Week 3.....

One of the many fruit & veggie markets, rivals pike place. He kneels in front of the oven, kneads, flattens, then flings the bread inside this brink oven where it sticks to the side, in about 1 minute he takes it out with a hooked stick & flings it at you to bag yourself . He sits in this window & does this all day long, making yummy flat bread for 1dirham ($0.27)

So with each day I discover something new, whether a new sight, sound, smell or even taste. Obviously the city has such beauty, the architecture is so amazing that I walk around looking up so much I forget to look at all the little shops on the street level of these buildings. I am reminded of all the little shops throughout Mexico, Japan and the Caribbean, all just trying to eek out a living. Some of the shops are no more than a large coat closet, yet here they are happy to sell you something, anything. Not sure how any of them make a living, because the next block looks just the same, just a change of name and location. You can have anything made or tailored, all very good and reasonable so I'm told, I have yet to do so.

Will probably never get used to the car horns honking all the time, I think it is attached to both the brake and the gas. We cab everywhere of distance, and they are reasonable $2-5usd to most places around town. We would never want to drive here....it's out of control, 4-6 lanes in each direction all traveling very fast to the next light, slam on the brakes while honking, wait, honk then repeat. Heard my first fender bender from my 15th floor room, yep sure enough a couple of cabs bumped, nobody hurt, just some wrinkled fenders, so this stops traffic in 2 lanes....of course lots of honking from behind to get out of the way! even though they can see it's an accident.

As for smells, well you can only imagine, not just talking about the body odors OMG. Garbage dumpsters are everywhere, and dumped weekly, they get pretty funky. With all the little shops comes all the smells associated with bakeries, restaurants from everywhere possible, fruit & veggie stands, spice shops.

We have eaten quite well, and not had a bad meal yet! We have had Chinese, Lebanese, Indian, and Italian to name a few, and yes I am finding something to eat at all. Stopped in a tiny shop yesterday and got sandwiches for our lunch for 11Dirham ($2.99) for both of us. Was not sure what I was ordering I just pointed, chicken with spices,tomatoes, lettuce, some kind of pickled something and a spread with garlic and yogurt rolled in an Armenian round bread...Delicious! I was so proud of me.