Italy & Morocco Entry #1: I meet some people

My first Moroccan male experience actually took place in Italy. It was my first full day there, and I was ready to head out sight-seeing. I’d said goodbye to my Czech hostel roommate and her Portuguese boyfriend and was at the bus stop, examining the schedule. Enter Hassan. He passed me walking downstage right, turned around, hesitated, walked back. Line: “Waiting for a bus?” According to him, this bus stop was no good, but he knew a better one. When he realized I wasn't following him to his stop, he decided to wait with me at mine, declaring (after I’d disclosed my destination) that he was going the same place! (Uh huh…right.) I tried to think of ways to get rid of him (I’m not too tolerant when it comes to random burr-like boys who seem to have some kind of agenda), but didn’t manage it. Instead, I tried to make the best of it and turn the experience into an educational cultural one. I talked to him about Morocco and Muslimity, and (when I was able to ignore the comments on my ostensible beauty and how happy our meeting had made him) had a fairly good few hours walking around Bergamo.

I was not unhappy, however, when it came time to part at the train station and travel on alone. Or so I had hoped. A chance encounter with another young Moroccan while waiting on the platform landed me a (non-German-or-English-speaking) traveling partner for the ride to Venice. Practically, it was pretty useful (he helped me figure out what was up with our non-moving train), and also, it was kinda fun. Trying to carry on a conversation—though rather difficult, sometimes awkward, and somewhat stressful—was a unique experience. We spoke using gestures, my (extremely limited) Spanish alongside his Italian, and his cell phone, on which we could type numbers. Amazingly, we were thus able to converse about everything from my marital status (came up early, of course), to my work, his sister’s dress shop, our parents’ ages, and our respective cell phone plans. Only near the end of the trip did it get weird, as he gave me his phone number and slipped his picture to me under the table. Aw man. And you were doing so well, too.

Despite the fact that I didn’t end up doing any couchsurfing, I met a lot of people on this trip. Admittedly, most were not locals, but they generally still helped make things more fun. I spent an evening wandering around Venice with two girls from Hong Kong, looking at Carnival masks and drinking superb hot chocolate. In the Rome train station I met Adrian from Romania, who ended up being about the least-creepy male of the trip and declared his intention to name his future hypothetical daughter "Justine." In Marrakech, I met Susie from London, who had been all over the world (at least the Australia-Indonesia-Asia-Middle East part of it) and who made me realize just how little age differences are starting to make (she was 42; never would’ve guessed it). I had good luck again on the way to Tangier, where some flooded railroad tracks and an already-full bus led to me meeting Julie and Nicole, North Americans working as English TAs in France. Together, we played Crazy Eights at 3:00 am in a mostly-deserted train station (even taught the bored-looking station workers how to play, too!), drank mint tea, ate delicious Moroccan food, traipsed tiredly through Tangier, took taxis, and fought off unofficial “guides” who were as bad at getting the “go away” message as the suitors. Best of all, we went together to a hamam (communal bathhouse) for a relaxing, exfoliating, water-wasting, self-consciousness-lowering, slightly language-barriered adventure. It was great—definitely a highlight of the trip and something I would not have had the courage to do alone. Thanks Julie and Nicole! Thanks fate!