Decolletage and Lipstick

I'm finally legal (alright...so this is actually the 20th anniversary of my 21st birthday)! So when a friend suggests that we go out for a girls night out to celebrate well of course I'm up for it. Um, do they have a Sizzler early bird special here? We'll be home by 9 right? Oh, can someone else drive because I can no longer determine which lane cars are in at night. And I packed my reading glasses in my purse right?

Olivia, Kim and I head out. Olivia's driving (she is the youngest and apparently has not reached the ripe old age of "what the hell lane is that car in" yet). Now I've haven't been out for a girls night out here in Morocco. I imagine there to be lots of "girls nights in" having wild and crazy henna parties. I bet they get pretty out of hand. (Gratuitous bad pun intended.) I really don't know what to expect while out. We have decided to go for Thai at MegaMall. And no, not at the food court even. So we arrive at the mall at around 8:00pm. Apparently this is where it's at on a Saturday night. They are having a rave party down at the kids jumpy houses complete with disco lights. Wow it's 8 at night and these 4 year old kids are parting harder than I have in years. Wait...isn't that what old people say? I think one of those kids just popped a Flintstone vitamin!

We head up the stairs to the dimly lit restaurant and after a discussion with the host on the fact that we don't have reservations on a Saturday night at 8pm (which is equivalent to about 5pm in the states). It's empty. So obvioulsy even though he thinks it's a big deal, it's no problem and we're seated. When we get the menus I remember that I forgot my reading glasses. And suddenly my arms are alot shorter than I thought they were. Why do they make these menus in such small print anyway? And would the glasses help me read French? Olivia orders us a nice bottle of wine and some appetizers. And we talk and talk like women who have alot to talk about do. Then we realize that we're talking like women who've had some win too. But what does it matter if we're loud? No one else is here. Our food comes at almost 9. Eating spicy food is not on the list of things I would normally being doing at this time of night. But it's so delicious! So we eat and laugh. Maybe not the best two things to do simultaneously.



When we finish eating and calm ourselves down from laughing so hard we settle the bill and decide to walk around the mall. Wait? Don't old people "walk around the mall"? Doooohhhh. We admire the Christmas tree that's in the middle of the mall on display. It's shocking to see a Christmas tree in a Muslim country. But then when you think about it is A MALL. And what does a Christmas tree represent? Christmas shopping of course! Just wait until they figure out that dumb Americans will pay to have their kids taken with a stranger dressed in a red suit. You know, I think they have figured this Capitalist move out in Marrakesh. Maybe next year we'll experience the trickle down effect here in Rabat and there will be a monkey dressed up as Santa Claus for 20d a picture? So we're loudly admiring the tree and taking pictures with it when the security guard approaches and kicks us out. On second thought, maybe we just needed to pay him for the photo and sit on his lap? We're so hip we got kicked out of the mall. Ok...NOT. At least none of us broke a hip on the stairs back down to the car....

So where does one go after getting banned from the mall? Lets hit a club and do some dancing. Luckily there is one right down the street. Now I'm wondering how this whole bar scene is gonna be being an Islamic country and Muslims don't consume alcohol and all. I started getting the vibe that there are strict Muslims and not so strict Muslims when we went to the winery in Meknes. The tour guy told us that the winery produces 8 million bottles a year and only 20% is exported. Hmmmmmmm. Ok, so this is like Catholicism where you can't have premarital sex. Yeah, right. We all know how strict Catholics are on abstaining from sex before marriage. I'm sure that the rate of Catholics having premarital sex is WAY worse (or better, depending on your view) than the number of Muslims drinking alcohol. I can say this with authority because I was raised Catholic and I'd even bet my birth control on it. (Oh yeah...another thing Catholics aren't good at....)

So we arrive and enter the very busy club and look for an open table. Which I don't see, but then again I don't see. This of course would have nothing to do with my eyesight. We ask a server and he escorts us to a table in the very far corner of the club. As we look around we're in a section full of women dressed to go clubing in cute dresses and skirts. They are young, beautiful and no man anywhere is making any moves on them. Why is that? Oh my god, we're in prostitute corner! We could add some diversity and work the exotically pasty white over 30 (by just a few years) who've had a little too much wine and got kicked out of the mall after their early bird special dinner angle. Right?




We're dressed a bit too conservatively for hooking. We're not showing knee, shoulders or elbows, which might be all you need here in Morocco. All we got is a little decolletage. That is until Kim revs it up a notch with Oliva's lipstick. Ok now we're talking. So we finally get someone to take our order. Working women do not get fast service. Although he's not really happy about it. He returns with a beer for me (which is not what I ordered). We thought he wasn't happy before, but now our server is very, very unhappy and gave me the look of death. It's times like these that I wish I was wearing my Moroccan wonder woman Hand of Fatima cuff bracelets to deflect the evil eye back at him. Just when I'm feeling old and disrespected it happens. A guy is brushing past and grabs my ass. Yeah, I'm still old and disrespected, but I still got "it". And by it of course I mean indigestion. Damn spicy Thai food.

Although there is a deejay strangely there is no dancing in the club like it's some weird Moroccan version of Footloose. So there's no dancing, we can't get served more drinks and it's almost midnight (and I'm pretty sure prostitute corner gets alot more business after midnight). Anyway, I should get home and find my glasses so I can read how many Tums to prescribe myself before I jump into bed. After all it is way past my bedtime. On second thought I probably shouldn't jump into bed with my poor night vision. I'd probably land on my hip. Hey.....next girls night out we should crash the kids jumpy house rave and pop some vitamins. Oh, that would be fun! But I'm pretty sure we'd get kicked out of the mall for that though....