The medina wakes at dawn with the scent of mint tea and fresh bread. I slip through the maze of whitewashed alleys before the crowds arrive, following the sound of a grandmother singing somewhere above, her voice spilling from a shuttered window like an invitation to a world tourists never see.

In a corner café no wider than a hallway, I find my morning ritual. The owner, Hassan, greets me with a nod—we've passed that threshold where words aren't necessary. He knows I want the mint tea strong and the msemen crispy, served on a chipped blue plate that's probably older than both of us. I sit on a wooden stool worn smooth by decades of elbows and watch the street theater unfold.

A boy in a Barcelona jersey navigates his bicycle through the crowd with impossible grace, balancing a tower of bread loaves on his head. Two women haggle over tomatoes in Darija so rapid I catch only fragments, their hands dancing elaborate patterns that need no translation. A calico cat claims the warmest spot of sunlight and refuses to move for anyone, not even the spice merchant who steps over her with practiced ease.

Hassan slides the tea across the counter. "You come back," he says in careful English. It's not a question.

I tear off a piece of msemen and dip it into honey that tastes of orange blossoms. The bread is perfect—crispy layers giving way to soft, buttery inside. This moment, I think, is worth a thousand Instagram-famous sunsets. This anonymous alley, this quiet communion with strangers who've become familiar faces, this morning light painting geometric patterns on ancient walls.

Later, the medina will flood with tour groups and souvenir hawkers, the magic diluted by commerce and cameras. But right now, it belongs to those of us who know its secret rhythms. Hassan refills my tea without asking. The grandmother's song shifts to something mournful and beautiful. The cat stretches in her sunbeam.

I pull out my notebook, trying to capture this feeling—the sweetness of being somewhere you don't belong but are somehow welcome anyway. Travel, I've learned, isn't about the places you visit. It's about the moments when those places let you see them without their mask on, when you slip through a crack in the tourist facade and find yourself, however briefly, somewhere real.

The tea grows cold. I don't mind. Some mornings deserve to be savored slowly.

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