How I Almost Got Killed pt. 2...

Sorry for not finishing the story yesterday - lunch turned into day drinking which turned into night drinking. Anyways...

After our sleepless night in Casablanca, we caught a train to Marrakesh. Marrakesh is divided into a couple of areas and we were staying in the old district which is full of souks and windy alleys. Our hotel was down one of these alleyways and as soon as we got there we knew it would be impossible to find after we'd had a few drinks. It was still pretty early when we got there so we went out to the city center which essentially a large open market with snake charmers and musicians and these dudes with monkeys on their shoulders. I looked at these impossibly dirty monkeys and leaned over to Dolce and said, "look out for these monkeys, they're probably carrying ebola or something," right before one of these guys came up to me and threw his monkey at me. It was clinging to my shoulder screaming and for a second I thought it was going to rip my head off. After repeatedly yelling at the dude to get the monkey off me, he finally listened but not before I was emotionally unstable.

Since we were in the old part of town it was next to impossible to find a place to eat dinner that also served alcohol but we finally did and actually had a pretty amazing meal. As the sun went down during dinner, the town began to shut down. Women once again seemed to vanish with the sun and with the darkness came all the shady people. We went back to the hotel and referred to our travel book to tell us where to go out at night. Apparently going to bars is a bad idea because not only is it a sausage fest, but they all want to beat you up. So our only choice was a club that was supposed to be pretty fun. It ended up being in a casino and the whole thing felt very Casino Royale. We get into this club called Theatro and we're pleasantly surprised. There are a lot of people, good music and a pretty fun atmosphere. After a few drinks we were feeling pretty good hanging out dancing with ourselves. We were all too afraid to talk to any chicks because we were pretty sure we'd get our asses kicked, but we were still having a good time drinking and being ridiculous. It was then that I noticed there were guys around us that were staring at us like they hated us. I pointed this out to Dolce and he said it was probably because they didn't want us talking to any girls. I agree and continue dancing.

For those of you who have hung out with me, you know I have a ridiculously small bladder and through the course of a night will need to pee anywhere from 2 to 5 tims an hour. This club was pretty large - there was an upstairs VIP area that overlooked the rest of the club below and the bathrooms were downstairs. On one of my return trips from the bathroom I run into Ginuwine and Eddie heading downstairs. Eddie grabs me and says, "Hey come with us, we're about to start some shit." Without hesitating I agree and follow them back downstairs. When we get down there a small shoving match ensues with some guy. I find out that this guy had stolen Ginuwine's drink. He set it down at our table we were standing around and a guy walked right up and took it. Ginuwine told the guy that was his drink and this guy responds by waving it in front of him and taunting him, then headed downstairs which is when I ran into them.

Since I speak french, I approached the guy and told him that he needed to buy Ginuwine a new drink. He tried to hand the drink he stole back to me, but I refuse and say he needs to buy a new one since he had already drank out of it. Arguing goes on for a little while until this guys cousin comes downstairs to see what all the commotion is about. This cousin seems like a good guy and instantly tries to calm everyone down, he speaks English and tells us that we'll go back upstairs and he'll buy us a new drink. So we all go upstairs and I walk over to Dolce to fill him in on what was happening since he had no idea where everyone went. As I'm talking to him, I look over my shoulder and they are once again in a shoving match. I go over to see what the problem is and the cousin who was apparently placating us downstairs, calls over to a bouncer and tells him that it was us who stole his drink. I tell the bouncer that he is lying and as soon as he sees that we were American he doesn't kick us out and goes back to wherever he came from. Then shit got real.

As soon as the bouncer left I say to the cousin, "What the fuck guy. Why would you call him over to kick us out when you're boy is the one who stole our drink." The cousin grabs me and pulls me in close and says, "we're going to kill you." I tell him the situation is not that serious and that if his boy buys Ginuwine a drink everything will be fine. So, still grabbing me he says, "This is not America. This is Morocco. This is my town. We're going to kill you and your friends." Meanwhile, the guy who stole Ginuwine's drink looks at Dolce and mimics slitting his throat. I look at the cousin who is calling to his friends both behind us and upstairs in the VIP area. There had to have been at least 10 dudes total who start coming towards us. As I'm noticing this, Eddie has already grabbed me and started pulling and yells, "Fucking run dude!" I look around quickly to find Dolce and Ginuwine and they have already begun running to the side of the bar. The four of us break out into an all out sprint and head toward the emergency exit on the side of the club. Forgetting that the club is in a casino we emerge right in the middle of it. Without breaking stride we keep sprinting through the casino and out the front doors. I don't know what we must have looked like but I can't believe security or someone didn't stop 4 guys from sprinting through a casino. After busting through the doors we run through the circle entrance to the casino and jump into a cab.

