We woke up this morning to an insistent knocking on the door, and realized it was 5 minutes later than our agreed meeting time! Oops! So we threw on some clothes then grabbed our bags and ran out the door! Lucky we hadn't unpacked much last night! We were downstairs in less than 5 minutes and impressed everyone a bit with our speed! We munched an apple for breakfast as we walked to the train station then got on a train to Fes. When we got on, half of our seats were taken, so there was a bit of confusion while Abdul talked with the conductor trying to sort it out. Eventually we got a seat in a different compartment and made the very short trip from Meknes to Fes. When we arrived there was a mini bus waiting for us which took us to our hotel. The rooms weren't ready when we got there, but we were allowed to drop off our bags and use the bathrooms (Darren even snuck in a quick shower), then we went out the front where we met our guide who was taking us around Fes. We got back in the van and got taken to the palace in Fes. We were only allowed to look from the outside, but they had huge beautiful gates which were decorated in the same tiled mosaic kind of design as all the mosques and mausoleums and a lot of other buildings are decorated in. There was another door to the side that we were told to make sure we didn't take photos of, which was the security door, which had a couple of security guards with big machine guns out the front of! So we steered clear of that and just took our photos of the entrance before getting back into the van. Our next stop was at a really nice lookout with a beautiful view over Fes and the medina. It was like a sea of white buildings that stretched on forever! Or at least until the mountains took over! There were a couple of merchants selling various things up on the lookout, including a bunch of fez hats! They were very pushy, trying to get everyone to try one on and buy them! Darren and one of the young boys, Lindsay, got stuck talking to them, and as the rest of the group walked around the building to get back to the van, they were left behind for a bit! Then when they appeared, they both were wearing a fez!! Sucked in! We got back in the van, and after pretty much everyone tried on the hats we arrived at our next stop, which was a pottery factory. We got a guided tour through that, which started with big piles of rocks, and how they turned it into usable clay. We walked through the sections where the workers were shaping the pieces and watched them work for a little bit. It was amazing how quickly they could make all the little cups and tagines and other pieces of pottery. From there we saw the girls who painted the tiles and plates and things, then saw the huge ovens that they were cooked in! We moved into a section of the factory where the men were sitting on the ground with hammers, cutting out small pieces of the tiles for mosaics, and shaping and glueing them in place! One of the workers had a small heart shaped tile that he gave to me (Do I have a Moroccan husband now?!) and he kept winking at me and trying to get me to come over there! I'm not sure if he was looking for some coins for it or if he was being seedy... Who knows! We had a look through the gift shop after that, and Darren kept getting called Ali Baba with his Fez and his beard! Pretty funny! After that we headed back to the van and went into the medina! Our guide led us through some really skinny alleyways and at a certain point she let us stop for photos down one of the small streets (you could hardly fit two people down there, it was definitely a single-file kind of street! While we were waiting for everyone to get their photos, a little kid was looking at us through an open door we were in front of! He was probably about 2 and he was so cute! His mum and dad came out and said hi, and we put Darren's fez on the kids head. He was such a cutie! Darren got his hat back then we headed through the maze-like streets and alleys of the medina towards the souks. At one point there was a couple of little probably-8ish-year-olds who were climbing up the walls and letting us take photos of them. Then as we kept walking they went to everyone asking for money. We'd been told not to give the kids any money though, as it makes them continue begging from tourists which could land them in a bit of trouble, so we kept going past them. We came out into the souks and walked through past all the stalls and shops there. We went through the meat section, which was pretty intense. Carcasses of all sorts of animals hung from most stalls, live chickens and turkeys were stuffed into cages or lay on the pavement with their legs tied together. There were shops with platters of goats heads on display, one shop absolutely filled with bags and bags of snails, and one place that had a huge camels head hanging on display! Crazy! And the smell!! All I can say is I was almost glad for the horrible hayfever I was getting that day! We got out of that section, and kept going through the souks. I got a barbary fig on my way through and we passed heaps of horses and donkeys with massively heavy loads on their backs. One of the horses even had a nose bleed... I'm sure that's not a good thing! The other thing we noticed was the cats. There were cats EVERYWHERE! All of them looked half starved and most of them were tiny little kittens. They seemed to be curled up in every doorway and on every street. Some of them I'm not even 100% sure if they were even