Summer Trips: Balaton

The days are getting shorter, the dark is coming earlier – this is the time of year when Hungary starts looking like Mordor, and so my mind goes to brighter times during the summer.

Lake Balaton is like Hungary’s backyard pool. Oh, and it’s a big one – the largest lake in central Europe, and some even affectionately called Hungary’s sea.

It’s where you go in the summer to lay in the sun, splash around and eat fish soup and langos by the shore. It’s like Toronto’s modest cottage country, but much different at the same time because you hear far more foreign languages around its shores. While it might be Hungary’s backyard pool, throughout the Cold War it was one of the few places where families from East and West Germany could reunite. This is why among all those foreign languages you hear a lot of German.

Lake Balaton is a special place and, unlike Toronto's cottage country it's a little easier to get to, even for a day, thanks to great train schedules.

I went there twice this past summer. The first time was to the north shore with Kata. Our train dropped us at Balatonfured, which is nice, but little touristy. We took a dip in the water and splashed around, ate some langos and walked along the shore in the evening.

Oh, by the way, langos is a Hungarian specialty: deep-fried bread with cheese and sour cream. Freakin' delicious.

We took a bus to Tihany, a town which sits on a peninsula that stretches into the lake. It's off the beaten path, so the pace is a little more relaxed here but it's not too far away from everything. We walked up into the hills, where there’s an old church and a beautiful panorama. 

We came back down the hill and took a swim in the lake, accidently going onto a private beach. This forbidden beach had only a handful of people on it, compared to the hundreds at Balatonfured, and it was plain, simple pretty.

Before making our way back to Balatonfured for the train to Budapest, we stopped for some birthday fish soup, a tradition created at that moment.

The next trip to Lake Balaton took a few friends and I to Siofok, which sits on the south shore. Siofok feels less like the more chill north shore and more like a beach town. There are the muscle-y dudes, ladies in bikinis, and a strip near the beach with night clubs.

What draws them to Siofok is the beach, which has a sand bar that stretches far out from the shore. On the beach, or in the water, you're away from all the Fort Lauderdale types, so all that junk onshore doesn't matter much. We lay in the sun, we swam, and, yes, drank beer and ate langos.

I forgot to mention how close Balaton is to Budapest, like an hour or so. So that day we spent at Siofok, we all met at the train station in the morning and, after a hearty meal, we piled back onto a train and rode back to Budapest in the evening. I sleep pretty well on trains, so I usually look like the below shot when I am traveling by train after a day at Balaton.

Kata took better photos then me at Tihany, so all the photos below are hers.

Oh look, I must be on a trai--*snores*

Kata + wine = happy

The view from atop the hill near Tihany.

The Benedictine church and monastery.

Forbidden Beach.

Summer Trips: Sofia

The days are getting shorter, the dark is coming earlier – this is the time of year when Hungary starts looking like Mordor, and so my mind goes to sunnier times in the summer.

The glorious Palace of Culture in all its Brutalist glory.

Sofia's mosque

An artsy shot from Sofia's synagogue.

The Russians built St. Alexander Nevski Cathedral to commemorate their liberation of Bulgaria from the Turks.

It was not until I moved to the region that I could tell you what the capital of Bulgaria was. Like so many North Americans, I was blissfully ignorant of the jumble of countries in Central and Eastern Europe – the easily confused names (Slovakia and Slovenia) and names impossible to pronounce (Herzegovina) with the untrained tongue.

Thanks to fifty years of Soviet occupation, it was easy for everyone to lump everything east of the former Iron Curtain into the same culture.

Sadly, that’s the way things are.

And so, we come to Sofia, deep in the old East bloc. Carlos, a Brazilian who’s passed through Toronto before landing in Bulgaria, pointed it out – the language, the cuisine, the architecture is more Greek because they were here in the beginning and their influence has never left this place.

To get to Sofia wasn’t easy on a budget. We had to book a twelve hour bus ride from Budapest through Serbia to Sofia. Due to booking issues, I had to leave a day early on the overnight bus alone.