We yell to the cab to go and he calmly asks us where. We tell him it doesn't matter but he doesn't seem to understand the urgency in our voice. Finally Dolce tells him city center and the cab takes off. Meanwhile I keep looking behind us to see if anyone came out of the casino. I don't see anyone and after the cab makes a turn around the corner I think everything is fine. Then, out of nowhere, comes a car speeding up to us. He gets right behind our cab and starts flashing his brights. Our cab driver slows down and moves over to the side to let him pass but instead of passing the car pulls up to the side so that the front of their car is about where the backseat is. Dolce then says, "Oh my god. This is how they got Biggie!" I am freaking out because I was sitting in the left seat and if they started shooting, I'd be the one who gets hit first. The car then pulls back behind us and again flashes it's brights and as it passes a second time it pulls right next to us. It stays there for a minute then finally speeds off.

The cab takes us to our hotel and we all nervously get out. This is an old building and by using the word 'hotel' I'm misleading you. The entrance is a big wooden door in the middle of this alley that looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. We have no keys and have to knock for someone to come let us in. We get into our room and by this time it's nearly 5am, so we debate for a while about packing up and heading to a train station and leaving on the next train. We were originally planning on leaving in the afternoon so it wasn't completely preposterous. We finally decide that we have no way of getting a cab at that hour and didn't want to risk wandering around looking for one. We had convinced ourselves that all someone had to do was ask the cabbie where he took us and they could come find us and kill us. So we packed up all our bags guided only by the light of our cell phones because we were afraid someone might see the lights (we were also pretty drunk) and though we had two rooms, we all huddled together in one room. Eddie slept in two chairs blocking the door with a knife in his hand while I slept on the floor with a pen in my hand ready to stab anyone in the neck.

We finally awoke a few hours later and realized how absurd we were being. But still, it was pretty crazy and we decided not to come back to Marrakesh the next night as was our original plan. After leaving we were constantly looking over our backs to see if anyone was following us. It was no good.

I'm out. Go big or go home...

-M, p, z & shredder

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

The Wheel...

Just wanted to share this hilarious vid from the onion. Mostly because if you go to the page and read the reviews, it's amazing how many people don't understand that it's a joke. The amount of people who are perplexed by this and the number of "WTF"s is at an all time high.



In other news, I'm headed to Europe/Africa on Monday and will be out of touch until June 4th. Upon my return I will hopefully have hundreds of stories or at least 3 really good ones. I'm headed to Portugal, Spain and Morocco with a couple of friends and it should be a great time. I have never done the whole backpacking through Europe nor have I ever done a semester abroad and I've always regretted it. I haven't been to Europe in 10 years and that was with my family staying in hotels and being on a tour bus in Italy.

I've realized that traveling is one of my favorite things to do in the world. I never used to consider myself much of a traveler because I haven't had a chance to get out to the rest of the world very much, but I really feel at peace when I'm on the road or going from one place to another. I don't know how many of you have seen The Motorcycle Diaries but it is one of my favorite movies and it's essentially about how traveling teaches you about the world you live in and what is important to you. Now, I'm not going on this trip to "find myself" but I'm definitely at a point in my life where that is a possibility and hopefully I can learn something about myself that will give me some direction in life. I'm in the middle of one of my annual quarter life crisis phases only this year seems much more important than previous meltdowns.

I was never big on history in high school (I hated it more than anything actually) but now that I'm older I wish I knew more about it. I wish I knew the history behind some of the places I was going and why the cultures are the way they are, but I guess I'll just have to go learn it first hand. I think traveling anywhere, even if it's only an hour away, is good for the mind. I don't think I'm a nomad or a vagabond, but if you look at the number of places I've lived over the last 9 years, you might think so. Anyway, to end my rambling, I'm excited for this trip and the fact that it's happening right now in my life, at a point where I'm not sure what my next step is or what I'm going to be doing afterwards.



I'm out. As always, go big or go home. Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it.

-M, p, z & shredder