793. Morocco Part 20 | Moroccan Cooking

Now we are down to our last couple days in Morocco so I need to finish the remainder of these posts. If you've been following me for at least a few weeks, you'll remember we were in Fes before coming to Rabat. In Fes, we had a house that included a fully equipped kitchen and a housekeeper who was an amazing cook. So we cooked pretty much all our meals. I really enjoyed it because we'd go with her to the market for the fresh ingredients each morning then in the late afternoon we would cook together. She knew how to make everything we asked, and the result for each dish were the best versions I've ever had of them. Everything was also very healthy - we didn't eat any processed foods during that time. My favourites were harira soup, vegetables couscous and kefta briouats. Actually I really loved couscous with vegetables and brochettes (skewers)..but cooking the brochettes required the most effort (and it got way too smoky) as it's essentially an open flame barbecue that we did indoors. It was a lot of fun to make though. The chermoula sardines are also amazing but we only made them once. I did write down a few of the recipes so hopefully in the future I'll be able to recreate them..likely not as good without the housekeeper's guidance though lol.

Here are some photos of most things we cooked together. I feel like I'm fairly knowledgeable in Moroccan cuisine now (well, at least way more than before this trip). I'm now inspired to do more cooking classes in our future destinations (maybe a pad thai lesson in Thailand next!)

Our cat watching us cook (& sometimes jumping on the table trying to steal a piece).

Sometimes our guide would drop by "coincidentally" when we were cooking lol. On Dec 31/NYE he came by and brought this cake for us! My name is spelled wrong though ("Tifano") hahah.

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792. Morocco Part 19 | Snapshots of Rabat + Next Destination!

After some weeks of planning (and stress), we finally have our next destination booked!! I guess the Africa portion of this world trip will already end as we will be heading to Asia after! More specifically - to Bangkok, Thailand. I guess we chose it mainly because we've been wanting to enter Asia and at this point, Thailand seems to be the only one open to foreign visitors. It did include a lot of planning/approvals though.

To enter Thailand, the main thing required is a Certificate of Entry. After we got pre-approved, we had to book a government-approved quarantine hotel, flights, etc. To apply for the COE, we needed to buy proper insurance. I got rejected twice due to minor issues with the insurance and each time I had to re-apply and wait a few days for an answer..so it was quite stressful as our departure date was nearing.

Long story short, we got the final approval yesterday! Now we have everything booked and the final step will be to take a COVID test before leaving. For the flight, I'm excited to be flying Emirates for the first time! We have a short layover in Dubai before heading to Bangkok. I'm actually excited for our hotel quarantine as it will be an experience and our hotel is really nice. All the quarantine hotels in Thailand seem really well organized and provide excellent service. Like they make an effort to ensure their guests have a good experience quarantining. We will have an exercise bike, yoga mat and weights in our room. Our meals are provided 3 times a day (and the sample menu looks really good!). They will give us a COVID test on the 5th day and if the results are negative, we will be allowed out to the rooftop pool/lounge for a limited time each day. Then another test is done on the 13th day. Every day we will need to take our own temperature and record it in a special app I think.

I plan to be as productive as I can during that time with work and I guess I will get started on my taxes. I'll also bring some books to read.

So after our 2-week quarantine, we will stay another month in Bangkok before going to one of the islands (hopefully). We also booked our post-quarantine accommodations and I'm super excited about it too! The main thing I'm worried about in Thailand is the heat and humidity. It's going to be mid 30s degrees every day =\ Also I'm not looking forward to the super long flight. But I hope by the time we are done with Thailand, we can enter other Asian countries.

It feels like we've been in Morocco forever. I guess we were here about 2 and a half weeks in total. Here are some random shots taken around Rabat these weeks:

For Chinese New Year, we went for lunch at As'iam Restaurant. It's not a Chinese restaurant but close enough lol.

The Thailand Embassy where we walked to a few weeks ago to get information

This Turkish place we've been to a few times. It's really good.

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791. Morocco Part 18 | Hassan Tower

Hassan Tower is the minaret of an incomplete mosque here in Rabat. We went for a walk around it last weekend. The area was really beautiful and clean. The weather here in the city is so nice. I think these months are the best to visit Morocco as I understand the summer months can be unbearably hot. It felt a little weird this year for me to spend all of winter at fairly warm locations. I've never escaped the Canadian winters before.

The past week has been really busy planning our next destination. This involved the most planning so far and we are still waiting on a final approval to be able to enter the country. So I will not reveal it until we have it all confirmed. Once we arrive we need to follow a strict quarantine - 2 weeks at an approved hotel. I will explain the whole process and everything hopefully within the next few days!

There were a lot of pigeons living here in the holes



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