I grabbed snippets of sleep all night through Serbia, awaking at the border. As dawn came, the fog cleared and I realized I was entering Serbia, but I also way up in the foggy mountains. I crashed for a few hours after checking into my hostel and met Carlos for a Discovery Walk. It was a beautiful day – the only I’d have since it would rain non-stop for the rest of the weekend – and the mountain air felt fresh and crisp.

Carlos took me, and later this rest of the crew, to some of the key points of interests: Roman ruins, the Turkish mosque, a few Orthodox churches, and one of the public fountains that are fed by springs beneath the city. Fifty years of heavy-handed socialist urban planning is also still prevalent, with drab grey apartment blocks, the odd brutalist monument, and the Palace of Culture, in all its concrete glory with its wide, concrete beach surrounding it.

At first it was easy to get lost in all of these outside influences left behind in Sofia from past tenants, but Bulgarian culture is surprisingly resilient and well established. Bulgarian was the first written Slavic language, and their Cyrillic alphabet might look a bit Greek and it might look a bit Russian, but it is very distinct.

Like so many cities in this part of Europe, Sofia is a city on the make. The economy is growing (as there’s political stability), there’s a cool nightlife and a big, beautiful mountain with hiking trails and ancient monasteries just a short bus ride away. But for a city high in the mountains with a dry climate, we got rained on the whole time and never got to see exactly what the city could offer. Maybe another time...

A little bit of old Rome left in the city centre.

In Hungary, it's ok to be mental about your dental

Joe, in chair, with Arnold and I being just a little to mental about our dental.

After Lake Balaton, the beauty of Budapest, the wine cellars of Villany, the affordable dental care available here has turned dentistry into a tourist attraction. In Sopron, a Hungarian city that sits on the border of Austria, the streets are lined with dental offices. This would look strange if it weren’t for all the Austrians driving into the city to have dental work done.

My impression of the inexpensive dental care was not a faltering one. When I heard all of this, my mind lept to that scene in Marathon Man: “Is it safe?”  That admittedly ignorant belief did not waver, even in the face of assurances from Hungarian friends that Hungarian dental care is modern, not medieval.

With a year passing since my last dental appointment, and despite my misplaced misgivings, I began considering a visit to one of Hungary’s dentists. A friend knew just the dentist, so we all went to the office of Dr. Ada. We brought along Joe, a man whose near mortal fear of dentists was being overcome by four cavities.

The dental office was no less advanced and sterile than our own in Canada (I apologize for constantly comparing things to Canada, but I have no other country to compare dentistry to). A visit to the dentist is cheap, and they were effective. I was complimented on my clean teeth, but I grind my teeth in my sleep. Their solution was a mouthguard, which would cost about $50 CAD, meanwhile a quote from a Canadian dentist over a year ago was $260.

More important than money and fancy chairs and what not, Dr. Ada had great chair-side manner. So much of us have strange, primal fears of dentists – Joe, far example, had a beer on the walk to the office to calm his nerves – and either way, it's nice that when a stranger pokes around in your mouth, it does not feel like a torture scene.

Photo by Arnold

What's so cool about Kosice?

Cool stuff inside the East Slovak Museum.

Kosice was nothing more than a dot on the map that I came across when I was planning a summer trip to Krakow.

Budapest and Krakow run along almost the same line of latitude, but between the two cities is a snarl of mountains in Slovakia. Trains run around these, either due west, through Bratislava or Vienna, or deep into the old East Bloc, to Kosice.

On the map, there is nothing to distinguish the city. It’s at the far end of Slovakia. A Czech friend, who grew up near Prague and then lived there, gave me a strange look when I mentioned going there. “But what is there? That is so far east, it’s almost the Ukraine.”

But that dot in the far east of Europe seemed interesting. The summer trip to Krakow did not happen, but I decided to take a weekend, when one came up, to go for a visit. As I waited, I did a little research.

I got St. Elizabeth Cathedral at just the right time of day.

