Mom and Dad's Adventure! Day 4

March 11- Day 4

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We woke up to falling snow today -- which continued all day. Thankfully, we left early for the airport. Once at the airport, we got shuffled around to the wrong place a couple of times before finally finding the special line for SAP. We had a charter flight with Air Berlin. Pretty much like having a United flight completely booked for the company. It was an airbus that seated 300. There are about 890 SAP people here at this incredible resort. Pretty much the nicest place I've ever been. Pete only knew one person who was supposed to be here and it ended up they were on the same flight from Munich. Our flight was delayed by 2 hrs because of weather so we had a long time to visit with them. They both grew up in East Germany. It was interesting to ask them about it. It just happened when we found our seats on the plane that they were seated in front of us -- so we didn't feel quite so out of place. So far, we haven't run into any other Americans -- they all went to the Hawaii version of this event. As far as a romantic getaway -- this week has pretty much been far beyond anything we ever would have dreamed of planning ourselves. We had some mix ups as we arrived, we were moved from one building to another. All of the buildings here are incredibly decorated in Moroccan style, but the one we were moved to is all suites. Three beautiful rooms all to ourselves. It is really hard to adequately describe and really over the top. Pete was trying to straighten out a mixup with our luggage and I was sitting out on our balcony watching the sunset over the palm trees and listening to the exotic sounding birds that changed into exotic sounding night creatures thinking I was probably the first Goodwill shopper to ever sit in that spot! How did I get here??? The evening was much more relaxing than I expected. Tonight was very casual with people milling around a huge banquet hall, sitting on big pillows and enjoying a variety of fun foods and desserts. We ran into another manager that Pete knows, who had all sorts of wonderful and ethusiastic things to say about my husband. He is married to their international HR coordinator -- she was fun for me to visit with. There was no program and this is the evening we don't have to stay late or get up early, so we're back here enjoying our surroundings. Tomorrow evening and the next the dinners are offsite and go until 1am (although you can take shuttles back beginning at 11:00pm -- sheesh...) Our morning is free tomorrow until we go to the Souk (market) at 11:00. I took lots of pictures out of the bus on the way here. Here is the part Rachel is looking for -- the sites and sounds of Morocco -- Nearly all of the women on the street were covered in traditional muslim outfits from head to toe -- they were fairly colorful. Some of the mostly older men were in long dress (Mrs. Lander can tell you the name), but more were dressed in western wear. The streets were bustling and busy since it was rush hour. An interesting mix of busses, cars, trucks, bicycles, motor bikes, horse drawn carriages and donkey carts. As we got out of the main downtown area, there were apartment buildings on the sides of the road with grassy areas or dirt between the building and the highway. This is a modern, four lane highway, yet along the road there were little boys playing a game on the ground, people sitting in the field, limping dogs, mules grazing and a couple herds of sheep -- no fences or anything -- trash strewn around (although the thought did cross my mind that perhaps the trash was just animal scrap bags that the children left behind after their chores -- ha!ha!) As we neared the resort, there were palm trees. In the landscaping in the medians, there were cute orange trees. The oranges looked big and juicy, but the bus driver said they are bitter. We also saw several groves of olive trees. They were very picturesque and fun to see from the air as we were landing. The buildings are all a reddish brick/stucco sort of look. The air was warm and a bit humid because they just had a couple of days of rain before we arrived. It felt so good after the biting cold in Germany! When we got out at our resort, the air smelled slightly spicy. When we entered the buildings they offered us traditional Moroccan tea in cute dark glasses. It tasted a lot like good earth tea. Sweet and slightly spicy. Tonight, they were burning candles everywhere -- in the windows, ledges, stair cases, outside the doors. There are so many sounds of critters outside, I video taped so you could hear it. After dinner, we decided to trying finding the way back to our building on the paths. Right through the calling critters. We had one of those surreal moments when we looked at each other and said -- we're walking in Africa.... As we were coming in for our landing this afternoon and getting a good look at the area, I thought to myself -- so this is Terri's Morocco --- wish I had time to see more of it. We are looking forward to seeing the market tomorrow and the children's village on Saturday. We are feeling a bit awed and very blessed. Praying all of our kids get over their coughing and not make any grandparents sick. Love you all....