Rabat (Morocco) : The Garden City

Rabat: A Unique City Morocco

If you are ever traveling to Africa, the one city you need to check out is without a doubt, Rabat. Rabat is a unique and stunning city that will delight any traveler who makes their way to it.

Rabat, which means “Fortified Place” has been inhabited for thousands of years, including by the Roman Empire. Currently, the city has a population of 650,000 people and it is the capital of Morocco, rather than Casablanca as many assume. It is also the second-largest city in the country and the capital of the Rabat Sale Zemmour Zaer region.

The city is located on the Atlantic Ocean, at the mouth of the Bou Regreg River, giving it beautiful views and landscapes around it. There are several smaller bedroom communities around Rabat including Sale and Temara, which give the region a population of 1.8 million. The city used to be a very important port city, but these days it is more geared towards textile, food processing and construction. Sadly, some multinational corporations do operate sweatshops in the area.

Tourism has also become very popular in the city thanks to the many foreign embassies and the effort to get tourists to the city. Casablanca is more famous, but Rabat is working hard to get noticed.

Rabat is popular among Europeans because of its warm Mediterranean climate. It has a mile temperate climate with cool weather in the winter and warm days in the summer. Throughout the year, the nights are cold due to its proximity to the desert. When the day comes along, the temperature usually rises by about 15 degrees Celsius. The high in the winter, at its coldest days, usually reaches only 17.5 degrees Celsius.

So, what is there to do in Rabat? Well, quite a bit actually. Here are the most popular sites in the city:

• Chellah: This is the old city that was founded by the Carthaginians and conquered by the Romans, then passed to the Arabs over time. It has been abandoned and settled a great deal over time and parts of this old town are still visible.

• The Old Medina: One of the largest open air markets in the world, the old medina is a must see for anyone who is interested in seeing what Morocco is all about, and it is these stunning markets

• Kasbah of the Oudaias: This is a deserted Kasbah that was used during the reign of the Almohads back in the early part of the second millennium AD. The Kasbah was deserted following the death of Yaqqub al-Mansur in 1199 AD.

• Hassan Tower: This is an incomplete mosque that was going to be the world’s largest when construction was started in 1199. It only reached 140 feet, half the 260 feet that it was intended to be. This is a very important part of the historic and tourist aspects of the city.

So, take a trip out to Rabat and see this amazing city for yourself, you will not be disappointed.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Travelnowsimply.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Nov 13, 2010.

RECESSION-PROOF JOBS

Economic Crisis And Recession-Proof Jobs

First Published: ADawnJournal.com March 29, 2009

In the financial climate that prevails at the moment, there are numerous people who very understandably feel that there is no way they will ever get a job. Companies are laying off workers or asking them to take fewer hours in order to allow them to keep operating, and as a result the number of companies actually taking on new staff is falling sharply. This is the human effect of the recession being shown as clear as day. Newly graduated college students are finding themselves with large scale student debt and without a job that allows them to start paying it off. People who have been in the same job for twenty years and more are all of a sudden finding themselves unemployed and with scarce opportunity to retrain and find a new job.

Despite this, there are some companies and individuals who continue to thrive even in the heart of the recession. Some jobs are seemingly fire-proof, and some companies are experiencing little, if any, fall in profits or marketability. These jobs and these companies are the ones who are recession-proof. As fanciful as that term may appear, the simple truth is that there are services that a huge number of people will continue to need, and these services are not going to suddenly hit the skids in the same way that consumer outlets have been. When people have to tighten their belts financially, the first things to go are the things that they want but do not need. The things that we need will continue to do well because, whether we like it or not, we have to pay out for them.

For example, health care professionals are not suffering unduly in the recession because – credit crunch or no credit crunch – people are still getting sick, getting injured and needing treatment. Although there may be a drop in terms of people with comprehensive medical insurance as workers get laid off, there is no question that people are still going to their doctors in cases of necessity. Just as they will go to the doctor to get themselves fixed, they will also see another recession-proof worker – the car mechanic – when their car breaks down to get that fixed. Living without a motor vehicle, for many people, is simply not something that they can countenance.

The key, then, to making yourself recession proof is not easy, but it is clear. Make yourself indispensable. If you can get yourself into a market sector on which people rely and on which they will spend money, then you will give yourself a big advantage in the credit crunch era. If you are looking to go into business, then yes, now is a risky time for that but if you can get a business plan going for something that is essential it will pay off. Think about what people turn to in times of financial difficulty, and try to make your mark in those areas. It is essential to protect yourself, because the recession may continue for some time.

Do We Really Reap What We Sow?

Many of Us Would Argue Not

Much of human behaviour in this world is predicated on one of the maxims we all know: “You reap what you sow”. This is a saying which drives many people’s consciences and troubles others only after they have “sowed” whatever they suspect will eventually come to be their comeuppance. To many it is a rule to live by, to others a meaningless piece of cod philosophy that simply guilt-trips those who are naïve enough to believe it. Is a maxim of any value if only half of the world seems to believe it? Or should we all look out for number one and happily allow other people to take what life throws at them – potentially as a consequence of our actions?

Karma is an interesting thing. We can probably all think of at least one individual who has, as a result of at best questionable actions, risen to a position of privilege on one level or another. They may head up a major corporation and be able to write their own pay checks as they see fit. They may be extremely sought-after romantically. One way or another, there are people benefiting from not following the standard rules of morality. Do they reap what they sow? Many of us would argue not.