There’s a Gothic church in the old square, the most eastern in Europe. Kosice was the Hapsburgs' farthest eastern stronghold. In fact, this is where Western and Central Europe meets Eastern Europe: The whole area has historically been populated by Germans, Hungarians, Poles and Ukrainians.

It was a free city under Hungarian rule for a long time, such was the mix of ethnicities there. A Hungarian connection still exists today – Hungarians still call Kosice its old Hungarians name, Kassa. The city itself also venerates its most famous writer, Marai Sandor,an ethnic Hungarian.

If this cool history nerd stuff didn’t get my attention, the city is also a European Capital of Culture for 2013.

It’s like a European cultural Olympics. The state poured money into creating and renovating venues for art exhibitions, music and theatrical performances and other artsy fartsy pursuits. The hope for many host cities is that this investment turns into a long-term return – that the infrastructure creates an innovation industry.

Finally, finally, finally, I found an off weekend and dropped in for a brief visit.

It’s an old city, but the Soviet’s fingerprints are all over it. The city is a hodge podge of fin de siècle with socialist urban planning. There are old, clanking trams, but they are brilliantly coloured (with ads, but they are still colourful). The old town centre is a pedestrian only square, with the Gothic cathedral, a 100-year-old eclectic-style theatre and outdoor cafe. Within view of the square are old socialist apartment blocks. The apartment blocks, those monuments to socialist social engineering, are not grey, but lively, with murals and brilliantly coloured patterns.

I’m going to avoid going too deep into art critic mode here, but the art I saw at the Capital of Culture events are something else entirely different.

A great deal of it was contemporary art, and we all know how that can be sometimes. A lot of the work on display had an opinion. But there was a sense of humour in much of it, and there was definitely a distinctive voice, or sensibility to it.

I saw this throughout the city, from the exhibits I visited to murals painted on pub doors. There’s something about the spirit of the city that’s young, brash and darkly humorous. The city is young (so is Slovakia). It is a college town, so there are bars all over and, even though Slovakia is on the Euro, food and drink are affordable.

There is something going on in Kosice. I couldn’t tell you what it is for sure, not after such a brief visit, but it's a place worth watching.

The door of a Spanish pub.

Socialist apartment building, brightened up a bit.

Jakabov Palace

Being all classy while killing brain cells in Budapest

A colleague threw a pre-party, which got a little carried away, and so the pre-party became the party... but only partly. 

By the time we left for the real party (only a few doors down from the pre-party-cum-party), everyone was cheerfully feeling the effects of the party.

We gather around a latecomer, who brought a bag of gyros as a late-to-the-party present and arrived to the real party. By now, there was no way the rest of the partiers could catch up to us and they looked on as we dug into the gyros. This was a nice bar, but that did not stop the feeding frenzy.

Carlos, Budapest's Brazilian wine sommelier and the bewildered onlooker from the story above, often recommended various reds from Villany. He was never wrong.

We dripped garlic sauce all over the floor, while handing half eaten gyros to each other and barely saying a word between bites. One of our friends, Carlos, was one of those left looking on at the debauchery. As he put it, the whole bar was absolutely disgusted by our orgy of gyro munching.

I’m recounting this tale because it is important to note that this was not brought on by whiskey, tequila or even palinka, but rose wine.

Yes, rose wine.

Hungary is a wine-growing country, which was news to me when I arrived. Little did I know the hills and several provinces' micro-climates combine to create a terroir that produces some damn fine wine.

On a visit to Eger, my friend Pavel and I sipped Bull’s Blood, a delicious, hearty red. Interestingly, and lucky for me, Hungary is known well for their dry reds. But there's some whites too. Tokaji, a delcious sweet wine, was declared 'Wine of Kings, King of Wines' by Louis XIV of France. I might have gotten that quote backwards.

I’ve developed a taste for dry whites and – I’m going to admit this on the internet, which could mean getting my Man Card revoked from some whiskey/beer drinkers back home – there are some dry rose wines that are pretty good too.

