Since our plane got in in the morning and our group didn’t gather until dinner, our daughter and I were left to spend the day on our own in Casablanca. So we signed up for a food tour, at lunch their time, even though for where we came from, it wasn’t even breakfast time yet.

We first dropped our luggage off at the hotel, and then went to the old market to meet our food guide. We sampled olives, and learned that the different colors do not represent different varieties, but instead, different levels of ripeness of the same olive. I ate three enormous raw oysters, and we tried the street crepes. The peppermint tea was impossibly sweet; we couldn’t drink it. We chose squid, sea bass, shrimp, and sole from the fish monger, and walked around while it was prepared for us.

We learned that tangerines came from neighboring Tangier, hence their name (had you figured that out? It seems obvious once you know). Also Casablanca was not the original name for this town; it was called Anfa until it was destroyed by the earthquake in 1755. Eventually, the colonizing French used the Spanish term for “white house” for the place because of the white architecture the used during the town’s rebuild. Casablanca is the business center for all of Africa.

After a huge feast, we were taken to a juice bar for fresh squeezed juice, before returning to our hotel to check out the view of the town from the roof of our hotel, as sunset came on.  Then we met our guide and two other of our traveling partners (the other two the next morning) and we went out to dinner. I had fish tagine with sea bream, and we learned that a typical dessert is oranges with cinnamon, which is surprisingly good.

Our adventure has begun!