Day 1: Casablanca




Traditional mint tea and pastries.

 

Tangines in a clay pot ... very typical Moroccan meal.



Karen, Mihoko, myself, and Rahal at the Sqala restaurant.  The salad sampler that we had as an appetizer was some of the best salads that I have ever eaten.



Entrance to Sqala restaurant.




Our first team dinner at Sqala restaurant.  It was a fun night!

 

Friday, February 24.   After sleeping for a couple of hours to try to shake off the jet lag, we met up with our team about 5:30 pm in the afternoon. It was great to finally put a name and a face with everyone we had been talking to for almost three months. It was a very 'sleepy' group since most had just arrived after travels as long as 27 hours. I think that Tracey from Australia set the record with the 27 hour commute. While we visited for the first time, we ordered mint tea which is an everyday delicacy in Morocco. I decided that my kids would love it since it has about three times the amount of sugar as a coke. :-) We affectionately termed it 'Moroccan Red Bull'. Even though most of our group was half awake, we decided that we wanted to go have a nice dinner in Casablanca since it was all of our first time here. We ended up eating at a beautiful restaurant named Sqala. It was near the Medina (middle of the city) and was by the water. It was also close to a beautifully lit up mosque called Hassan II Mosque. It is the largest mosque in the country and the 7th largest mosque in the world. We ate in open air small villas and the food was delicious. We ate in tangines which are clay pots with a lid that the food is served in. They are generally a mixture of some type of meat and vegetables and they were very good.

Tomorrow we have a meeting scheduled in the IBM office in Morocco where we will meet several of the IBM executives from the Morocco office. We will also be given a security debriefing. We then plan to travel to Rabat, check into our hotel, and possibly get a tour of the surrounding area. It's a beautiful sunny, crisp day in Casablanca and I'm looking forward to starting my adventure. :-)