One of the reasons the wines of Hungary have been so accessible for me is they are cheap by Canadian standards. You can find a good bottles of wine in a Budapest corner store for as little as five Canadian dollars.

Back home, I used to walk the LCBO’s wine aisles feeling as if I had no knowledge on the subject and as if I had no business there –  like I was shopping for tampons 

In Hungary, I recognize bottles I have enjoyed, I try new wines thanks to the decent prices, and while my pairing knowledge is still limited to “Red with meat, white with fish,” I now strut down the wine aisles with a little more courage – and I promise it's not the liquid courage seen in the tale at the beginning of this post.

Ontario Discovery Walks

The Long Journey Home

Not only was my flight home delayed, but I also had to wait in line to discuss meat importation laws with a customs officer after I declared the Hungarian salami I brought in my carry-on. He waved me through, but told that meat, no matter how delicious it might be, cannot be brought into Canada in such ways.

Family Time

When the prodigal son returned in Jesus’ famous parable (that's a Catholic education for ya), the family welcomed him and slaughtered the fatted calf. When I returned to Little London, the family was gathered and, in lieu of a fatted calf, devoured six pounds of pulled pork. This does not count the smuggled salami, the cheese (hey, we’re Dutch, after all) and the bevy of desserts. My family: We all love each other, and we all love to eat well.

Witnessing the explosion of Rob Ford

If you could lock Joseph Heller and Franz Kafka in a room with a pen and a notebook and they could not have conceived of the surreal political spectacle that erupted when I arrived. It’s like the political version of those photos of the tree barks skin disease – it’s as frighteningly disgusting as it is fascinating – and it's still going on.

One of the better ways to watch the press conference of a lying, drunken mayor?
With a whiskey in a fine pub.

Celebrating the end of Daylight Savings Time with an extra hour of debauchery

We got an extra hour, and then we killed as many brain cells as we could in that hour by while introducing my friends to the perils of Palinka.

Hangover

The Koreans have an amazing hangover cure, it’s Porkbone Soup. It provides much-needed fluids for the over-partied body and brain. Also, for uncultured Westerners like me, there is no easy way to eat it, so poke away at slowly, looking awkwardly at the Koreans at other tables expertly eating theirs. This also means you don’t eat too fast, which is important if you’re like me and have a tender tummy after boozing.

A marshall artist's interpretartion of breakfast/dinner.
(Not to scale)

What I like most in Toronto is that you can get Porkbone Soup one day, then gorge upon great burritos the next. Toronto has no single personality, it’s a schizophrenic mix of ethnicities, neighbourhoods, and personalities. It’s what makes it great.

Final Days of London

My time in Toronto was making the rounds (and often having rounds). So, my time in little London was the real rest. I spent quality time with my parents and siblings. Meet the odd friend for coffee or drinks. Rest up. Recover from Toronto, and prepare for what’s going to come.

The Wedding

Way back when, before I left Canada for the Hungary, I promised two friends that I would make it back for their wedding in a year. So, here is the main reason for my visit (also, trans-Atlantic flights during Christmas are a messy business I want no part of). In addition to being a great party, it was also great to see two friends married in such a lovely ceremony.

The fist kiss

Epic party time (that's why I forgot to take photos)

The Long Trip Home

The next morning I awoke hungover, or possibly still drunk. It was a rough. The hotel everyone was staying at had a Golden Griddle, where everyone gathered to nurse their hangovers over coffee and bacon.

I was a little slow to rise and required a stern phone call from front desk to get me moving. I know I mentioned earlier that Porkbone Soup is a great hangover cure, but friends and a breakfast buffet are great cures too.

After breakfast, I got a ride to the airport and continued what felt like the longest day ever: Flying forward across six time zones into the next day, where I had a four-hour wait in Frankfurt for my flight to Budapest - all with a fuzzy booze-addled brain.

I love Budapest, yet I still hesitate to call it home, but collapsing into bed at the end of that day felt pretty good.

Oh, hi, Budapest

Beneath Budapest's Bullet Holes

There must be a department in Budapest’s city hall that prevents bullet holes in buildings from being patched because there are a lot of them.

