788. Morocco Part 15 | Rabat (& my GME Journey!)

We are now in Rabat! Well, we have been here for a week already but I haven't had any time to make an update until now. So I don't really talk about personal things here on my blog as much now, but I will now to remember this event in the future lol.

For the past week I've been completely consumed by this whole GameStop/GME thing. I was lucky to get in quite early (from November 2020: bought at $19, panic sold when it hit $13, regretted it and bought again at $16) and can't believe how much it has blown up now. Today it's $325 (!!!) after markets closed. I'm sure the whole world knows now that this event originated from Reddit's WallStreetBets. I've been a member there for awhile so that's where I found out about the stock at first. I did some research and decided to go in on it due to its potential for a massive short squeeze (amongst a few other factors). After I got some at $16, it stayed at that price for awhile and I left it/didn't pay much attention. At that time on WSB, it was believed that $100 was a realistic target and best case scenario by the end.

Then suddenly, during one of our cooking classes in Fes, I checked my portfolio and saw GME reached $28 and was shocked. From there it kept climbing at a fast pace (while I multi-tasked at the cooking lesson and watching the stock lol) and I bought more at $34. I was so stressed thinking it would go back down right after I bought (as stocks usually do for me) but it did not. I cautiously purchased at a few more price points after that, feeling super stressed each time. My last purchase was at $77 and I decided to stop. Since after that, the stock got more and more publicity and momentum. After Elon Musk's tweet, it just blew up from there. To be honest I feel it may be too risky now to buy more since the "other side" is doing everything they can to drive the price back down again.

At this point I have a lot to lose if it drops, so I have been checking it non-stop throughout the market open hours and reading pretty much all the WSB posts to stay updated. I spent way more hours watching and reading about it than I did on work this week. It has been the most stressful (in a good way) and entertaining event in my stock trading years hahah. Now it's Saturday and I'm just looking forward to next week as I believe it will be quite eventful. I already took a bit of profit on it just to be safe. My remaining shares I am saving until the big squeeze comes..

I can write a lot more about this topic (about the hedge funds, why people are all buying now, Robinhood, etc) but I will stop for now. Maybe I will write more on that after the whole thing is over. It's a pretty chaotic time in the stock market right now.

Anyways here are some photos of Rabat! Even though it's only a couple hours away from Fes, it feels like a world of difference. It is way more modern here and we are more comfortable exploring the city on our own without a guide. We are even eating out at restaurants again lol. The weather has been really nice. Like around 18-20 degrees every day. I am enjoying it so far!

First non-Moroccan meal in months

One thing I noticed about Rabat is that there's a lot of books everywhere. I think people here really like to read. There's a lot of bookstores, people selling them on the ground outside, even vendors walking around carrying stacks of about 20 books to sell to passerbys on the street! I find it pretty amusing that someone would just be walking to their destination and decide to buy one from those vendors. Like it doesn't seem like something to impulse purchase..much less find one you're interested in from their small selection. There are a lot of those vendors though so I guess it's in high demand hahah.



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787. Morocco Part 14 | Last Day in Fes

Our time in Fes (6 weeks) has already come to an end. Tomorrow we are leaving for Rabat. I will really miss it here - mainly our house, housekeeper, cat and our daily routine. I've never stayed in such a large and beautiful place on vacation before and never had a housekeeper preparing a delicious breakfast every morning and meals!

These two photos on the top and bottom were taken today. It's a street directly connected to ours that we walk through pretty much every time we go out. It's so beautiful and I didn't even think to take photos of it until our last day lol. There is a lot of street art like this around the Fes medina.

Here are some final photos I will post of the medina, during our explorations with our guide from a few weeks ago.

I know there's Chinese restaurants literally everywhere. I was still amused to see one in the Fes medina lol.

I posted this photo on my Instagram comparing it with another photo taken from the exact same spot in a pre-covid time. Under normal circumstances when there are tourists in Fes, the walls of this street would be fully covered in little souvenirs. Now it's completely empty.

They were all clapping and singing around these two street performers. I wanted to take a video but wasn't able to until..

We went to this little shop for mint tea and the two performers came in. I guess it was the end of their work day as they sat for tea and board games after that. Not with us though lol.



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786. Morocco Part 13 | Ceramics and Rug Shopping

Fes is the capital of arts and culture in Morocco, and it's easy to see why. I really love their style of decor here. It's all very colourful, a bit whimsical and primarily handmade. Even the buildings in the medina and little alleyways have a lot of paintings.

My favourite souvenirs from here are the ceramics. The rugs are also very beautiful. If I was in the market for one I would definitely want to get it here. I prefer their style to Persian rugs which I don't really like to be honest. The Moroccan ones are more modern (but timeless) with more colours and images.

We visited this rug store set inside a huge riad. Their rooms were piled up with rugs of all sizes. I think there must have been tens of thousands. The entire riad was covered in mosaics. It was all very beautiful and detailed.

We were also brought to the rooftop to see the view

We also visited this ceramics factory. This man is preparing the clay.

Artisans at work.

Every piece of the mosaics are made by hand. They are used for the tables behind or walls and floors. I can't imagine how many hours are spent to make one table (or to cover an entire riad).

Half finished. I assume they go through different layers of paint.

I love/wanted to buy EVERYTHING!!

Finished pieces

In the end, we ended up buying these (+ 1 other thing not shown in the picture). It took me quite a long time to choose and narrow down what I wanted, and also to haggle down the price lol. The tajine is for cooking with and a gift for my mom. It's pretty heavy. I wonder why tajines are not more popular worldwide. I really love them. The factory shipped everything back to Toronto for us as there's no way we could lug these around in our suitcases lol.

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