off again

next to last

IMGP5306

Today Noa and Asaf and I went to Jerusalem. You may have heard of it.

Actually the first stop was...this other place...OK, I didn't quite catch the name. It was on the outskirts of the city with a spring and churches and landscape views. So quiet you felt like it was the middle of nowhere, it was just us, one tour group, and a couple of monks hanging around.

After that we hit the museum of the history of the city, which was cool, although more for the views from the tower and the location than for the exhibits - or the extremely light on info video explaining everything in 15 minutes with pictures of cartoon people fighting, which basically went as follows: "First some people were here, then King David, then Alexander the Great, then some other stuff happened, and Romans, then Christians and Muslims a bunch of times, then World War I, Jerusalem is awesome, the end!" (There may have been a few more facts than I just mentioned, but not many. And it did end at WWI.)

We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where they stuck Jesus, although depending who you ask he may not have stayed put there. The highlight was while waiting in line to get into the actual tomb, the following overheard convo.

fellow tourist: What is this the line for?

priest (I think) who had just been making weird misogynistic jokes: The tomb.

fellow tourist: Of who?

Anyway, that was enough Christianity, so next we went to the western wall. Which was really interesting. The women's side is naturally tiny and crowded, with this line of women all in black right up front praying and touching the wall, some of their prayer books and foreheads smashed up against it, all swaying back and forth but not in unison. The white in all the cracks is thousands of scraps of paper with prayers written on them. I felt like Noa and I were the least religious people there, like aliens, and strange about it. Some people were crying. Although I have felt like crying many times on this trip so far, this was not one of them. I felt very disconnected. I felt such a distance between myself and those women that it put a distance between me and the wall also - I didn't actually go up and touch it.

More markets, although I refused to bargain today.

Then it was time for some well-earned coffee and pastries.

Well, back in Tel Aviv suburbs, what could top that great adventure? Raya and Tamir and I decided on an expedition to the lousy supermarket. (I was told ahead of time how lousy it was, I didn't make that value judgement.) While we were there, Raya, who was devastated that Julia had beat her to giving me a Krembo, was determined to find a fancier Krembo to get for me. But there weren't any. Tamir explained that this was because the motto of the lousy supermarket is, "If it's nice, we don't have it."

Tomorrow is my last day in Israel, and the last real day of my trip. Wow, that snuck up fast. I'm so not ready to go home yet - where do I apply for an extension? Please don't make me go back to the midwest...I hear it's really cold there and the tomatoes don't taste like anything...please??

a new direction for the blog

I accomplished two things today:

a) exchanging the two crappy English books I've been carrying around, and which I picked up for free in Morocco for the sole reason that they were the only books in English, for some better ones at a used bookstore in Tel Aviv. Which should make my flight back on Thursday a lot more bearable.

b) had a BRUSH WITH FAME. Yes...Raya and I ate dinner at a restaurant tonight, in the presence of greatness. We were sitting next to two famous Israelis who I have never heard of! Their names are Keren Mor and Menashe Noy and they are actors who have been on TV and in movies. I did not realize this until we left the restaurant, because they were sitting really close and Raya couldn't exactly tell me til we were out of earshot.

Keren_noy_c[1]

But anyway, this has helped me figure something out. You know, since I'm going to be back in the US on Thursday, I wasn't sure exactly what to do with the blog - just put it on hold again until I take another trip? Or keep writing? Now I realize that I should turn it into a celebrity blog, stalking the rich and famous! I will have to study up though to make sure I recognize them next time.

all over the place

IMGP5239

On Saturday I went with my aunt and uncle to Masada. The weather was really bad - you could hardly see 10 feet in front of you - so I didn't get much of a view from the top or anything, but it was still really interesting.

IMGP5219

One thing I realized on this trip which I had never actually noticed before is that the Masada story is really freaking weird and awful. (Quick version: Jewish rebels hide out on this mountaintop fortress under siege by Romans, realize Romans are gonna win, so they choose by lots 10 guys to kill everyone up there and then each other so when the Romans finally bust in they just find a big pile of bodies. Um. Yes. Great.)

