I don't give a what-what

So, I was lucky enough to have Dice wake me up this morning by poking the shit out of my leg. She seriously poked me so hard. Haha. Anyways, she poked me at 8:45 am when we were supposed to wake up at 9:45 am. Good thing Dice can read her watch. So, we went back to bed for like an hour and then woke up. Amid was picking us up at 11 to go shopping, so we headed down to breakfast. We didn’t even have to order anything because they just brought us exactly what we ate yesterday morning. Haha. So, that was pretty funny. We ate and went to go meet Hamid in the lobby. Megan was feeling a little bit better this morning which was good too.

So, we headed to the souks which are where we were the other night. It was really different during the day. It was really hot, and there weren’t as many people out as there were at night obviously. We went to get money out of the ATM, and while we were doing that, a fight broke out near us. Hamid went to go break it up, and apparently some guy said something rude to another guy’s girlfriend. Hamid is such a gem though. We walked into the souks, and Hamid wouldn’t let us buy anything until we were pretty far in because he said the stuff on the outskirts is cheap. The first store we went into was a tapestry store which has these really cool tablecloth things that you hang on your wall. They are handmade and really cool though. So, we went in, picked out the ones we liked, and Hamid did the bargaining for us. That is pretty much how it was at every store. Everyone said they gave us a way better price than they normally would because Hamid was there. He just saying that we were his family which was probably the most adorable thing I have ever heard. He also refused to let me carry all of my bags, so he was carrying so purses and stuff for me. What a cutie. I also felt bad for him because we really do love to shop, and Megan can be indecisive at times which can take a while, but he was really patient.
We walked past this one guy that was a wood carver, and he was carving these really cool skewers WITH HIS TOES! Yes. His toes. He made us these really cute, free necklaces, and we watched him do it…with his toes. I seriously can’t get over it. I am surprised he still has both big toes because that is the main toe he uses. It was crazy. He was really cool though and showed us a picture of him carving like that when he was a really young boy. It was awesome. I also bought these really cool, handmade shoes which I am super excited about. They are so cute! We saved a TON of money thanks to Hamid, and he was the best negotiator we could have had. After shopping for a while, we decided to head back.

When we were walking through the square, we saw snake charmers which I was really excited about. Dice was not so excited and stood about 15 feet away from the snakes. Haha. Pretty hilarious. When we walked up, he pulled one of the snakes out of a bucket of water, and I thought it was just a normal garden snake because that was the one he was holding. As soon as he set it down though, its flared out these flaps from the side of its head, and I could see that it was a cobra. Pretty scary. The other one they had was a viper. They are both incredibly poisonous, so I was kind of scared. I got a picture with the garden snake and Hamid though. Haha.
We got back in the car, and Hamid dropped us off at the hotel to pack up. He really wanted us to eat something, but I didn’t want him to have to watch us eat again, so we refused. I feel so bad when he can’t eat! We packed all our stuff up and went to check out of the hotel. So, this was probably the funniest part of the whole day. The hotel room was really nice and in a really nice hotel in general, cost us 240 durhams. That is about the equivalent of $10 a person. That was for two nights, and breakfast both mornings. Isn’t that INSANE!?! We couldn’t believe it.

Hamid picked us up to drive us to the train station, and I gave him my Pitt ballcap and all of our contact information. He gave me his authentic Moroccan straw hat, and his contact information. We thought he was going to drop us off at the train station, but he parked and came in with us. Megan and I wanted to get a little more money out for Casablanca, but we decided to buy waters first. While Dice and I were buying water, Megan dropped the skewers she had bought all over the floor in front of the ATM. I didn’t even realize she did it until she almost had them all picked up. People were staring though, so it was a little funny. Haha. Our train was leaving in about 15 minutes, so Hamid walked us to the place where they took our tickets. We each gave him kisses on the cheek and a hug. He was seriously SO nice to us, and we still can’t figure out why. I guess it was because I go to Pitt, and he went there back in the day, but he made our stay in Morocco 10 times better than it would have been without him. He left, and it was really sad to see him go.

We got on the train and were really excited because we got first class tickets. We were in our own Harry Potter compartment, and we were hoping that no one else was in there. Unfortunately, as we were fighting over who was Hermoine, a man came in and told us we were in the wrong seats. Boo. We were supposed to be in the other first class car which was just a bunch of seats without compartments. There were some women sitting in our seats, so we had to get the conductor to kick them out. It was just really stressful because we had a TON of stuff with us, and we were having trouble carrying it all. Of course everything goes wrong as soon as we leave Hamid’s sight. They finally moved and we sat down. Unfortunately, the one girl was in the right seat, and she ended up trading seats with this younger guy so she could sit with her family.

This guy was not the smallest guy ever, and of course he sat across from me. He had NO problem hogging all the leg room and literally had his feet all the way under my chair. At one point, he even put his leg in between my legs! ARE YOU SERIOUS? I was super pissed, but he was being nice to Dice because she was studying French, and he is fluent in French. He was getting on my nerves though because I was trying to study too, and he wouldn’t shut up. Ugh. We were also really hungry. Not eating because of Hamid was apparently a bad idea. We should have at least grabbed some snacks.

We finally got off the train and away from that AWFUL man. As we walked out of the train station, we were SWARMED by taxi drivers. Absolutely swarmed. The guy on the train told us not to pay more than 20 durhams, but no one would take us for less than 50 durhams.  I was completely exhausted and hungry by this point and didn’t feel like arguing, so we agreed. A bunch of people from SAS were in taxis in front of us, so our taxi was basically just following them. It wasn’t a long ride, but the ship was docked pretty far back in the port we were in. Also, there is a security gate that you have to get through to get to the ship. The people at the security desk made our taxi driver give them his taxi license, and he was clearly not happy about it. So, as revenge, he dropped us off a good 10 minute walk from the ship. He was super rude to us too. Everyone else got taken all the way to the ship, so we were pretty annoyed. Megan got him back though by accidentally ripping off the lining of the car door when she got out of the taxi. It was a crappy taxi anyways. We walked back to the ship, and Megan’s flip flop broke when we were about 50 feet away. What are the chances? So, she had to change into her tennis shoes. I felt bad because they are her only pair of flip flops! Also, when we got back on the ship, they took Megan and Candice’s skewers away from them because apparently they are weapons. So, hopefully they get those back before we get to Boston.

We took a nap and got ready to go to dinner. We went to Rick’s Café which is based on the place in Casablanca. We met up with Katie, Nicole, Amanda, and Ray-ray and heard all about their adventures. I realized how lucky we were to have Hamid with us once I heard from them because apparently a lot of people bothered them in Marrakech. I guess a lot of children were begging for money from them, and a lot of people bothered them on the streets. We didn’t really have a problem with that, but it was definitely because of Hamid. So, we walked to the restaurant. Luckily, we made a reservation because it was packed! The place was really cool though. It looked exactly like the movie, and they had a piano player! The food was also SO good. We had a bottle of wine, and I had duck which was yummy. I also got a chocolate sundae. It was awesome. Katie paid for dinner which was really nice of her, and it was a great last dinner in port.