Now in Rabat

My second month now in Rabat.  I am a professional Filipino expatriate from Riyadh assigned long term now in Rabat working for an international organization. I have recently set up myself and found my permanent apartment. Had Airbnb for 2 weeks. It took me a while to find a better and cheaper apartment balancing between rental cost and distance from the workplace.  Apartments on the outskirts of the main city are much cheaper and bigger. 

My carte Sejour is in process and until it is released, I take petit taxi and Careem to go to work and do errands.  Once I get my resident card, I would be able to buy a new car.  By the way, you would not be able to send money from here without the carte Sejour (iqama), whether in banks or in any remittance centers.  Tried hard with no luck.  Western Union, Moneygram, RIA, Barid Cash, all asked for the iqama to be able to send money. 

I just had my fiber internet installed (Maroc Telecom). 4g signal here gets weaker when you go farther from the city center. Thus I needed to get more robust internet service.

People are really helpful and friendly in nature. I speak a little Arabic with zero knowledge in spoken French.  I could read little written French though since I have a good background in a long-dead and foregone language, Latin.  Most officemates speak English and they are able to help when I needed someone to translate.  I intend to learn French. I have taken an online class previously and needed to get back to it.

Sports activity, I still need to connect.  I am a 3.5 - 4.0 category tennis player. I played twice a week in Riyadh but here I have not hit since I came.  I found a number of clay courts nearby in my place of work but knew no one who plays.  I hope someone in expat.com plays tennis and is interested to play.

The food here is cheap, the first thing I noticed. And most are fresh produce. You will seldom see frozen goods here even in bigger supermarkets like Marjane and Acima.

I learned from taxi drivers that there are very few Filipino communities in Rabat. They are mostly concentrated in Casablanca and Marrakesh.  In my 2 months here, I only saw one Filipino, a chef in an Asian restaurant. I am not concerned though at this stage. I will meet new local friends and expatriates from other countries as well.

I am still fixing my new place and I am now going to Bricoma and Electroplanet to buy few items hence I will end my introduction here.

Thanks for the chance.