 Then a stop at the Dead Sea - didn't swim just looked. The thick white salt formations on the rocks look like some kind of crazy frosting.

IMGP5240

After that we went to a kibbutz nearby, Ein Gedi, which runs a botanical garden walk through the kibbutz itself. Essentially they just planted a bunch of cool stuff and then charge you to walk through it, but it's kept up really well and the kibbutz as well as being pretty inside is in a very dramatic location - right up against the mountains and next to the dead sea - amazing views.

 And then they randomly gave us free coffee and cake at this guesthouse! No complaints!

Yesterday I came back by train to Tel Aviv area, where Raya and Tamir and I went to lunch and a couple of bookstores and saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire. At one point the two of them were at a store with a 6-books-for-100-shekels deal, but could only find 5 they wanted, so they had me pick out a sixth book in hebrew based entirely on cover illustration since I am illiterate. Let's see how that turns out...

cave people

IMGP5198

Today I was at Beit Guvrin national park, where there are many kinds of caves. There are caves from hundreds of years BCE, with hundreds of carved out niches to attract pigeons to fatten up and eat for dinner.

IMGP5197

There are huge multilevel systems of caves from the same era used for water cisterns and olive presses, with curving stone staircases winding endlessly down and down.

There are later caves which are for tombs, and later caves which are actually bell-shaped quarries, cut from the hole in the top.

All of this is almost invisible from above ground, except for the fenced-off entrances and archeological dig tents you'd never know anything was here except cows grazing.

These cows were total scaredy cats, by the way, they kept running off as soon as we'd get remotely close. I've never seen a cow run away before. Don't they normally just stand there chewing their cud etc?

Exciting event #2 of the day: After much buildup, I finally ate a Krembo, apparently the highlight of any trip to Israel! This is a very thin chocolate shell covering a strange-textured, sort of marshmallowey but not really, creamy filling. They are wrapped by hand since it's too delicate for a machine, and are only seen in the winter. Maybe this trip was good timing after all?

IMGP5194

cave people

IMGP5198

Today I was at Beit Guvrin national park, where there are many kinds of caves. There are caves from hundreds of years BCE, with hundreds of carved out niches to attract pigeons to fatten up and eat for dinner.

IMGP5197

There are huge multilevel systems of caves from the same era used for water cisterns and olive presses, with curving stone staircases winding endlessly down and down.

There are later caves which are for tombs, and later caves which are actually bell-shaped quarries, cut from the hole in the top.

All of this is almost invisible from above ground, except for the fenced-off entrances and archeological dig tents you'd never know anything was here except cows grazing.

These cows were total scaredy cats, by the way, they kept running off as soon as we'd get remotely close. I've never seen a cow run away before. Don't they normally just stand there chewing their cud etc?

Exciting event #2 of the day: After much buildup, I finally ate a Krembo, apparently the highlight of any trip to Israel! This is a very thin chocolate shell covering a strange-textured, sort of marshmallowey but not really, creamy filling. They are wrapped by hand since it's too delicate for a machine, and are only seen in the winter. Maybe this trip was good timing after all?

IMGP5194

blue sky, blue sea

Today I was finally given permission by the Israel Meteorological Description Authority to say that it is "warm" here. Before, apparently, it was "cool." "Cool" = a nice June day in Wisconsin. "Warm" = freaking August in Wisconsin, or in my book, HOT.

In the morning Noa and I went to Jaffa and walked around markets and the restored old city area, where 100% of the businesses are expensive jewelry and arty gift shops. The sun was shining and the water was freakishly blue. It was all very paradisey actually.

