First Night In Rabat

We left the station in Rabat and decided to go to the Splendida Hotel mentioned in the Routard guide.  It is close to the station so we didn't want a cab.  I guess a lot of hotels must be close because it was the first city we entered without being hounded by taxi drivers looking to sell an off-meter fixed ride price.

As we headed to the hotel, I was admiring the relative cleanliness and relative modernity of Rabat.  It was actually very nice.  And it wasn't hot--though we still were from our trip.  We made it the 4 or 5 blocks to the Splendida.  Elena feared there wouldn't be any rooms given our track record with our first choice hotels, but she was relieved that there were and we wouldn't have to lug our stuff in our hot and sweaty state.  We got a nice room for 191 dh.  It is without a bathroom, but we only share with one other room--but it does have a shower.

And the shower was the first thing we used.  Wow!  It was nice to be clean.  Actually there is not a way to mount the shower head so you need to hold it and that's hard because the water pressure is deliciously high.  I felt like I was power washing the salt and sweat off me.  It was so nice.

After our shower, we went out to Mix Grill for food.  I got a panini with fries.  I don't know why I ordered fries.  The fries in Morocco suck.  They are really potato oil sticks.  They are fried too cool--not 325°-375°.  And in Morocco, the ketchup bottle at the table is always greasy and grossly disgusting.  But Mix Grill was different!  The fries were properly done and delicious and the ketchup bottle was squeaky clean.  Elena had a nice chicken tajine.  The total was 88 dh for 2 8 dh waters, a 32 dh panini, and a 40 dh tajine.

After that, we headed to the Goethe Institute because they have a bar called the Weimar Cafe.  I had a large beer on tap (50 dh), Elena had a tea (8 dh), and we shared a chocolate mousse with malted milk balls on top (25 dh).  There were lots of foreigners there--expats I presume.  Most of the tables were reserved.  I'm not sure if they had some event or if it's just hard to get a table there.  It was only a Tuesday.

There seem to be a lot of expats here.  The foreigners I see have that expat air rather than the tourist air.