I really do not know why I even bother expecting things to go as planned in Morocco. They hardly ever do and we always make it eventually. We make vague plans and eventually we get somewhere.
So me and Sarah planned to go to Tanger this weekend, Ifrane had been majorly awful and rainy and cold. We invited anyone who wanted to come with. People were like, maybe... So the night before we left my friend Antti said he was going I try to get up and come and Sophia might too. Of course that wasn't a yes or no. So we had a taxi coming at 6am to take us to Meknes and no one else showed up. Which was fine but it really makes planning a bitch if you never know who is coming until they don't show up.
Next on the list of ways the trip took an unexpected twist was getting dropped off at the Meknes train station and realizing that we needed to be at the other Meknes station since there at two of them. So we walked the 20ish minutes to the other train station. We eventually figured out which train to take and got our tickets. We were supposed to transfer in Mechraa Belksiri to get a second train to Tanger. When we gave our tickets to the guy who makes sure you have your tickets he told us to get on the train that was there then. Our train wasn't due for 20 min but he was like "this train! And transfer in Kenitra." We tried to explain that our train wasn't due for 20 min but he told us to just get on the train. So we did.
We just hopped on some random train. They really aren't big on the specifics here. If you pay for a ticket from one place to another it doesn't seem to matter exactly how you get there. Which is kind of nice but also can get pretty confusing. For someone who likes to plan things out and know what to expect it can be a tad stressful.
This is a reoccurring theme in Morocco. We just show up places and hope things work out. Mostly they do. Except Casablanca. If you catch the wrong train or miss a bus there is almost always a fairly timely alternative depending on how remote you are.
Like I planned on taking a grand taxi to Meknes and from there a train to Rabat one weekend but we ended up taking a grand taxi all he way to Rabat with some other students we met at the taxi station.
To add to the list of slightly odd things that have happened in Morocco: When we got off the train in Kenitra to switch to a different train going to Tanger we were waiting on the platform and there was a train just kind of sitting there with all it's doors open. I was facing the opposite direction but this girl came up to me and Sarah and said "I'm going to kiss you ok." and proceeded to do the double cheek kiss thing I always manage to screw up. It wasn't that weird but it was unexpected. We get a lot of leering men but mostly the women just go about their business. She was probably 13? so not so young that it was just a kid thing either. So a random stranger asked to kiss us for no apparent reason. Welcome to Morocco.
You'd think Morocco might have made me more relaxed about time. but I actually think it has managed to make me more neurotic because I can't count on anyone else to be on time.