In the afternoon I got to hang out and watch while a Spanish news crew interviewed my aunt Julia about her peace work and what it's like living on the kibbutz trying not to get hit by rockets all the time. This is for a program they're doing on the effect of the war on people here. Tomorrow they're going to try to go into Gaza. So, uh, watch out for that on your local TV I guess, if you happen to live in Barcelona, which no one who reads this blog does.

IMGP5174

Tomorrow I am apparently going to see some caves. Which sounds good to me. Man it's nice not to have to plan anything but just go where people tell me!

lightning round

OK, so, a quick recap. A few days ago I flew with my mom from Marrakesh to Madrid, where she got on a flight back home and I caught one to Tel Aviv. Before splitting up, though, we had a day in Madrid, went downtown, found a veggie restaurant and then wandered the streets. We accidently ran into a big anti-Israel demonstration there, which was more upsetting to me than I expected. More and more as this trip has gone on I feel like I can't think about anything but what's been going on in Israel and Gaza - and that's before I got here. Anyway. 

IMGP5076

The flights all went fine, blah blah. Because of the cease-fire I was able to go stay with my aunt and uncle on the kibbutz for a few days. It's in the Negev within rocket range so it was not always clear that that would be possible, and I feel very lucky that it was...since I flew in the morning after the cease fire people keep saying "couldn't you have come three weeks ago?"

The kibbutz is so small, peaceful and quiet. I wasn't there when there were rocket alarms and everyone had to go run to their safe room, of course. It's strange to be in a place that's in some ways so much calmer than anywhere else I've been yet and in other ways a thousand times more tense. It's great to be staying with family and real people again instead of bouncing from one rented bed to another. But it's also very hard to be here right now. Or maybe ever, I don't know. This is my first trip to Israel as an adult, and I had no idea how I would feel being here or how I would see it. I still don't know - I have been so emotional but I can't even interpret my own reactions.

The next day, after a nice tour of the kibbutz and its factory, my aunt Julia drove me all around on a zionist negev tour. First stop Revivim, one of the first kibbutzim in the Negev, which has the original settlement from the 1940s preserved and set up so you can tour it from its original stage as an agricultural research station, first basically just a cave, then some shacks and trenches and a stone lookout tower.

Posters - what's inside a grenade, and how to throw one.

This cave was where the original settlers lived, then became a makeshift hospital.

In case guns in caves don't do it for you, this place also has 2 airplanes and some creepy statues with clothes falling off.

To think that anyone came to this place and thought it was a good spot for agricultural experiments is completely insane in the first place - and then it worked??

After that we saw Ben Gurion's desert home (simple) and panoramic desert lookout (gorgeous.)

The final stop on the tour was this amazing house belonging to Julia's friend Tal and her family. Tal's husband Rodney is an architect and he designed and built this place completely with his own two hands out of found materials from the local area. I've never seen a house like it. It's built out in the middle of nowhere between two nature reserves, and they have wireless internet, but they don't have running water.

IMGP5136

After that I came back to Tel Aviv and have been hanging out with a few of my many lovely cousins.

IMGP5142

And, you know. Walking around downtown Tel Aviv. Watching the inaugeration. Talking about politics and life stuff. Watching the speech again. Sitting around by the beach some more, soaking up the sun and half-assedly trying to take pictures and think of how to blog this as a regular travel destination which is not what it feels like at all.

I don't want to get political here and I don't know if I could even organize my thoughts enough to do so if I tried, anyway, but the war and everything else has really been consuming my mind and making it hard for me to think of what I can write instead. I guess all I can say right now is that it seems different from here than it does on TV. And I'm learning a lot, and I'm glad that I'm here. 

happy Obama day!

First of all, so sorry for the long gap in between posting. I was traveling a lot for a few days (Morocco to Madrid to Israel) and then having all kinds of weird problems preventing me from uploading photos. But it looks like I've got this big batch uploading now, and once I get them up on flickr I'll try to get both the pictures and my thoughts organized enough for a good post about all I've been up to.