The 1956 Revolution, the siege of Budapest during World War II before that – all literally left their mark on the face of the city. Budapest has seen its fair share of violence. And while we spend so much time talking about the scars from that violence, we don't spend near enough time talking about what is beneath the scars.

Before the First World War, Budapest was a centre of rich culture, scientific endeavour and engineering achievement. It was the second city of the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire. Beneath today's bullet holes and decade of neglect, this is the real Budapest.

Explosive economic and industrial growth created incredible wealth back then. Writers and thinkers gathered in the coffee houses. Classical masterpieces were composed and performed in the Opera House.

This is a city where the continent’s first subway system was built. They built the Chain Bridge, at the time was one of the longest bridges in Europe over one of the world’s mightiest rivers – a feat of engineering.

This is also when most of the city’s apartment blocks went up in the city’s centre. Thick-walled, high-ceilinged, with dramatic sculptures on the front – many of these have survived decades destruction and disuse visited upon the city. And all this time many people, like me, now live here too.

The layers of upheaval and violence that have passed through the city have added layers of grottiness over that grandeur, but it’s easy to get a feel for Budapest’s old time urban beauty and grandeur as you walk down the streets.

Those grand, old days might be long gone, but this is a city that seems to embrace its entire past, from the Old World ostentation to its more recent decrepitude, like the new ruin bars pop up in old, vacant apartment blocks.

But that’s an easy example.

Many of these buildings were put up during a massive building boom from the 1870s until the 1910s. They have lasted as long as they have because they are built like fortresses.

While opportunistic people build their ruin bars, by and large people live in these buildings, as they have since they went up. The limestone fades but it lasts, the stone Atlas out front crumble but still bear their load. All the while life goes on beneath the facade – families are raised, courtyard gardens, hidden from the streets, are tended and lives are lived.

We might see the bullet holes and marvel over them, but the real attraction are these beautiful buildings and the generations that have and will continue to live in them.

Burgers of Budapest

If I closed my eyes before I left for Budapest, and tried imagining all the food I'd be eating here, a burger would not be among them. Goulash. Cheese. Pickled cabbage. Blood sausage. But burgers? Nem.

In these last few months, Budapest has been schooling me in the way of the burger. What I did not realize before I arrived was that Hungarians are a nation of meat lovers. Burgers happen to be a tasty byproduct of that meat love.

An example. My friend Marcin was visiting, after way too much beer, palinka, whiskey and wine, we found a burger place that had opened that day. What luck. We ordered the establishment's signature burger with fries. Even in our inebriated state, we knew we were eating something special.

Earlier in the summer, Teak shared photos he took at the Burger Fest with his SLR. The food shots were more like food porn. Dripping sauce, and gooey cheese atop cow-sized patties of meat, ready to be noshed upon. The Earl of Sandwich could not imagine the possibilities.

I find this ironic in my own monolingual way because the Hungarian word for cheese is sajt, which is pronounced almost like a four-letter word. So, when I order a cheeseburger in my broken Hungarian, it sounds like I’m asking for Shite Burger.

Despite the lingual pitfalls, I've made my burger rounds, there are places that locals and foreigners at the office alike all know and love.

Most of us are gorging our way through the burger stations of the cross, and there is not end in sight, which gives us little to complain about. In fact the sin is not to partake in the burgers of Budapest.

As an old grill cook, I know it's easy to make good burger, and it's easy to mess up and make a bad burger  but it's difficult to make a great burger – there are plenty of great burgers in Budapest.

When Kata and I sampled the burgers at W35, we were both impressed. This small, side-street eatery took a good burger, and made it better, they added their own little Mex-Tex touch, which is also unusual back home.

So the burger tour continues, and I sleep soundly at night knowing there are more delicious Shite Burgers out there, waiting to be eaten.

Casablanca Journal - Day 4

Three colleagues and I were sent to Casablanca for business three weeks ago. The trip lasted four days, so I kept a daily journal.This is the fourth and final day.

