this could have been the start of a beautiful friendship.

inspired by the movie of the same name, i expected a visit to casablanca to be a romantic journey, with beautiful architecture and lovely cafes. blame it on the film.

i certainly did not hate my twenty-four hours there, being accosted by old women, scammed by cab drivers and staying in creepy hotels, but i will let you know some reasons why you should NOT take a vacation there.

1. there are lots of ugly cities closer to you. casablanca was built fairly recently, to have the look of a moroccan city. however, the french inspired art deco architecture looks like a 70s film set, has gone all black and is downright ugly.

2. there is virtually nothing touristy to do there. the only monument is the third largest mosque in the world. it is the mother of all moroccan mosques, but overpowers the city completely. it was built to celebrate the king´s 60th birthday. now dad wants to know what he is going to get for his 60th!

3. being severely cheated by a taxi driver is not the thrill it is made out to be. just when i thought my french was getting better... i discovered that arguing in your second language is really hard! the cab driver won.

4. toilet paper is classified as a luxury item.

5. cab drivers get lost even though they have lived their whole lives in the city. no joke! he could not find our hotel, we almost missed our train, and then we had five minutes to run through the airport to make our plane. which, by the way, is incredible stressful.

6. a nice restaurant consists of pastel coloured pink and green birthday cake decoration-style wallpaper and a mirror for a roof painted with a large asian-inspired image of a dragon. we are still not sure why there was a copy of Le Petit Prince on the wall. crooked chandeliers, scuzzy chairs and fake flowers also donned the place. soooo tacky!

7. the window in our hotel room faced the hallway. and i think there were bed bugs. i guess we got what we paid for.

while my casablanca was not exactly what i had anticipated, my dad and i could not stop laughing. i guess it is all part of the adventure.