Just got back from such and amazing weekend. David, Liz, Emily and I took off to Casablanca on Friday after dinner. After a long walk of turning in circles we finally found our Hotel; though only by the grace of a lovely lady who said she would show us the way though she herself had to stop and ask for directions about 6 times. The hotel was run by a lovely little man who was just so cute and hospitable that I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him home!!! Friday night we (us girls) went to Rick's Cafe-the famous cafe from the movie Casablanca. Though I didnt know that the place never actually existed until after the movie came out and some lady realized that she could make a lot of money off all the tourists coming to town asking where Rick's was. The next morning we went to Hassan II Mosque. This place was breath taking!!!
Hassan II Mosque is one of two mosques in all of Morocco that is open for non-Muslims to go into.
With a prayer hall that can accommodate 25,000 the Hassan II Mosque is the second-largest religious building in the world. A further 80,000 can be accommodated in the mosque's adjoining grounds for a total of 105,000 worshipers present at any given time. Built on reclaimed land, almost half of the surface of the mosque lies over the Atlantic water. This was inspired by the verse of the Qur'an that states "the throne of God was built on water." Part of the floor of this facility is glass so worshipers can kneel directly over the sea. The minaret, the lighthouse of Islam is 656 ft high and has two laser beams reaching over a distance of 18.5 miles shining in the direction of Mecca (which is the direction Muslims face during prayer). It took It took 2,500 construction workers, 10,000 artists and craftsman and 7 years to build the mosque, which opened in1993.
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