How Did I Get Here???

Another copywriter was supposed to go on this trip. She was grounded by her doctor after experiencing some vicious inner ear pains. On Saturday afternoon, I got an SMS informing me I was flying out early Monday morning to Casablanca.

I scrambled to prepare for the trip. Loads of laundry waited to be done and a cabin-worthy bag had to be packed. My laptop had to be fetched from the office.

I had no time to research Morocco, which was obvious after my arrival on Monday. I handed the money exchange girl some Euros and asked it to be changed into... into... I paused, realizing I did not even know the local currency. “Dirham,” she said.

Incidentally, I saw her again at a different booth today, as we were flying out. She recognized me. We had a laugh.

Business Class

In the chaos of canceled and rebooked flights over the weekend, the accounting department rushed to get find an available flight. The only space for me was in business class. That is why I am here, luxuriating with extra leg room, scribbling in my notebook, eating from a cheese plate and sipping wine.

Not a bad way to travel. An aside: I was happier during the trip than I appear in the scribble below.

WAIT! Whatever happened to the lost luggage?

Yesterday Malika and Katie received word that their luggage was left in Rome and was enroute to Casablanca. It was due to arrive at midnight, which did nothing dressing for impressing in the business meetings.

The worst part was they were both going to Croatia trip after the business trip and Katie had packed a huge suitcase for her Casablanca trip and the Croatia trip. Everything she needed was out there, somewhere, in the air.

So today, being the day of their departure, with hair curling and volumizing in the blazing Moroccan heat (remember, no hair product), they went to the airport for their 6am flight to pick it up and fly back to Budapest.

That was the plan.

The lost luggage locker was, well, locked, and there was no attendant around. With only a few feet separating them from their long last luggage, they left their luggage behind to catch their flight.

Good trip with good people: The Casablanca Crew at Rick's.
 Photo by Arnold

Casablanca Journal - Day 3

Three colleagues and I were sent to Casablanca for business three weeks ago. The trip lasted four days, so I kept a daily journal.This is the third day.

During a break in the meeting, we took in the view from atop our client's building.

Eating to Excess

The hotel’s breakfast is a rich buffet. There is an omelette chef, a lady who makes pancakes, and a spread of Moroccan dates, almonds, merguez sausages, and other local deliciousness. For Westerners, there are cupcakes and a love-handle load of sugary pastries on a table. Yes, there are also fried potatoes and broiled tomatoes. There are cheeses, olives and, yes, a small pork section for those who don’t do halal.

So we sit down here, eat too much, and feel truly North American in our needless excesses. Pass the cupcakes!

To the Meeting!

We catch a cab and begin the battle with traffic. Casablanca traffic is a study in the chaos theory. It seems disorderly, with bicycles, motorcycles and mopeds diving between cars, pedestrians ignoring crosswalks and crossing wherever they please. The lines painted on the road are really just abstract theories, cars jump out into opposing traffic to pass cars, they make wild left turns from the far right lane at intersections. They jockey for pole position at stoplights, which are the only traffic law obeyed here.

But! The traffic moves and it seems to fit the flow of the city. As a client put it yesterday, you can’t get angry about traffic here, it won’t do any good.

Casablanca traffic. An orderly snarl.

This is an Office? 

The client’s office is in a walled compound with trees, flowers and other lush surroundings. Walking to the main office building was like walking through a garden. The office building is built around an atrium with gilded wood arches and a beautifully tiled floor and mosaic on the ceiling. It’s a beautiful office to visit and a welcome change from the beige-grey offices I’m accustomed to.

Trial by Taxi

After the meeting, the client called for cabs. The office is in a nice neighbourhood and doesn’t see too many cabs. We waited a half hour before the first one came. Then Arnold and I waited another half hour.

Growing impatient we hailed a Petit Taxi, which are shared cabs, so with two out of three spaces filled our cabbie was pulling over for fares on the way to the hotel.

