In the baggage claim area of Casablanca airport we came across our first cross-cultural experience – tens of people dressed in white. We were later told that given that Ramadan had just ended this was probably a group of pilgrims arriving home.

We acquire SIM cards at one kiosk and some Dirham at another, grab a “Big” cab to our hotel and zip along immaculately clean highways with perfectly trimmed trees, chatting in French with our driver who deposits us at the door of Le Doge where our room, at 7:45 a.m. is faaaaar from ready. But Mohammed, the young and nicely snarky receptionist says he’ll guard the bags while we walk around the city, which, because it’s day 1 after Ramadan and because it’s 7:45 in the morning is closed. We venture nonetheless, completely fooled by Google maps for the first 15 minutes but finally get our bearings and walk through a park by the L’Eglise de Sacre Coeur.

Four or five people on the streets but, slowly, the city does seem to come alive and after a bit we find a cafe that is open and have a petit dejeuner on tables outside. Across the street, a man with a cart sells cases of eggs to a woman who takes them into our cafe. The egg-seller moves on and a few other people take tea at tables near us.

We find our way to the Musee Fondation Abderrahmane Slaoui, check out the collection of posters and decorative boxes, and return to our hotel where snarky Mohammed says, because our assigned room was not ready when we arrived, that he would upgrade us for free to the best room in the hotel: the Jean Cocteau room with a private terrance. It is luscious, sumptuous, wonderful and we are served the wonderful Moroccan mint tea (our preference is “avec sucre”), poured into small glasses from a height of at least a foot — this seems a minimum required maneuver— above the glass. Cynthia pours over various maps and guide books and spreadsheets while David takes a power nap.

We had tried repeatedly to make dinner reservations at a particular restaurant but, even with snarky Mohammed’s determined calling, could not raise the post-Ramadan, deep-into-Eid restaurant, so he tells us that the restaurant on the roof of the hotel has great food and good cocktails. We book a table and take ourselves to the nearby park where two young guys, one in sneakers, the other barefoot, have strung a giant rubber band between two trees and are practicing high-wire walking forward and back. Turns seem a difficult endeavor. Groups of women, some families and several people strolling fill the park.

We go to the roof restaurant, which has no cocktails today but does have wine and delicious tapas. We order five dishes: prawns with garlic, calamari, burrata, salad and potatoes. The first tapas — the shrimp and burrata — arrive on plates the size of our largest serving pieces at home. The portions are HUGE. We get a bottle of Albariño and cancel as much of the rest of our order as possible because there’s no way we can eat all this food. It is all delicious and we do our best to waste nothing.

We return to our room as happy and content and tired as we can be. Day 1 has been interesting, educational, and wonderful. We are overjoyed to be in Morocco.