How Daylight Savings Time Can Be Delayed
With daylight savings time officially occurring in Pittsburgh and across the country (except Arizona, Hawaii, and other US Territories), this occurrence has odd implications across the rest of the world. Below is my recollection of how daylight savings time can be delayed – Morocco, 2013.
Marrakech Medina at Night
While finishing up the tail-end of my two-month trip abroad to Eastern Europe, I decided to visit Morocco for the last week. Not only would it provide a great detox from the amount of beer I consumed at Munich’s Oktoberfest, but also an interesting story.
I had arrived in Morroco from Memmingen airport around 9 o’clock at night. Having scribbled down the address of where my accommodations were for the next couple days, I found someone to split a cab with me to lessen the cost. I don’t remember the guy’s name, but he was from France and was able to communicate with the cab driver in French since the driver didn’t know English (but an array of other languages). To shorten this part up, we dropped of the French guy and found some old man in the street to show me to the hostel and I was out another $5 because of it.
Daylight Savings Time is a weird concept internationally – I’ve come to find out that some countries decide wether or not to follow DST at the last minute.
Amour d’ Auberge Hostel in Marrakech, Morocco
In this instance, I was staying at the Amour d’ Auberge in central Marrakech. Beautifully tiled walls, amazing food, a rooftop balcony, and so on made it one of the better hostels I stayed in on this trip.
One night, I ventured out into the medina marketplace to see what was being sold. Grabbed at least one cup of fresh orange juice and saw some monkeys and cobras. (Note: If you don’t get fresh OJ in Morocco, you’re missing out.)
Getting back to the hostel, I worked on the rooftop on emails, client projects, and blogging a bit. Some German kid ventured up and made small talk after confessing that he smoked a hand-rolled cigarette with a drop of THC oil along the seam. We chatted about various aspects of travel, Morocco, and the pizza place just went to. I never found the place.
Finally turned into my bunk in a shared room with a handful of travelers – a couple of German girls leaving first thing in the morning by bus to another city. It seems popular Arabic countries that DST is changed due to Ramadan so fasters do not have to wait until very late to eat.
While in Morocco, on September 28, 2013 – just 1 day before changing clocks – the government voted to extend Daylight Savings Time until October 27, 2013. I’ve heard of the US budget being approved in a late night session, but never a time-change.
“positive impact on the national economy.” – Abdelâdim El Guerrouj
Not only does this affect the economy, but the two aforementioned German travelers that had an early morning bus. They went to be thinking that they had an extra hour of sleep and time to make it to the central bus station. However, early in the morning a hostel employee woke them letting them know about the now non-existent time change and how they needed to checkout and get to the station immediately.
In a perfect world, I’d like to think they made it to their bus just in time.
I hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep.
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