Second and more important - how do you all like your new President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I might have to pinch myself every so often for a little while just to make sure this is really really real. I'm kind of sorry to be out of the country on this day, but much more than that, happy beyond words that this day has finally come.

why do I only like the photos I take in the rain?

IMGP5065

A quiet and drizzly and mud puddle-y last day in Morocco. A lot of the morning was spent packing and getting ready for the next phase of traveling. After that a short visit to les tombeaux Saadiens, avec les chats Saadiens et la tortue Saadienne.

Rain, graves, cats, wandering, etc. etc. I am sorry if this blog is too repetitive. I'm sitting here on my last night in Morocco, my throat so fucked up that I can barely talk, thinking that I don't really feel like writing much either - maybe more reflection tomorrow. If I don't get a chance in Madrid then the next blog will be from Israel...

See you there.

souk insanity

So many things to buy! Lantern made out of sardine tins?

IMGP5009

Tall twisty triangle lanterns?

IMGP5011

Plastic babies in plastic bags?

IMGP5044

Rugs of every possible variety?

IMGP5012

Unfinished slabs of wood?

IMGP5016

Halal cholesterol free, gluten free watermelon gummies manufactured by someone who has never seen or tasted an actual watermelon? (HINT: Yes obviously I bought these. They were nasty. I ate them all.)

IMGP5008

Lovely Crab?

IMGP5043

Shopping at home takes it out of me enough, but shopping here is on another planet of difficulty. Today was the day of running around from souk to souk buying gifts for a bunch of people and it was quite an ordeal.

For one thing it's very difficult to know what anything costs at all. To even start to get an idea of what the price might be, you first have to talk to someone for a really long time and eventually, like 10 minutes in, he will quote you a price. This price is completely wrong and way too high. But it might be only twice what it should be, or it could be 10 times what it should be. How do you know? I don't have a clue. Then you have to go into a bargaining session which can take a freaking hour and in the end he acts like you're causing his family to die of starvation, but still every time I feel like I probably got ripped off.

This might be fun for some but I hate arguing with people. I really hate it! Yet I am apparently not as much of a pushover as most tourists because they usually seem really genuinely mad at me when it's all done. So it's like my cheap side and hatred of spending money, battling with my shy side and hatred of getting in fights with strangers, and by 3 pm today I was ready to drop of emotional exhaustion.

Luckily I will not be forced to shop tomorrow. Unluckily, it's my last real day in Morocco. On Saturday morning it's already time to go the airport and fly to Madrid, then on Sunday on to Tel Aviv. I wish I had more time here to go further south, to the desert or Essouira, but on the other hand it will be so nice to have a breath of cleaner air. I can feel my throat disintegrating every time I inhale lately.

the plague

Well, it had to happen I guess. My mom and I are both officially sick now, with some horrible combo of fever/cold/sore throat/upset stomach situation. It is possible that the sore throat is just due to the unbelievable pollution here, which you can actually see drifting in waves of ugly gas across the boulevards. We walked to the Ville Nouvelle today which would actually have been very pretty and nice, a big spread out pink city with palm trees, except for the constant hacking cough due to breathing 95% exhaust fumes, 5% air.

IMGP4995

The Ville Nouvelle also has a supermarket which at first I thought maybe didn't carry Laughing Cow cheese, because it wasn't in the cheese section. This would be the first supermarket I've ever seen that didn't have it, so that would really be a landmark event, since I had previously thought that the Laughing Cow distribution people had in fact achieved total world domination. But it turned out their streak was unbroken as I turned the corner and realized that it was not in the cheese section because Laughing Cow has its own entire aisle.

IMGP4999

We also sort of accidently wandered over to the Jewish cemetary in the Medina here, which is a tourist attraction for some reason I don't understand at all. I mean...are there that many Jewish tourists in Morocco? Do non-Jews really enjoy visiting old Jewish ghettos and cemetaries and synagogues which are all abandoned of course because there are no Jews living here anymore? And if so, why? Confusing.