alive... That was pretty hard. I think if I lived here I would probably become a crazy cat lady to try and save them all! So anyway, we eventually stopped for a look in the old Koran school, and had a peek into the mausoleum, before stopping at a pretty fancy looking place for lunch. It was decorated like the mosques with all the mosaics and the intricate carvings in the walls, floors and ceilings. We first had a whole bunch of salads come out to share, which were delicious. One was an eggplant dish, which was the best. So so so tasty!! The others were like carrots, olives, tomatoes, lentil soups, that kind of thing. It was so good! There was a LOT of food! And then the mains came out!!! I had a tagine, which was okay, but not as amazing as some of the other ones I've had. I was ridiculously full by the end of it! At one stage an old guy was near our table, and Darren recognized him as the guy from the pottery place who had called him Ali Baba! So he came and said hi, and even sat down and told us the tale of Ali Baba. That was pretty cool. Towards the end of lunch there was a bit of an issue with one of our group, David, who we think must have aspergers or autism or something... Darren was joking with him and he must have taken it seriously because he lost it a little and got up and stood over Darren like he wanted to fight him! His sister quickly took control of the situation though and took him outside before most people even knew what had happened! Pretty random! So we left the restaurant and walked through the souks for a while longer, and stopped at the weavers, where the men were working on massive looms making scarves, cloths and bedspreads, and we got a demonstration of how they were made. After the demonstration, the workers tied turbans onto most people's heads, (I didn't get one cos I didn't want to sneeze all over it, my hayfever was going mental!) and Darren bought a bright blue (Fes blue!) one. After that we went to our last stop, which was the tannery. We walked inside and up heaps of stairs to a room where there were hundreds of leather jackets. One of the workers handed us a piece of mint each and we climbed more stairs to a room full of bags, shoes, belts, wallets and other leather products, and absolutely full of the worst smell ever! We found out what the mint was for! Holding it against your nose blocked the worst of the smell! From this level we had a great view over the dying pits outside, which is where the smell was coming from! It was pretty cool to see, hundreds of pits which were all full of different dyes, and people washing and dying the leathers. We got a bit of an explanation of the process and after hanging out there for a bit while a few people did some shopping we headed back out of the souks and back to the van which took us back to the hotel. When we got back I decided to go up and have a snooze before dinner, to try settle my hayfever down a bit, while Darren went with Abdul and a few of the others to a local 'dodgy' bar. We met up with the rest of the crew before dinner, then got in our van and went in to the medina again. We went to this very fancy restaurant (even fancier than the one from lunch!) and sat down. There were musicians playing on the stage at the front, wearing long robes and fez hats and playing some pretty cool looking instruments! We got some salad entrees like at the last place which were just as delicious, then some different musicians came out, who danced around the room with their instruments. Two drummers were spinning their bahrain type drums around and one guy was playing an old pair of scissors like a triangle! Throughout the meal there was a belly dancer that came out and got heaps of people up on stage with her in groups of about four at a time. Darren and Keith (one of the young brothers) were called up with her at one stage and had to go on stage and shake their butts around a bit! They were a few beers in, so they made the most of that!! We got a huge amount of food for mains as well, which we shared across the table! One of the next acts was a magician, who I have no idea how he did his tricks (he didn't even have sleeves!). I was called up for this one, and ended up having to put a scarf down my shirt and having a bra pulled out! Lucky it was a fake one and not really mine! Pretty funny! There was a belly dancer who had fire sticks that she ran over her bare skin before putting out in her mouth! We got massive platters of fruit and pastries for dessert, including whole peaches which were delicious, and there was one other act that our group was called for. Casey was taken out the back and dressed up then was put into a big ornate chair and hoisted into the air, which is a Moroccan marriage ritual. After that there was music again for a while and then the show was over. Pretty amazing! I grabbed a couple of peaches from the platters to take home (shhh!) and we headed back out to the van. One of the guys, Chris, from Ireland, had bought a couple of kaftans from someone on the street, which everyone on the bus dressed Darren in while he danced down the aisle! We got back to the hotel, and Darren continued to dance on the street, to the amusement (maybe) of the passers by! I sat in the lobby on the wifi while Darren and Chris went out to find some coke and water, then the three of us went up to our room where we had a good chat for a while, and the boys drank some whiskey. After a couple of hours Chris went back to his room, and we went to sleep.