Bonjour!
I don't speak French. I have had literally no desire in all my 22 years to learn anything about France, or the French language. I know I like french toast, french fries, and saying moi when I am being stupid. I know France colonized Morocco, and therefore French is one of the 3 official languages (along with Arabic and Berber). But, having this information did NOT inspire me to learn anything before traveling there. Boooo on me.
Again, I say it: I do not speak French. Nor do I understand it when it is spoken to me. This is a fact that I attempted to ignore in myself when trying to buy train tickets from Casablanca to Rabat. I greeted the man at the ticket counter with a Bonjour! like a freaking idiot, because he then assumed (as is his natural inclination) that I actually spoke French. (see above.) This inadvertently caused me to request 1st-class tickets on the train for about 3 times the price. Boo on me again.
However despite the 55 Dh (8 dollars?--7.5 dirham in one USD means I am doing estimation math in my head all the time...no wonder I spent like $300 more than I planned on. Boo. again.) as opposed to the...maybe 20 Dh we spent in 2nd-class, it was SUPER nice, and there was actually room for our backpacks, and we could sleep comfortably, or we could have if the ride had been more than its swift hour. All in all it was wonderful! It was also a little stressful, because we DO NOT UNDERSTAND FRENCH, meaning: We did not know where our stop was, and also had no idea if we had a transfer or not. We were hoping for not. The only thing we could do was strain for the name of our stop: Rabat Ville, which thankfully did eventually come up, and we got off the train with little drama.
The train station is in downtown Rabat, which looks like downtown LA, according to Elena. I have not spent enough time in LA to make such an assessment. We refer to a map in our travel guide Africa on a Shoestring (which our wonderful friend Megan left with us when she went back to home in December, because we had no other info on Morocco). Anyway, we decide that the Auberges de Juennes (Youth Hostel) is UP the street from the station, and we turn out to be wrong, so we head back DOWN toward the Medina (old city) and eventually arrive at our Hostel, which was lucky as my left shoulder was beginning to threaten to fall off.
There we meet Lydia. Lydia is a wonderful Muslum woman, probably in her 40s, and is in charge of the hostel during the day, and seemed a little lonely. She spoke quite a bit of English, and was probably the cutest hostel-mom ever. We decided to just get beds in the dorms, because they are cheaper than rooms, and we set our stuff down, paid Lydia, and went out into the madness to find an English bookstore, (and therefore a French dictionary) which, according to our guide did in fact, exist. After literally 2 hours of wandering around looking for it, I was beginning to doubt this fact very much.
Eventually, after employing the help of at least 7 different Moroccan men who spoke English in varying degrees, we found the bookstore. Just as it was closing. We begged for just 5 minutes so we could find a better guidebook, and a French-English dictionary, and luckily the man obliged, and after 5 minutes and 180 Dh (27 USD) we were out, and hopefully a little more prepared for our adventure.
We then got food (pizza again...) and then wandered around in the Medina, I bought a really cute shoulder bag made of wool, and Elena got a backpack, and then we went back to our hostel where we froze to death in our sleeping bags and the provided wool blankets piled high on top of us.
The next day, we went to the Royal Palace, which was BEAUTIFUL, and then went to the Kasbah (an old fort once used to defend Rabat against enemies, now home to many people) where we were convinced to get Henna tattoos on our hands, and paid WAY too much . (We each paid 100 Dh, when it should only be like 25 for one hand--when Lydia found out she was scandalized.) and then wandered the Kasbah, got a mint tea, and then went back to the Medina, where we were followed around by these creepy Rasta guys, escaped--thanks to Elena's quick thinking and very convincing performance as a white woman from Ghana who spoke only Twi (hahahahahah!) and then found sanctuary in a pastry shop where I got a Cafe au Lait and this little maple cake that I could not finish. But it was wonderful all the same.
The next morning we planned to leave Rabat to go to Meknes. Like Casa, it was beautiful, but also a little boring...and also a little too ritzy and expensive. At breakfast (provided by the hostel) a Moroccan man was sitting at the table and we went to join him, where he proceeded to talk to me: In French. (see beginning of 1st paragraph) I tried to make him understand that I did NOT understand him, but he spoke no English and maybe he thought I was just being coy or something? So...I was talked at for no less than 30 minutes by this man who seemed to think that if he just repeated what he said over and over, louder and louder, with somewhat frantic hand gestures I would eventually understand what the hell he was saying to me. Shockingly, I did not. Although, out of sheer frustration and resignation I began to smile and nod and pretend I could nearly follow the flow of the conversation. I got very little actual breakfast-eating done.
We left Rabat feeling like we were slightly more prepared for Meknes, as we boarded the train. The adventure was only beginning.
I love you.
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