Weekend the first in Rabat

So, here I am in Morocco. Yay!
Like a good representative of Her Majesty abroad, I looked at a fair amount of information about Morocco before coming here so, of course, I knew all about the place.
Moving on, bear with me on my learning curve.
The first few days have been taken up with learning about the work and finding my way to and from my apartment. Cracked the latter now.
My first weekend. A dry Friday night. Probably good for me.
Saturday, a walk to the supermarché. Stocked the larder.
Then off to the Medina. Predictably, got lost and ended up walking through the residential area. You have to like your neighbours (or be good at ignoring them) if you live there. By this time, my feet were killing me because Nike flip flops are not meant for walking further than the sea to the beach bar. Not miles round hot Moroccan streets. I gladly paid over the odds for a pair of hooky Converse to save my poor plates. Then I did happy walking and went down to the sea and watched young lads leaping off the dock into the water; fishermen catching nothing (just like on Deal pier) and seagulls doing seagull stuff (just like Deal but better).
Then a coffee at a nice bar on the seafront. I sat there thinking how, in Morocco, the coffee tastes like real coffee, the olives taste like real olives and salade marocaine tastes like...well, a Moroccan salad. Having seen only elegant, not so elegant and downright scruffy people all day but all of them unchallenged sizewise, a couple of porkers came and sat down next to me and spoke English in a sort of nasal way. Stereotypes? No.
My next mission was to locate the one supermarket in Rabat that sells alcohol (sssh). I was told it wasn't far from my coffee bar by the sea. What I wasn't told was that I would have to follow some tram lines, cross a 6 lane dual carriageway and walk down a deserted road until finding my way across another busy road to the supermarket car park. I should mention the helpful chap who asked me where I was going - the supermarket I said - ah, for la biere, he said. Got my number. Bagged my booze and grabbed a taxi to get home. What a taxi driver. Guide tour on the way back, pointing out all the supermarkets much nearer to my apartment than the one he had picked me up from. Particularly one which sold le vin (if that's what I wanted). Not only that, but he recommended the best wine at 80 dirhams. Anything less than that would be pas bon. I said nothing as I had bought two 40 dirham bottles. We pulled up outside my house and he opened the boot to get my shopping out. However, he felt the need to go through my purchases and discovered the cheap wine and beer. He pronounced a couple of the beers ok but both bottles of red to be rubbish. One of them only good for killing flies. I felt like apologising but he laughed and said "next time".