Asilah, also know as the best weekend trip

Last weekend we headed up the coast towards Tanger until we met the city of Tanger, (and when I say we, I mean Sam, Anna, Shanna, Frenchy aka Justin, Libby and I.) We were all supposed to meet at the train station for the 8:30ish train of course when there are 6 people coming from several locations it is rather difficult to show up places on time. Shanna and I were the first to show, we waited about 15 minutes and Frenchy showed and he proceeded to buy tickets for himself, Libby and Sam who all showed up just as the train was supposed to leave. Shanna and I were still waiting around for Anna. We finally got a hold of her and she told us she was probably going to make it so we ran down to buy tickets. As it turns out Anna miscalculated the amount of time it was going to take her and she showed up a couple minutes after the train was scheduled to depart.

Luckly, we were in Morocco so nothing ever happens when the schedule says it will and the train was about 30 minutes late. We all got on and took off to the beach. It was about a 3 hour train ride and when we arrived it was just about 12:00. We walked around Asilah a bit before finding a place to eat lunch. During which, it turned out that my math major might have been helpful after all. We were given the bill and it was for considerably more than we had ordered. A bit of quick math showed that for some unknown reason our waiter had just added about 150 (almost $20) to our bill. An argument was started which after about 10 minutes we won and we were on our merry way having avoided another white tax.

We looked through a guide book to find a cheap hotel for all of us. After finding one close by we walked over to it only to find that the hotel was closed for the season. However, next door there was another hotel. It was rather nice and when we walked in the owner told us that each room was 450 Dirham. Sam, using her amazing dareja skills, was able to talk the guy down to 350. That meant that we each spent 175 for the hotel for the night. After dropping off all of our stuff we took off to the beach and played in the water and sand. We stuck around long enough to watch the sunset over the Atlantic ocean, a first for me.

After, we headed back to the hotel to get ready to eat. When we got there we explored the hotel a bit more and discovered a beautiful roof to sit on. Instead of going out, a couple of us went down the street and bought 5 bottles of wine and a good amount of bread, cheese and avocado. The wine cost 250 Dirham while the food for all six of us cost 80 Dirham. Needless to say it was an excellent night.

The next day we walked around the old city and stared at all of the beautiful artwork that is apparently commonplace around the city, unfortunately I forgot my camera so ya'll don't get to see the amazingness of Asilah until someone sends me some pictures.