Is having household support, adding to our lounging time? No excues needed...

Without a major amount of vegetation in the Medina, other than in the small park near the main entrance and that which shops and restaurants has on their premises, it's pleasurable to see flowers blooming.

Yesterday, Adil explained in French (he speaks little English) that Madame Zahra is ill and wouldn't be able to come to the house or to make dinner. He seemed concerned that this was a problem for us which of course, it wasn't, as we reassured him. Our only concern was for Madame returning to good health.

Having full-time household help would not be on my list of "must have's" if we won the lottery. In South Africa, at Khaya Umdani, Zef arrived at 7:30 every morning to do the last night's dinner dishes, make the bed and clean the house.

There's a kindly shop owner working in this area that often stops and visits with us.

Of course, we appreciated his hard work as we do the staff at Dar Aicha, equally diligent and hard working who are here from 9:00 am until 7:00 pm on the days that Madame Zahra cooks our dinner. On the days we dine out, they leave in the afternoon after tending to the house and the laundry.

For us, the lack of privacy would prevent us from desiring full-time help. In the future, should we settle for longer periods outside the US, most likely, we'd only want a biweekly house cleaner for a few hours each visit.

Overlooking the souk from the restaurant.

Without the responsibility of household tasks we can easily spend too much time lounging, something I have little interest in, never have. Tom, on the other hand, doesn't mind sitting all day, tending to his online "hobbies" such as Ancestry.com, our investments, listening to his favorite radio show, Garage Logic from Minnesota, researching future travels and communicating with family and friends via Facebook.

Luckily, the first half of my days are spent researching, writing and managing photos. During the remainder of our time indoors, I manage our finances and budget, research future travels, spending a little time on Facebook communicating with family and friends and responding to email.

Another pretty rose in the restaurant's rooftop garden.

Although, we're out almost everyday walking the Medina and the souks, often discovering new photo ops, there are only so many hours one can spend walking. Dining out no less than four times a week, the walk to the restaurants is often over an hour round trip, depending upon the density of the crowds. The walk to our preferred ATM is almost an hour round trip.

At the Terrasses des Espices Restaurant, we were served this black olive Tapenade which I'm able to eat along with a basket of bread for Tom. Notice the ashtray on the table. Smoking is allowed in restaurants.

On occasion, we venture outside the Medina to the busy road, a location better spent inside a vehicle than on foot with the fast moving traffic darting in and out at a frenzied pace which is not a particularly safe area for walking. When needing to grab a petit taxi to a restaurant, it's necessary to walk outside the walls of the Medina to the nearby taxi stand where it's fairly easy to find a driver willing to negotiate for a reasonable fee.

It took time for me to become comfortable with staying indoors in Morocco a few days a week. Shouldn't we be out taking advantage of our location? But, in reality, we're not on a vacation/holiday. We're living our lives. Anyway, who goes sightseeing everyday while living their day to day lives?

Tom's usual dinner. Fries and meat. By the time we leave Morocco, he may have had
his fill of fries.

Today, with Madame Zahra still under the weather, we'll head out when we get hungry preferring not to pick a time earlier in the day. Only a few restaurants are open during the day resulting in few options. Most often, the French and Italian restaurants we've found don't open for dinner until 7:30 pm. Considering at least 40 minutes from opening time before the food arrives, dining is too late for our liking.

We've found in all of our travels that most tourists from European countries tend to dine late, stay up late and starting their day late. Usually in bed by midnight, we both are early risers, preferring to dine by 6:30 or 7:00 pm

My dinner was delicious. The yellow stick has seasoned chicken resulting in yellow color. The white vegetable is fennel, not potatoes, a commonly served vegetable in Morocco.

Sure, we could adapt our ways to the traveling masses. However, we prefer to maintain some of the familiar routines which invariably add to our sense of feeling grounded. Stuck in our ways? Perhaps, to some degree. But, then part of the magic of being "free" of certain responsibilities, allows us to decide how we prefer to spend our time.

Isn't that what retirement is supposed to be like anyway? Yep.

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Photo from one year ago today, April 16, 2013:

We dined in one of the specialty restaurants on the Carnival Liberty which much to our surprise was on of the best meals we've had since embarking on our travels. This plate of meat was presented to us from which to we selected our entrées. For detail of this amazing meal and our outing when our ship docked in St. Thomas, US Virgin Island where I had an opportunity to see an old friend, please click here.