It hardly sets a good example. We will, if we have a commitment to bringing the best out of those we influence, try to promote a message of good actions bringing forth good rewards. Then we let our protégé see a world where people who lie, cheat and bend the rules non-stop are rewarded with money, prestige and often influence. How can they possibly marry the advice we give with the picture they see? The only conclusion they can have is that some people are not living by the rules.

How do we then make a lesson from that, for ourselves and for others? How do we say that the people who ignore the rules of common decency are not a model to be followed? It is a very difficult question to answer, and one which gives parents, teachers and other concerned individuals a few sleepless nights. If we have a belief in an afterlife, we can say that these people will eventually pay for their sins – but we cannot see the afterlife and we cannot see that they are going to be any more troubled then than now.

Therefore, it really comes down to a message that is perhaps more complicated than “we reap what we sow”. We should behave decently to other people because there is much more chance that people will remember what we did wrong than what we did right. We should behave decently to others because, if we have a conscience, eventually a transgression will turn into a sleepless night. But more than this, we should behave decently to others because it is the right way to behave, and in the end we have to face the world with confidence that we did the right thing – even when evidence suggested that the wrong thing may have had greater material benefit to us.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Oct 12, 2009.

Melbourne Travel Blog: Part 6 | Sovereign Hill Gold Mine

Going Back in Time: 1850 - Sovereign Hill Gold Mine in Ballarat

Melbourne Travel Blog: Part 1

Melbourne Travel Blog: Part 2

Melbourne Travel Blog: Part 3

Melbourne Travel Blog: Part 4

Melbourne Travel Blog: Part 5

One of the attractions in Melbourne you must visit is the Sovereign Hill Gold Mine in the suburb of Ballarat. A small city from the 1850 gold rush in Australia is preserved as it was back in those days. You will be able to go back in time and experience a gold mine city.

Visiting the whole city would take a full day, so I rushed to finish everything as fast as I could. Some of the places you can experience in Sovereign Hill as they were in the past are:

- A real underground gold mine and the ability to ride a real mine tram

- Original working conditions and mining equipment

- A real gold melt & pour to make a $100,000 gold bar

- Blacksmiths and traditional craftsmen

- Bakery, bank, blacksmith, post office, grocer, tentmaker, tinsmith, bank, post office, candle-dipping shop, lolly shop, stables, nine-pin bowling saloon, library and various other shops on the main street

- Houses, tents, water well, and gardens from the old days

- 1850s-style hotels, schools and a theatre with goldfields entertainers

- a gold museum is also located right across from the front exit

I spent my whole day videoing as much as possible at Sovereign Hill and will post these on You Tube.

Chasing Kangaroos at the Lysterfield Lake Park

Going to Australia without seeing kangaroos is like going to Egypt without visiting the pyramids. I encountered my first kangaroo sighting in the Lysterfield Lake Park, which is located in the greater Melbourne area.

There are 60+ different species of kangaroos. Some of them are big and some of them are small. The ones I was chasing in the park to take pictures and videos are the small ones. They wouldn’t let me get very close. I saw some of them carrying babies in the pouch located on their bellies.

Positive Signs In Canadian Economy – But A Long Way Still To Go

Financial Crisis and Canadian Economy

First Published: ADawnJournal.com April 1, 2009

As people hang on for news that the financial world is lifting itself from its sickbed and preparing to walk again, any little bit of good news is likely to be taken as an encouraging sign that the end may be in sight. There are timely warnings, then, attached to the news that Toronto and Ontario have both reported rises in the rate of inflation for February. As both cities saw a rise of 0.1% from January’s rates, and Canada in general leaped by 0.3%, and the stock market rose for an eighth consecutive day, there may well be some desire to crack open a bottle of moderately-priced champagne – but this should be initially resisted, say experts. The inflation rate is predicted to fall in the coming months as more factors come into play.

The markets and the prices will continue to be watched in the months to come, as the world watches America for signs that things are improving there. Like the British government a few weeks ago, the US administration has taken its first steps toward quantitative easing by announcing a plan to buy up US$300bn in treasury bills. The danger inherent in this is that it can cause inflation to rise too quickly, and the Canadian government is expected to hold off on any quantitative easing at least for the present, preferring to keep a close eye on the economy and put in place prudent measures such as purchasing commercial paper in a bit to stimulate business lending.

While any signs of stirring in the economy are certainly to be welcomed, the fact of the matter is that nothing can presently be said to be happening that is a definitive “beginning of the end” of the financial turmoil, even in a Canada that has been applauded for its sound handling of the crisis. As a newly-installed President is finding out south of the border, people are tending to be skeptical of any financial stimulus plans, preferring to wait until the evidence of their own eyes gives them permission to get excited. The overall message is still that this is not a crisis which will recede overnight, and that we may well be looking at something that takes years to finally be over.

For the present, it seems that all that the consumer can to is continue to spend wisely, save assiduously and wait things out. The thing that is sticking in everyone’s mind, no matter which nation they live in, is that nobody can really say they have a definitive way to cure the crisis. If they did, it would already be in place. Patience is going to be the key, in Canada as much as everywhere else, and this is one case where no-one can predict with absolute certainty what will happen tomorrow, next week or next month. Amid all that, who’d be a President?