Attempted Stoning...

We meet a cabbie named Abdul near the ferry terminal and he agrees to drive us to the train station for 5 Euro. He happily welcomed us to Morocco and tried to convince us to hire him for a tour of Tanger. I told him I just barfed my way across the mediterranean so we weren’t interested. He didn’t press the issue ;) An interesting fact here, although we travelled directly south of Spain, Morocco is two hours behind Europe! So when we got off the ferry at 1900 hours we had to change our clocks to 1700. We still didn’t have any Dirham, and Abdul eagerly traded us some Dirham for Euro’s. We went to the ticket counter at the train station to book our “couchette” in the overnight train to Marrakech. We didn’t have enough Dirham for the tickets and they wouldn’t accept Euro or Visa. The employee at the counter directed us to a cash machine inside the station. Steve inserted his card and it said “communication error”, his visa wouldn’t work either-Shitballs! We considered changing all of our Euro to Dirham, but we couldn’t be sure we could access money when we got to the South. Thankfully the two hour time change gave us an advantage and we headed into Tanger to find a bank. It was still light out and the streets were busy so I didn’t feel scared at all. We walked past a McDonalds and saw a sign for a “McArabia!” Hahahaha! Our priority was money and our stomachs weren’t ready for food so we kept walking. As we were walking down the sidewalk on a busy road, a little boy approached us and started walking with us. He said “ One Dirham? One Dirham?” Steve responded “Dirham? Nah” and the boy said “One Dirham, boom-boom, One Dirham, boom-boom” and Steve was laughing and saying “boom-boom?” The warnings from Brandi rang through my head- “do not engage!” I thought oh shit, Steve is engaging. I said “Steve stop engaging” but Steve was laughing and thinking this little puppy eyed boy was funny. I thought to myself- we don’t even have Dirham coins! I had to take control- I looked at the boy who was by now hanging off Steves arm and sternly said “No Dirham, You go away!” I felt like a wicked witch. He gave me the ultimate glare and probably cursed me to Allah. But he went away. I turned around only to see the little puke pick up a golf ball sized rock and wind up to throw it at me. He looked at me and lowered his arm (about 15 feet away) then he raised it again, I said Steve that little shit is trying to hit me with a rock, so we both turned around and he threw the rock but it didn’t even get near us- then he ran away. Little shit. A short walk later and we found a bank with a cash machine. We inserted the card and crossed our fingers- success and relief!!!

We headed back towards the station and agreed to just eat at the Mcdonalds as it would be dark soon and there wasn’t a whole lot around for food. Besides, Steve had to sample the McArabia! We stopped near the beach to take a couple photos because I’d be embarrassed if our first picture in Africa would be in a McDonalds!! The McArabia was some sort of paddy (meat unknown- possibly lamb?) inside a folded piece of bread (similar to Naan bread) with bbq sauce. Steve enjoyed it very much. I had a McChicken- and it was better than the McChicken at home! We got back to the train station and finalized our tickets by paying for them :) Steve went to use the washroom and came back to report “those are the cleanest bathrooms I’ve ever seen!” So I thought this was awesome news and went to use the facilities and freshen up. The bathrooms were super nice- and they had pink toilet paper! I left the bathroom only to find an old women sitting outside the entrance demanding money for using the bathroom...I didn’t know what to give and I only had Euro coins, so I gave 20 cents in Euro. They must have been on a break when Steve used it and when I entered...Anyways, a little while later, two girls came up to us to ask if we knew what the acceptable amount was for the toilets- and this is how we met our first travel friends.