Marrakesh

So, Saturday night I went to the birthday party at the Moroccan restaurant, right? It was a pretty big adventure!

Around 8:15, I left the office and met my friend Alison at the metro, and we shared a cab over there. Good thing I had written down the address! The restaurant had no name on the door. Just something written in Arabic (maybe it said Marrakesh, but I can't read Arabic!) and a number. We went up to the door and it was locked, so Alison knocked with the giant door knocker, and we were let in.

(Yes. I SO should have had my camera for this excursion. I do apologize)

We were introduced by the hostess to others in the lobby, being told that they were here for Sharon's birthday party too. After a few minutes, we were taken to a separate club room, complete with dance floor and disco ball. We were seated at small sofas with little gold coffee tables.

Alison thought there were going to be about 12 people at the party. We found out from one of the people we came in with that there were going to be 25! She had taken it upon herself to invite 12 or so of her closest friends. Oh, and she failed to tell them that it was actually a birthday party.

People started showing up, and after a little while, a belly dancer came in and danced for about 30 minutes. She was really good. Around 9:45 or so we finally got started with the dinner portion of the evening. I was starved - I hadn't eaten since noon!

The dinner was a set course thing - your only choices were meat or vegetarian, then beef or lamb? The whole table had to agree on beef or lamb. (We let Sharon decide, since it was her birthday, after all.) The food was ok - nothing spectacular. The couscous in particular was not good. It was wet.

About halfway through our meal, something hit my leg. I sort of ignored it, thinking it was knocked off our table or something. But then things kept hitting us. It turns out the 12 extra friends? Were throwing bits of balled up bread. When the bread got taken away they started throwing raisins, potatoes, whatever they could get their hands on. I have never in my life been involved in a food fight (and I still don't think this counts, as I did not throw food back! Just was hit several times by rogue raisins and bread balls).

I got home around 1 am. The whole evening was a bit bizarre, but I really hope Sharon had a nice time.