My flight to Marrakech arrived a few hours before Lowe's, so I waited patiently at customs (desk #19, and yes, I thought that was a sign) for my turn. When I got to the window, the customs woman inquired into my work. "Um, English?" I asked so I could properly answer her questions.

"This is my English," she said. Oh. Oops.

At the baggage claim, I tried to stalk this hot guy on my plane, but then I saw him pick his nose, look at it and flick it somewhere, so I quickly got my bag and headed out to get cash and be on my way. Well, I had a few problems at the ATM and started to sweat. It kept giving me this message that meant it wasn't working and I sat by and observed thirteen people take out money before I finally figured out what I was doing wrong and withdrew some Moroccan dirhams. I walked outside to the taxi stand eager to get to my room and shower. The taxi stand director guy pointed towards my taxi, the next in line. Why the fuck is this guy pulling up so fucking slowly? I wondered. I lifted my sunglasses and squinted to see the taxi driver, but the driver's seat was empty. Confused I searched for someone else to confirm this taxi was indeed driving itself, but the other people around me were unaffected. Upon closer inspection I realized there was a taxi driver, he was pushing the taxi from behind.

"He's pushing his taxi? I'm not taking that taxi. Different taxi," I said to the taxi organizer man.

"No it's fine. He just push a little bit." I'm not Fred Flinstoning it to Marrakech in this old ass taxi, I thought. Then I remembered there are two size taxis. Said pushed taxi was Grande. I really only needed Petite.

"Je voudrais une petite taxi s'il vous plait," I said in my horrible French, and he motioned Fred Flinstone along until a smaller taxi approached. I showed him the address to our riad, and stared at the paper squinting and confused. This guy has no clue where it is, I thought. Great. He drove up to this taxi congregate and got out to ask another driver. The driver knocked on my window and I rolled it down and showed him the address. He called the riad with his phone and after a few minutes,  handed me the phone. The man on the other end informed me that they did not have a reservation under my name and they were completely booked. I repeated our reservation name and had him double check. Again, no dice. No reservation. My heart started to race. I did not want to sit in the airport and wait for Lowe, and I had no way to communicate with her a change of plans. "Well what should I do?" I asked.

"Just come here and we will figure it out," he said kindly. I thanked him and hung up. From here, I am going to write exactly what I wrote in my journal while seated at a little table in the riad.

I'm writing now so it looks like I have something to do. I'm exhausted and very overwhelmed by this situation with our riad. First, I had to take the most frightening taxi ride of my life where I physically leaned over and locked all of the doors. There are no traffic signals at all whatsoever. Sometimes there is a police officer directing the cars and motor bikes, but usually not. The people do not wear helmets and cram too many people on these unsafe bikes and in their cars. I literally saw a teeny tiny car with eight people inside - even little children. I haven't eaten anything all day but pain chocolate and desperately need to change my tampon. The taxi driver, who had the jankiest, grossest snaggle tooth that was rotting and decaying and honestly sickening, dropped me off on a street full of men and passed me to this 17 year old boy. "Am I going to be taken?" I said, panicked. "Because I promised my mom I would not be taken!" Everyone circled around me stared at me wide-eyed. My iPhone dropped to the ground, my dirhams spilled on the taxi seat. My god I am a bulls eye for theft, I thought and quickly picked it up off the ground. The money I had to give the taxi fell to the seat, and I stared at it for minute.

This is an adventure. This is what you live your life for. People are generally good. You are a humanist. You believe this, I reminded myself. I stared at the guy I was being passed off to and looking him in the eye said, "Do you know where to go?"

"Yes, I take you," he said ignoring the fact that I just said I did not want to be taken. As quickly as I could, I measured my body compass. On a scale from -10 to 10, how do you feel about this guy, Emma? I asked myself. Three was the first number that came to mind. It was hard to read because I was shaken and nervous by the amount of dirty men surrounding me, motor bikes whizzing by, donkeys on the roadside and all around smell of diesel gas and urine. If I subtracted those I might even be at a 7. If I felt a 7 about a pair of shoes, I would buy them. I picked up the money and turned towards my guide. "Parlez-vous français?" he asked. "No, pas seulement en anglais," I replied cursing myself for spending so much time with my French boyfriend and not learning French. "England?" he asked, taking my bag and starting our walk. "No U.S.A.," I said.

