A Day at the Medina

I spent a good few hours today strolling around the medina with some friends. It's pretty much the oldest part of Rabat, and definitely a central gathering point for the local population. It's lined with a ridiculous number of stalls, selling innumerable amounts of random stuff. The best part is the sheer number of knockoff goods. All the t-shirts are of 3 varieties: diesel, dolce and gabbana, or some sort of english expression you'd find on engrish.com There's also lots of knockoff Puma and Nike hats and shoes. The funniest thing i saw were these knockoff havainas sandals. They had the brazilian flag, etc on them (since they are brazilian), and on the heel they say "designed in italy."
Besides the designer knockoffs, there's misc pottery, electronics, traditional clothing, and lots of different food. The most colorful shops are the spice shops, which, for once, literally look like the pictures in the lonely planet guidebook - we're talking mountains of spices of different colors. I also found a store that sold live turtles - not as pets, mind you.
There was also a lot more begging in the medina. Literally, i would see beggars from far off, and we'd make eye contact, and then they'd close their eyes and pretend to be blind and wave their sticks at us.