I like the looms and colored wool here better than the rugs they make out of them. Maybe I will just decorate my house with a loom instead. 

the everything's 10 dirham store

The old city in Marrakesh is so different from the one in Fez. There are wide streets and big open squares and parks everywhere, totally without the narrow, closed in, mazelike feeling of Fez's medina. It's cold here too at night and in the morning, but the sunlight is so direct it warms everything up all through the middle of the day. It's so bright that it hurts my eyes even wearing sunglasses and washes all the color out of everything, making all my photos look almost black and white.

IMGP4971

This is apparently by far the coldest as well as the rainiest Moroccan winter ever, which probably has something to do with the fact that it's pretty much the lowest of the low season here now. We are staying in a room in a beautiful riad which we booked for dirt cheap because there are no tourists - we are literally the only guests there.

In the center of the medina are the souks, so colorful and covered in these slat roofs which let all these tiny beams of light in, very beautiful.

IMGP4980

The wool hanging around is in the dyer's area, they string it up like that to dry.

The color of Marrakesh is orangey-pink - the houses, the dirt, the wastebaskets, even the city buses are this color, and the sky is so blue...

The smell of Marrakesh is exhaust - the air is so polluted and the cars and mopeds give off such a stink. There are donkeys here everywhere too, like in Fez, with long dirty fur and pulling carts that look much too big for them.

If you go up to the third floor anywhere here you can see the snow-capped mountains around the city.

IMGP4966

The trip here from Fez went fine, but was made significantly more uncomfortable by the fact that I had developed a fever the night before we left in addition to the sniffly cold that's been annoying me since Lisbon. So I was popping ibuprofen but still achy, headachy, and miserable throughout the 7 hour train ride in a small compartment packed with people talking to and often yelling at each other very loudly in Arabic. I mean they all seemed perfectly friendly (though very yelly) but it was the last place on earth I wanted to be. Which reminds me of another thing I will never get used to about Morocco: every man I pass on the street talks to me. If he has a shop he tries to get me to buy something, if he doesn't he wants me to pay him to guide me somewhere or else just hit on or harrass me. I can't STAND it. I HATE it when strangers talk to me on the street (except when people say hi in a neighborly way, that's fine.) Even if they mean well it makes me feel awful and when they're obnoxious and pushy I just want to scream. God I miss the midwest sometimes, where people who don't know you have the decency to leave you the fuck alone...

OK, enough complaining. On a side note, I keep getting emails from people who are like, "Are you REALLY going to Israel?" Yes, I am still going unless something catastrophic happens between now and Sunday. But seriously, don't worry, I'm not planning a day trip to Gaza, as if anyone would let me do that anyway.

scrub scrub

This afternoon we visited the hammam or baths, which was AMAZING. I totally had no idea what to expect. For one thing, I was thinking about baths, as in, pools of water, which this was not. First you walk into an unmarked door and down some stairs into a changing area where you get naked (except for underwear, which everyone leaves on) and leave all your stuff except soap and shampoo, then descend through a few different empty rooms, getting ever warmer and steamier, until you get to the main place. It's just a big steam room full of mats and little plastic stools and buckets of hot water and lots of women and girls of all ages. There was one bigger, older lady who I guess was the manager of the place and was always bellowing at people to move. She was in her underwear too.

Then for like two hours it was a cycle of having buckets of hot water thrown over me, getting soaped up, washing the soap off, getting scrubbed with an exfoliating thingy, more buckets of hot water, shampoo, buckets, scrubbing, buckets, torture/massage, buckets, different kind of soap, buckets scrubbing and buckets and more buckets of hot water.

I am pretty sure that I don't have a single speck of dirt left on my body anywhere.

My mom and I were helped through this whole process by Karima and her sister (I am so sorry I never really got your name, Karima's sister!) We barely had any language in common - Karima and I were able to marginally communicate through each of our broken French - but that didn't really turn out to be much of a problem.

