On the way to Casablanca

Yesterday I called my friend Pat Hames, just home from the UK. What’s jet travel like now, I inquired. Did you feel safe? Oh yes, said Pat, but it was hard dealing with all the papers. Today I know what she means. Our stack of papers is huge; each of us has twelve documents: one in Arabic with our itinerary in Morocco, one in Arabic that we can not read except for our names, one report of Saturday’s PCR Covid test, one vaccination record, and, of course, itineraries and boarding cards and passport. Each security station seems to want some combination of these, but not all of them, so we frequently rifle through our cache.

MASKS are imperative everywhere, and cloth masks do not suffice; they must be surgical grade. Our Air France JFK/Paris flight was less than half full, yet the stewardess swiftly admonished us to put those masks back on as soon as we stopped eating/drinking, and woke me up because my mask had slipped when I was asleep. All food on the planes and in the lounges comes in little plastic cases. Tables and chairs are washed down when vacated, and yes, we feel safe too, but always on the alert. That sense of joyous abandon at vacation time is not as strong as it used to be.

This is our first morning here in Casablanca, and it is not yet bright enough to take photos. So you will have to make do with the breakfast egg tagines and the chic Moroccan fashion displayed at the Four Seasons hotel shop. We are off to the mosque, the largest place of worship in the world, in a few minutes.

Hope and Bill