I had originally thought that my cell phone would work in Morocco, because the people in my program on my network had not had problems when they had gone (except for the fact that it must cost over a euro just to send a text...), however upon arrival, I found that my phone did not work. This was problematic. I sent an email to the other two in our group with the address of our riad, where we had agreed to meet the next morning, but as it turned out, they did not have internet. I also sent them text messages via Skype (both of their phones worked...what was wrong with mine??), but had no idea if they received them, since I couldn't receive an answer.
Meanwhile, Michelle and I ate our breakfast - by far the best breakfast I have had since I've been abroad (of course that's not saying much, since up till recently I've received two slices of white Bimbo brand bread with Nutella and a cup of coffee with whole milk every single day). It began with a little cup of homemade vanilla bean yogurt and a fresh strawberry smoothie (and some other fruits, too, just not sure which). This was followed by something that looked kind of like pancakes, but were fried and a bit bread-ier, with various spreads: something like applesauce, honey, fig marmalade, butter (of course), and some sort of sweet potato spread that was extremely delicious. With this they offered us also coffee and sweet mint tea. So far so good on the food front!
About a half hour after our scheduled meeting time, David and Sarah still had not arrived. Michelle and I decided that maybe we should wait for them out by the main road, which they would certainly use if they took a petit taxi (super cheap - only 60 cents between their hotel and our riad). It was really hot out, and we could not have looked more out of place. This was definitely the closest I ever want to come to traveling alone in Morocco... We sat there for maybe 45 minutes, and the whole time I think every single guy that saw us would come over and say something - sometimes in English, sometimes Spanish, sometimes Arabic, sometimes French. There were little boys, too. One almost crashed his bike! It was as though they had never seen American girls before... Very strange. There was a group standing by a wall behind us that would actually take turns coming up and walking by us one by one. Then they would go back to the group and someone else would come by. SO WEIRD. Finally, the people who owned the riad came by and said that our friends were waiting inside!!! (Admittedly mixed feelings of irritation at the difficulty in communicating and relief that they had finally made it.) As it turns out, they had walked, instead of taking a taxi, which, in my opinion was a great idea in theory, but terrible given the circumstances. They had walked through the Medina (a labyrinth!) to get to us. Meanwhile, we were wondering if we should give up and get a guide for the day for just the two of us!We drank some more mint tea (I can see why they drink so much of it - it's delicious! But very, very sweet... I thought Spaniards and Italians had sweet teeth, but that's nothing compared to Morocco! Everything is sweet) and waited for our guide, Mohammad, to arrive.
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