IMGP4958

All of the people in this photo are extremely clean.

Tomorrow I'm going to be on a super long train to Marrakesh all day, which I'm kind of dreading after coming thisclose to dying of hypothermia on the last one, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get internet access right away but I will try. Until then...

I broke Volubilis

Today was finally sunny and we took the opportunity to look at stuff around but not in Fez. First stop was the Roman town of Volubilis, which is of course a ruin, but one out in the middle of nowhere with tons of stuff preserved so you can actually walk around and see the whole city plan and basilica and mosaics and things. The paths were muddy so the best way to get around was to walk on the low remains of walls. There is really no kind of protection or security there, everyone is just climbing all over. But when I tried to get up on one wall I slipped in the mud and the two rocks I was holding on to kind of...fell off. Dude this thing was built 2200 years ago! And I broke it! Oops.

IMGP4886

Animals enjoy Roman ruins too!

Apparently this year Morocco is getting more rain than it has in the last 30 years, so thank climate change is for the extreme greenness of the countryside.

After that, in a nearby city, Meknes, my mom and I went into an old royal granary and stables, where they stored all the food and water for the king as well as his 12,000 arabian horses. (You might ask why anyone could possibly need 12,000 horses, but keep in mind he also had 500 wives and 800 children so this was what you might call a large family.) We had to take a tour to go in, which sounded kind of annoying but was actually HILARIOUS. First the guide, Muhammad, took my camera from me, then he grabbed us both by the arms and pulled us into the exact places he wanted us to stand in order to take pictures. He dragged us from room to room, making us stand in certain locations and then taking a photo. What we actually wanted to look at or take pictures of was of course of no importance....

There was also a mausoleum and a bunch of gates in Meknes.

The end.

mud and mint tea

Morocco, seen from Spain:

IMGP4799

Spain, seen from the ferry:

IMGP4812

We stepped off the boat in Tangier to pouring rain, a horde of taxis, and loudspeakers blaring "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys. Then it was on the the train station and a five hour ride to Fez, easy enough though I was shivering like crazy the whole time - nothing here is heated, and it's been chilly and overcast, so once your clothes get wet and cold it's hard to ever warm up. The train whizzed and sometimes crawled past mountains, cities and towns, markets, farms, sheep, fruit trees, red mud roads, horses pulling carts, satellite dishes, cement block suburbs, and hour after hour of incredibly beautiful green rolling hills. I had been told not to talk to anyone on the train, but no one tried to talk to us.

IMGP4828

We're staying right in the medina of Fez, which is the old city (like 8th century old), an endless labyrinth of streets crammed with people and stores and animals and businesses. It's a huge tourist attraction but not just a tourist attraction, this place would clearly go on without us. There's amazing tilework everywhere, also stinky mud and tons of guys standing around on every corner doing nothing. I'm sleeping in my own room on the top floor of an incredible restored apartment building, and I feel a little unworthy.

IMGP4823

Besides wandering the medina and trying not to get trapped by amateur tour guides and herded into their shops, my mom and I walked this morning to the old Jewish ghetto, the Mellah, and saw a restored synagogue and a view of the cemetary, which was locked. All of the Jews from Fez are gone from here now, mostly to Israel. These were apparently the tenements of the 14th century...

This afternoon while I was having my second avocado milkshake there was some kind of rally/protest thing which happened where hundreds of mostly high school looking boys ran through the street with Moroccan flags chanting something.

IMGP4862

So I'm having a little bit of a problem photographing Fez, and here it is. I can take pictures of landscapes and buildings and sites. I don't know how to take pictures of the medina. It's all these little narrow streets full of people, and I feel like it would be so rude and awful to whip out the cam and start snapping away at them - but then I'm looking at this meager batch of photos and thinking how far it is from capturing anything about what this is like.

migrating south for the hell of it

This will have to be a superquick post as I'm in an internet place which is about to close - this morning was the last in Sevilla, took a whirlwind tour through the Real Alcazar and the Cathedral - then on to the bus station to hop an afternoon bus to Tarifa, where we're getting the ferry to Tangier tomorrow morning.