No one was going in that direction and the cabbie made quick work of the trip – scooting down side streets at break-neck speeds and sliding between garbage trucks and oncoming traffic. It was a cheap fare to boot.

Friends of Friends in Strange Places

A colleague from deepblue Budapest has a friend in Morocco, who we met her for coffee. Naturally, traffic came up. She finds moves too slowly and is accustomed to the lax traffic enforcement of Mexico, apparently the land of the loco speed demons. Here there’s a speed limit that’s obeyed, so she gets pulled over often and has to talk her way out of it.

She moved to Casablanca after marrying a Moroccan man. I give her credit, she moved here without any friends and she’s thriving – a very brave lady.

I Hate Haggling

Once again we took a taxi, the same one we took us there.The cab driver demanded more because he had to return to the cafe to pick us up, I got grumpy and said that’s not happening, he’s already getting a tourist-whitey fare. He didn’t object. I’m getting sick of the haggling here, but I might be getting the hang of it.

Rick’s Cafe

Katie made reservations for dinner at Rick’s Cafe tonight. The movie Casablanca wasn’t filmed in Casablanca, but an enterprising individual opened a Rick’s anyway. It’ll be pricey, but I’m looking forward to it, I’m a fan of the movie and I think I’ll finally do the lamb...

Rick's Cafe... and Arnold in mid-bite.

Casablanca Journal - Day 2

Three colleagues and I were sent to Casablanca for business three weeks ago. The trip lasted four days, so I kept a daily journal.This is the second day.  

The neighbourhood around our hotel.

Breakfast of Champions

Good breakfast this morning. I was the first downstairs and met our omelette/pancake cook, Ami. Friendly guy. He laughed at my jokes, even the lame ones. He whipped up some Moroccan-style pancakes, which are made with ground-up couscous, and topped with honey and an almond spread that’s made from pulverized almonds and argan oil. I like Moroccan breakfasts.

Luggage Update

According to the airline people, Katie and Malika’s luggage didn’t even make it onto the plane in Rome, so it might arrive later that night on the midnight flight.

With no luggage, Katie and Malika went out shopping, while Arnold and I went for a quick Discovery Walk around the block. Nothing to report, Katie bought a dress, Malika bought a top, but neither could find appropriate hair product. Meanwhile Arnold and I learned to play frogger through Casablanca’s free-for-all traffic.

Time to Work

We began the process of understanding the market, so we toured the cigarette vendors of Casablanca. There are plenty of smokers and we’re allowed to advertise in-store, but they’re all so small and crowded.

The big thing that everyone talks about is everybody buys their cigarettes individually, especially at bars where waiters and bartenders sell their own smokes to patrons. It’s not legal, but it’s not enforced either.

This reminds me of a conversation with a friend when I used to be the guy who only smoked while he was drinking. We agreed that if we could just buy one smoke when we wanted it at the bar, we wouldn’t come home with half a pack that tempted us the next day.

Morocco understands the smoker I used to be. 

One of the crazy crowded kiosks. I can't even find the smokes.

Seeing Casablanca from the Backseat

Casablanca is Morocco’s biggest city and people from all over the country flock here for work and other opportunities. It’s a big country. There’s a huge rural population and plenty of cities strung along its coast, so there are a lot of different people from different backgrounds.

The easiest way to recognize them is how they dress. Some men wear the long kaftan, while others wear jeans and t-shirts – although almost nobody wears shorts.

For the women, there are a few burqas, but not many. Most wear brilliantly-coloured, ankle-length dresses with vibrant head scarves. Many other women wear trousers and modest tops but, like the men, few bare legs.

Over lunch one of our clients mentioned that Moroccan society, despite appearing modern, is actually very traditional, with a focus on family and religion. He described it as traditional with a modern coating over top.

HoReCa Tour!

After a break to change and refresh, which is difficult for luggage-less Malika and Katie – who are craving their favourite shampoos and other product in this heat – we will be visiting a few bars with the client to investigate tobacco advertising opportunities, get a feel for the target in their natural habitat, and, of course, have a drink (we're in advertising, after all).