How I Almost Got Killed pt. 1....

Originally I had intended on telling a multitude of stories from my Euro-trip but the more I thought about what stories to tell, the more I realized that most of them would sort of be on the "my life is so wonderful" side of things that might make people hate me. So rather than tell you about taking a booze cruise in Portugal to look at caves, or drinking the best sangria in the world in a plaza in Barcelona, or going to ridiculous clubs in Madrid, I'll just tell you the one story that trumps any other from the trip...

Just to give you a little background on the people I went with, two of them just graduated from med school (the celebration of which is what prompted the trip in the first place) so to keep their identities secret - we'll call them Dolce and Ginuwine. Another was an old friend who I went to school with from 6th through 12th grade - we'll call him Eddie.

Our trip had gone fine without a single hitch. Dolce and I had flown out of Detroit to Lisbon, Portugal with no problems. A couple days later we met up with Ginuwine, which after spending 2 weeks with him and realizing how clueless and slow to act he can be, is remarkable that he made it. The three of us then headed to Lagos where we spend a couple of days before heading to Casablanca to meet up with Eddie. Now the fact that Eddie and I hadn't spoken save for a few emails before I left, made me weary of the fact that meeting someone in Africa might not go as easily as planned. But, sure enough, when we finally got to Casablanca after a full day of travel that included a 2 hour bus ride, a 2 hour boat ride and a 6 hour train ride, we got to our hotel and Eddie had left a note saying he already checked in and would be waiting for us. This would be the last time everything would go well in Morocco.

Eddie and Dolce were both exhausted from a full day of travel and each of them retired to their own rooms. Our 3 bed room was given away so we got a single and a double and Dolce took the single and Eddie was in a room down the hall. As this was our first real Euro-trip, Ginuwine and I were possessed by the desire to get blasted and milk every second of enjoyment out of the trip that we could. I should also mention quickly a pact that we had made that at no time shall anyone separate lest we get lost or killed. As soon as Eddie and Dolce called it a night, Ginuwine and I were officially on our own and this was the turning point in Morocco because things got instantly whack. So whack.

We decided to go downstairs and ask the front desk where a good bar was in the area. The man promptly told us, "don't go outside. It's not safe!" We both looked at each other with concerned raised eyebrows, heeded his advice and went back upstairs. We had been staying in hostals so we were excited by the tv in our room to lull us to sleep. Of course we didn't realize that Casablanca was a terrible place and not only did our tv not work, it wasn't even hooked up to anything. We went downstairs to the 'restaurant' to get a couple beers. We ask for 2 and the man tells us it will be 20 Darhams which is about 2 Euros. We say fine and ask for two more. He brings them out and as we pay him he says they are 20 each. We only have about 50 in our pockets and do not feel like walking upstairs to get more so we tell him we only need 2. He tells us they are actually only 18 each so since we gave him 40, come back down with 45 and he'll give us the other two. After explaining to him that his gorilla math made no sense he accepted that we only wanted 2 and then charged us 20 each. Slightly upset and confused, we went upstairs and drank our beers and listened to music. We were convinced that Casablanca was a hell hole and the Dolce was downstairs watching tv and dreaming sweetly. A few hours later Ginuwine and I woke up in a cold sweat after both having nightmares and told each other what our crazy murderous dreams were about. We finally fell back asleep only to be awakened yet again a few hours later as someone was trying to get into our room. After having nightmares and then being woken up by someone trying to get in our room we just decided to stay up. We went downstairs and met up with Dolce and Eddie, both of whom had a great nights sleep. Dolce watched the French Open until he drifted off peacefully.

So that morning we spent about 3 hours in Casablanca before getting the f out of there and on a train to Marrakesh which we literally had to run to catch.

Sorry I didn't realize I would spend so much time on Casa. I have to go, but I'll finish the story tomorrow. Go big.

I'm out

-M, p, z & shredder