Day 184: Fes

After breakfast, our riad owner gave us a few instructions and information about how to operate successfully in Fes: 

1. Don't trust anybody. 
2. Just accept you are going to get lost and embrace it or you won't have any fun.
3. There is some sort of color coding on top of the gate that you can follow to find your way. 

With that advice and a short guided tour of how to get to his place from the closest main gate, he left us to our devices. Our own devices saw us quickly 200 meters to the closest cafe where we sat and had a coffee. Remember that we had met some Moroccans who were heading towards Fes on the train when we went to Meknes? Those same Moroccan girls had told us to give them a call when we get to Fes. 

We gave one of them, Nadia, a call while we sat at the cafe. I asked what her plans were for the day. She said, nothing, she had reserved the whole day for us! She then asked where we were. We said, "we have no idea. We are in a cafe, near a gate, and near a protest! (which was true. We just saw the riot police walk towards the protest and immediately back from the protest, without disruption to the protest)." She then asked to speak to our waiter, who gave her a more precise location. Finally she told us, "don't move, I'm coming to you!"

We had a tea and waited. When Nadia finally came, she promptly invited us to lunch with her family at her house. No sooner had she come than we were taking a taxi back to her house, where we had a proper lunch and met a whole group of family. Her father, mother, uncle, aunt, sister, brother, and more! 

Nadia's cousin is getting married in two days, so the family is filled with celebration. At some point, there was a huge group cheer going on in the family room. I figured that it was some football celebration for a goal. Nope! Nadia told us that her family says this cheer every time something happens that gives them reason to celebrate! The cheer even ends with the Arab 'youyouyouyouyou' at the end (which Nadia showed us how to do. We need to practice it more at home in the bathroom mirror before we feel comfortable enough to take it on the road.)

While we waited for tea, Nadia's sister came up with some food. In French, she asked if we wanted tea. We politely said no thank you. Her response: why?? We had no answer to that! At least not one that we could say using our broken French of 'merci' and 'enchante.' We also have learned that Moroccans have big families, for our standards. Nadia is one of 8 kids. The poor couple from who we bought the rubs had 10 kids. The riad host in the desert was one of 9 kids. We then asked Nadia what a big family is for them. She replied, 13 kids. 13 kids! I think 3 is a crowd sometimes. Geez. 

We spent the whole day with Nadia and her friend Wafa, who had joined us for the day and who we had also met on the train, they took us back to the old medina in Fes and showed us around, and her mother invited us to both partake in the cousin's pre-wedding henna celebration tomorrow and to attend her wedding the day after that. Wow! What do you wear to a Moroccan wedding? We don't know yet if we'll be able to attend, but we're just so flattered that we've been invited. 

We told Nadia and Wafa that Moroccans are the most hospitable people we've met. They have gone out of their way to greet us. Every Moroccan you meet on the street will ask you where you come from and then tell you, "welcome to Morocco." Our riad guy gave us green plates because we offered him a mint! Musicians at our hotel in the desert played music and shared their wine with us just because we were there. We can't wait to see what unfolds next.