The best of times and the worst of times.

My time in Morocco is quickly coming to an end. I think that three months is a perfect amount of time. I have been able to see almost all of the sights that I wanted to see at the start of my journey. But, all good things must come to an end. As amazing as this country is, I am ready to leave. The incompetence and strange bureaucracy has taken its toll on me.
Let me explain:
Last Saturday, Lyall (my roommate), Michael (another volunteer) and I planned to take a day trip to Fez in order to watch Morocco play Cameroon in their final World Cup qualifying match. (Morocco had no chance of making the Cup but we figured it would be fun to see some of the world's top talent.)
Lyall, a football (soccer) fanatic had been trying to find a way to buy tickets in advance for a month. The Moroccan FA (Football Association) has a terrible website and was of no help at all. Eventually, we just decided to buy tickets when we arrived at the stadium since that is what all the Moroccan's said we should do. At 11 AM we boarded a train to Fez for a 3:30 PM match. The train was quick and we got to Fez around 2:00. It all went downhill from there.

We left the train station, following some fellows in Morocco jerseys because they were obviously going to the match. It wasn't until we asked a police man that the stadium would be a 1 hour walk. We then began to search for a taxi. None of the cabs that stopped for us would take us to the stadium. (I have discovered that taxi drivers avoid traffic by all means necessary.) After half an hour of walking and pleading, we found a taxi to take us there. As we got to the stadium, we were still in high spirits. That quickly changed when we saw that there were thousands of people just milling about. We quickly discovered that the box office was closed. This threw us off a little bit. We walked all the way around the stadium and couldn't find anybody who wanted to sell us tickets.
We decided that our best bet would be to try to get in on the Cameroon side because significantly less people were trying to get in at those gates. After thirty minutes of walking and yelling in Franglais, we found a security guard who had two tickets and was willing to sell them for face value. We took this and figured we could talk ourselves in. It wasn't that simple as every one of the hundreds of police and military personnel seemed to want a piece of that guy's profit.
We finally, made it through the first stage of security. This was made difficult because Michael is Nigerian and the guards didn't believe that he was with us. After that, we made it about 100 yards towards the stadium and encountered another series of security guards. This was a little more awkward because there were three of us and we only had two tickets. These guards also made life difficult for Michael because they didn't believe that we were friends. They thought he was a Cameroon fan trying to sneak in with us. After a five minute stand-off they let us through for 50 dirhams or half the price of one ticket.
As we made our way to the final stage of security, we encountered the man who initially sold us the tickets. He let us through hassle-free. 25 minutes after kickoff, we ran up the steps and had a magnificent view of the field.
It was at that magical moment when I realized that I had lost my camera somewhere in between the taxi and then. Realizing that there was no way I would ever see it again, I tried my best to enjoy the match.
The match was really exciting and lifted my spirits. I saw Samuel Eto'o score a goal as Cameroon dominated 2-0.
The most exciting moment came in the second half when a man jumped the barrier and ran the entire length of the field to kick a soccer ball into Cameroon's goal. All the fans went nuts. It was great sitting next to the Cameroon fan section as they were in a good mood. Toward the end of the match, Moroccan fans on the other side of the stadium all ran up to the top of the stands and started tearing the seat-backs off of the chairs and throwing them down onto the slower spectators below. Although there were hundreds of army personnel in between us and them, it was frightening because the guards weren't really doing anything to stop the rioting fans. After ten minutes, they seemed to tire themselves out and the game ended in relative peace.
After the match, we realized that it would be futile to find a cab that could take us to a police station as per the instructions of Projects Abroad.
We ended up walking the majority of the way back into Fez. We finally caught a taxi. We were tired and hungry at this point and very frustrated with everything about Morocco.
When we got to the police station and asked to file a report, they told us that they weren't the nearest police station to the stadium and I would have to report the stolen item at the other one.
This did not improve our mood one bit. After trying to catch another taxi for 30 minutes, we gave up and decided that it would be simpler to report the camera in Rabat. Projects Abroad approved our plan and we went in search of something to eat.
After a nice dinner, we headed back to the train station to catch our 8:50 train. (The ONCF (Moroccon train company) website said that there was an 8:50 PM train.)
After we got our tickets we saw that the time printed for departure was 2:10 AM. Outraged, we asked the ticket booth man and he informed us that no 8:50 train exists.
We checked the two bus stations and none of them had buses running that day. Being a 3 hour drive, a taxi would've cost far too much.
Too tired and frustrated to go anywhere else, we sat down on the benches and waited. Around 10, I went for a walk. Lyall was sick so he was asleep on the extremely uncomfortable train station chairs. Michael was catching up with an old friend from high school.
When I returned around 11, we decided to find sit at the small train station cafe and watch Jean-Claude Van Damm movies. We consumed endless hot chocolates and waited and waited.
At around 1:30 AM we decided to get on the train and sleep. I woke up at around 3:30 and realized that the train had yet to leave the station. After a few minutes, it took off and I went back to sleep.
We arrived in Rabat as the sun was coming up.

Moral of the story:
Do not ever expect to take a simple day trip in Morocco.

However, one kind of good thing came out this experience, once we got to Rabat, I got to ride in the back of a police van because, once again, we did not go to the correct station.

P.S. I do have all the pictures of the desert saved on the computer and I did manage to borrow a friend's camera to take pictures of my phenomenal going away party at my job.