You Shall Know Our Velocity!

I'm alive. Just barely. I had to check my baggage to fly to Morocco -- it weighed too much. Who knew my clothes and random junk weighed 35 pounds? And who knew I could carry that much while getting lost in Amsterdam and Brussels and Barcelona and Paris and Marrakech, as we are wont to do?

Our RyanAir flight was held up an hour because the crew had miscounted tickets or something and insisted on counting seats about 50 times. Then we had to go through Moroccan customs, which also took forever. So we got in Place Djema El Fna right at its most happenin' hour -- 9:30. Oh, the mopeds and people and foods and scary men asking if we were lost. We could not find our hostel, but we refused to ask for help because anyone who asks if you're lost will charge you. I will paste my immediate reaction to our first night in Morocco, as told to Seth:

"Our flight to Marrakech got held up for like an hour 'cause RyanAir had too many people on board and then when we got here the passport checking line was sooo long so by the time we got out, it was after 9:30 and totally dark and we got so lost and so accosted by men and boys asking if we needed help finding a place, except you're never supposed to say yes because they charge you and omg, there were people everywhere and we stood out like sore thumbs 'cause I had 35 pounds on my back and a little suitcase on my front and we kept walking and walking and couldn't find our hostel and kept going deeper and deeper into the square and saw an Internet cafe and were like 'LET'S GOOGLE IT' but then Brittany used her amazing French and asked the Internet cafe owner for directions and omg he was soooo sweet and enlisted this nice guy to show us where our hostel was and it was, like, in this dark abandoned alley that we had tried to go down earlier, but a man told us the street had been closed, so we'd turned around, but we'd been right! So the nice guy asks some little boys if they know where the place is and he leads us down this dark and winding alleyway that looks like a Star Wars scene, for real, when the Tuscan raiders are about to attack and omg we don't have Obi Wan, just this strange guy who speaks OK English and French and I'm thinking, he's going to kidnap us, my mom was right, but then our hostel is right there and barely labeled and we were safe. And it's a good thing, too, 'cause you can't use GoogleMaps here. Or YouTube. Or LJ. Or blogger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Morocco"

Some of these facts later proved to be wrong, because I could use YouTube the next day, and my Gmail finally worked again, too.

Our hostel was pretty sweet, though. I don't know if I remembered to take pictures because I was so dang terrified, but if I do find some, I will post.

The next day, we trekked back across the square and it was empty and not scary, except for a random moped here and there. We went to Jardin Majorelle, which, let me say, is just a photoshoot waiting to happen. I went a bit crazy with the picture taking, which, again, I will put online eventually. We met this nice British couple in the gardens and I told them about my fear of souks and bargaining and asked if they knew anywhere else I could shop with a set price, but they talked me into souking (aka haggling).

Haggling. Oh my goodness. Moroccan haggling is NOT made for two American girls. These guys were not taking us seriously. I took every price they said and chopped it in half and wouldn't budge but most were just not biting. Brittany had a pretty scary encounter with one souk owner who was, um, all over her?

I shall sum Morocco up in a list form until I can gather my thoughts enough for a story:

- Morocco is hot. Surprising, yes?
- It's also green. From the air, it looks a lot like the Midwest -- patchwork, with green and red.
- Moroccan food is scary. Therefore, we only ate one meal while we were there -- breakfast, and I took lots of pictures of it. It was delicious and lasted us until about 2 p.m. when we became famished but could not eat. These two British girls in our room were curled up with some sort of stomach illness and everyone, including the nice British couple, told us not to eat anything. So we didn't. We ate Nutella and drank bottled water. It was delicious and soon the stomach pangs were tolerable. We ate a bag of chips at the airport the next day -- German chips, sealed. They were amazing.
- A lot of Moroccan men are scary. Especially those with bad teeth. Who rub on you. Ad make you cringe. Ew. Go away.
- Do not, do not, do NOT accept directional help from anyone in Morocco. They will charge you.
- If you take pictures with monkeys, be sure to shower a lot. Also, if you take pictures with snake charmers, expect to be charged a lot.
- The stray cats are very, very skinny.
- The mopeds are very, very scary.
- Your feet will get very, very dirty. Be ready to chop them off if you wear sandles.

Right now we're in Cinque Terre, land of pesto and clear water and HEAVEN. Seriously. Heaven.