What Rick Would Not Have Seen

In the last post I talked about what Rick, Ilse and Victor would have seen if they had really been in Casablanca in 1941. This post is about what they would not have seen and what might surprise them today.

First off, they would not have seen Rick’s Café. It didn’t exist until 2004. It was founded by an expat American who worked as the US Embassy’s commercial officer. She left the diplomatic service after 9/11. Kathy Kriger envisioned the café as a “tourist theme project” and opened her fundraising prospectus with “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in all the world, I want you to buy into mine.” She formed a corporation called “The usual suspects.” But while Rick and Captain Renault’s “usual suspects” would not have seen Rick’s, they could have seen the building it is in, an old mansion built into the Medina’s wall.

While Rick would certainly have seen the clock tower at the entrance to the Medina, the modern light rail would have been a surprise. And the cell phone towers attempting to disguise themselves as palm trees in Arab League Park may have puzzled him.

The biggest attraction in today’s Casablanca is the Hassan II Mosque. Its minaret is 6o stories high, 689 feet. He couldn’t help by notice it if he came back today. It was completed in 1993. Twenty five thousand worshipers can go inside with another 80,000 worshiping in the courtyard. We visited the outside but did not get inside this time (we have visited it before.) The reason we didn’t get is passing strange.

I Googled the mosque opening times. The Google AI gave me a list of times it is open for tours for non-Moslems. I tried to check it against the mosque’s webpage but my internet connection was not good enough to download the page, so I trusted Google’s AI. I know BiG mistake.

In 2018 Morocco went to full time Daylight Savings Time. It was already somewhat west in its time zone. That makes sunrises and sunsets late. We discovered this when we arrived at the mosque at 1:30 Morocco time and the noon call to prayer sounded at around 1:35.
During Ramadan that makes sunset, when you can break the Ramadan fast with your Iftar (evening meal) very late. So, Morocco decided to go off Daylight time, only for the Islamic month of Ramadan. This year Ramadan was March 1 to March 30. Google AI built its report to me based on the Mosque’s opening times during Ramadan. It knows when the rest of the world changes time but was too lazy, like many of the students who use AI to write term papers, to look into Morocco specific time shifts. When I checked Google, Ramadan had been over for three weeks. Google’s AI didn’t know this. Apparently when it finds an answer it likes it doesn’t look any further before it publishes. It reports on incomplete information. I believed it. I didn’t get inside but here are some pics from outside.