Arrived in Rabat

Saturday afternoon I hopped on the plane to Rabat, Morocco and arrived Sunday afternoon. Day one of five is done, and I live to tell the tale.

The flights (DC – Paris – Rabat) were okay save for two things. It left DC at just after 5:00pm and 7 hours later (midnight) landed in Paris. Those are not good hours to fly when you want to try to slee It just didn’t work. Then there was a 5ish hour layover in Paris. Normally not a bad thing, because I’ll wander through the airport terminal, check out duty free, find a nice place to sit, etc. The terminal where I was put in Charles DeGaulle was small and not much was available or open. I think it was maybe 200m long in total. I couldn’t go to another terminal without having to go through passport control. Just too much hassle.

Okay, so all was not bad on the trip. I had a wonderful seatmate who was travelling to Paris with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to recognize a building as a Heratige Site. The building was designed by Gustaf Eiffle (of the Tower fame) and was selected by a joint French/American committee. We talked about a little bit of everything, from how cool modern planes are with the things composite construction allows, to why can’t the U.S. have a good rail system (he was a big train buff), to jusy why can’t schools use Darwinism to teach the concept of a testable theory?

Rabat, so far, is lovely. I’m in the Hilton, which is on the outskirts of the city, not far from either USAID or a funky part of town called Agdal. I wandered Agdal yesterday with a friend of Rachel’s who works here, and plan to go back later this week for a cafe experience.

I don’t have a lot more to say yet, but I’m sure there are more things to experience. Maybe a real Iftar? It is Ramadan here and who knows? Maybe I’ll be invited to break the fast with someone.