like New York. It has a harbor on the Atlantic Ocean, much like New York.

I suppose a business with this name was inevitable

The Rabat trip was just for fun. And it was fun. There are some magnificent buildings in Rabat, some ancient and some not so ancient.

The Bab Oudayas of Rabat

Of particular interest is the Hassan Tower alongside the Mausoleum for Mohammed V. The Hassan tower was built in the late 12th century. It is in a plaza with many stone pillars. The whole area was meant to be a huge temple, but other than the tower, the rest never got finished. Had it been finished, it would have been the largest religious structure in the world (in the 12th century. Today we probably have megachurches in Texas that are bigger.)

View of the Tower and the Plaza

The Mausoleum was built in the mid-twentieth century. It incorporates a beautiful design and uses Moroccan techniques. The stone work inside the mausoleum is very detailed and must have taken a lot of artisans to create.

The former outer wall of the complex, the tower, and Alrica, to give you a sense of scale

The Mausoleum and the sun, which probably doesn't give you any sense of scale

We also visited the Mellah, the historic Jewish district. Today, there aren't really Jews left there. But during World War II, the king, Mohammed V (same one that the mausoleum was built to house) protected the Jews. He wouldn't let them be taken by the French Vichy government or the Germans. But since then, most Jews have emigrated elsewhere.

We headed into the medina of Rabat which has a larger market district than the one in Casablanca. It was a nice and easygoing day. And we saw plenty of other non-Moroccans, mostly Europeans.

I know that was a quick rundown of about a month. A lot is going to happen in the next week, so when the whirlwind ends, I will try to keep up on the goings on.