We stopped at this narrow, long dark passage way. A few cats meowed and there were some pools I'm pretty sure were pee. I stood frozen like a dear in headlights. "Is here," he said turning to walk down. "This is it?!" I asked. "I don't think this is it? This can't be it. Is this a good neighborhood?" I started to ramble. He pointed up to the street sign above the entrance. Sure enough, this was it. We arrived at the end and there was a large door. He let go of my bag and says, "It's here. We are here." I grabbed his arm. "Don't leave me until they open the door!" I said in the single most panicked voice I have ever heard. It didn't even sound like me. A woman opened the door and I stepped inside. I realized I need to tip my guardian, but all of my monies were mixed together and change falling everywhere. I knew the exchange rate, but it was all happening so fast and you know I'm bad at mental math. Eventually, I just handed him a handful of Euros, dirhams, USD - whatever I had. The owner appeared in a small doorway and said, "Did you phone?"

"Yes," I said looking at him with hopeful eyes.

"I'm sorry we don't have your reservation and we are all booked." Tears welled in my eyes about to spill over. I am not going to cry. Lowe would definitely not cry, I tell myself. I'm fine. This is not a cry situation. I swallowed. "Come in. Come in," he said. "We will speak in ten minutes." I stepped through the little doorway into this beautiful courtyard. It was breezy and there was a pool in the center. It was dusk someone was lighting candles lit all around. He lead me to a corner next to the pool and I sat on this nice cushioned bench. Someone brought me tea and some cookies. When I had a little tea and about 25 cigarettes, he came back over and said "It would be my pleasure to have you, but we are booked." He asked for my original reservation. I pulled up the email, and he said he will call the original riad. He is calling them now.

And it turned out wonderfully. We were supposed to be booked at a different riad with the same name. The manager, a short guy named Aziz, felt so badly for fudging up our reservation that he gave us the honeymoon suite and offered to pick up Lowe from the airport. He even took me on what I'm pretty sure he considered a date and we shared a traditional Moroccan meal. Everyone he knew kept coming up to us, and he spoke with each of them for at least five full minutes without introducing me or acknowledging I was there. At first I introduced myself, but after like the 4th guy, I thought Fuck it. Who cares. I'm never going to see these people again. He stared at me through the flickering candlelight, I thought He totally thinks we are on a date and is telling all of his friends this. When it was time for our dessert, he led us to a nicer table in this cushioned corner where we had to sit next to each other. "Pretty girl," he said. "Pretty girl. Happy girl." Oh great. When we finished our dinner, we walked to the front. I stood at the top of the stairs waiting for him as he conversed again with his friends. It didn't even occur to me to pull my wallet. I mean, he invited me to his "friend's restaurant." Talked over half of our dinner to his friends and even answered his phone twice. Bascially, he was just a rude date. After five more minutes I'm thought, Fucking hell what is taking this dude so long. We have to go pick up Lowe. They just like to take their sweet ass time here. His friends looked at me, and it suddenly dawned on me that I should offer to pay. I walked over and said, "How much is it? Do you want me to give some money?"

"You can just give that and we will be even," he said pointing to my phone. I felt uncomfortable. "I only have this," I said pulling out 200 dirham - about 20 euros.

"That's perfect!" he said and snatched it out of my hand and gave it to the guy. "We go pick up your friend!" Did I just pay for this guy's dinner? Is he serious that I just had to pay for his dinner. He invited me to his friend's restaurant and made me pay. For real? Sure it's not a lot to me but it's an expensive restaurant to them. Not only did I play along with his weird dateness, answered his fifty million iPhone questions and laughed even when his jokes were clearly lost in translation, now I have to pay. I mean, seriously?

This is almost the end, I promise. So we get into his car, and for some reason even though there is plenty of room on the driver's side and the driver's side door is not broken, he gets in on the passenger side and scoots over to the driver's seat, and he puts on this romantic Spanish guitar music and reaches over and touches my face and says, "Pretty girl. Happy girl. Laughing girl." OH MY GOD? Did he just touch my face? My face? GA-ROSS. Gross. Gross. Gross. I pulled out my hand sanitizer and sanitized my hands then nonchalantly wiped some on the point of contact. Do you know how dirty this guys hands were? He did not wash them before dinner, then touched his keys, his car, this gross railing, his steering wheel, his CD changer and then touched my skin. Sick. I looked down at my phone. My service was finally working. I sent a Lowe a text.

Picking you up from the airport. Stay there. FYI I have a Moroccan stalker. 

Walking into the airport he tried to put his arm around me, and I pretended something was on my shoe and bent down to brush it off. The airport looked different at eleven o'clock at night. There were cats climbing into the now desolate money changing windows, and Aziz was running around the airport pointing me out to all of his friends. There were some Spanish hippies being all hippified in one corner and some ritzy couple with three dogs in Louis Vuitton dog carries searching frantically for their driver. But all of that faded into the background when Lowe walked out of customs. The world was right again. "I can't wait for you see our honeymoon suite!" I said kissing her cheek and leading her towards the ATM. "Oh, you have to press a certain button if you want the money to come out."

Emma Dinzebach