Tarifa is a very small, mostly closed, fairly sketchy little beach town with lots of dreadlocked hippies here to do drugs and windsurf. Wind and ferries seem to be the only businesses around - there are also wind farms all around the countryside. This is also the closest point of Spain to Africa, and it is so, so, so close. The other shore and mountains look so nearby that you could swim it - it's a 35 minute ferry ride so I know this is a little deceiving, but seriously. It's all misty mountains and small little twinkling lights which look like a little town across the strait - actually Tangier, which is supposed to be a total pit of a city. I can see Russia Africa from my house hostal!

IMGP4797

Tomorrow the plan is to take the morning ferry across and then a five hour train to Fez. I will try my best to get internet tomorrow night but I have really no clue how easy or hard it will be in Morocco.

I don't even have time to upload most of my pictures right now, which blows. So here you get a random collection of the ones that uploaded first.

"save" the world, etc.

Sevilla has a ton of recycling bins which are all painted and decorated differently, obviously some kind of city project like the painted cows on the street or globes in Chicago - but so much better because these are actually useful things for people to throw their plastic in, not just decorative. I approve.

In our wanderings, my mom and I ran into this velomobile parked on the street. I took some pictures and then its inventor, Ricardo, who was hanging out nearby, came over to open it up and show us how it works. It's basically a reclining bicycle with a car type body around it - you pedal to push it forward but it also has a rechargeable battery for headlights and stuff. He says it goes up to 60 km/hour and he rides it all around the streets of the city...

Since pretty much everything was closed, after having coffee we went to walk around the big park which is left over from an exhibition Sevilla put on in the 20's.

One of the buildings has a bunch of tiled maps of Spain, including one of Sevilla, which shows something I think is very weird. Look at the compass - all of the city maps for this place are turned 90 degrees so that North is on the left side instead of the top. So confusing and bizarre! I am really offended by this for some reason. It's hard enough for me to find my way around with my crappy sense of direction without people changing which direction North is. Not fair.

IMGP4741

Tomorrow we're going to spend the morning here in Sevilla, then head to Tarifa, on the coast, in order to catch the ferry to Morocco on Thursday morning. I wish I had more time for southern Spain, but still - CANNOT WAIT.

recap time

Wow, I finally got a computer which is working right and enough time to make a real post, and there's so much to catch up on. (Although I'm still having trouble figuring out how to type an apostrophe without copying and pasting.)

Item One: Went to Sintra. This is the only picture which was still on my camera when it came back from the dead:

IMGP4613

Sintra...land of blurry cars and MYSTERY. I think I'll leave it there.

Item Two: Natan left, I spent another day walking around Lisbon by myself in the rain. However, this time I was prepared. I had Natan's umbrella which he very nicely left for me, I rolled my jeans up so they wouldn't touch the ground and soak up all the puddles, and I wore flip flops instead of my soggy old shoes and socks.

IMGP4633

This worked perfectly in the sense of ending the day with dry clothes for once, but it was a little hard on my poor cold feet.

Item Three: My mom flew in and met me in Lisbon! She was luggage free due to airline issues, as usual, but otherwise well.We went down the waterfront and then to some parks and things, waiting for our night bus to Sevilla.

Some people scratched graffitti all over this cactus.

IMGP4644

After sun set we went and looked at old trams and elevators and things...

Then it was time for the bus.

Item Four: Night bus to Sevilla. Dudes this bus is RIDIC. First, they take away your food. Then, they were playing a horrible old Marlon Brando movie dubbed into Spanish really loud until midnight so you couldn´t sleep. And at midnight, they pull over at this random rest stop and the bus driver makes everyone get out for half an hour and sit in the rest stop. The only explanation either of us could think of is that this is a total scam to make you buy dinner there. Anyway eventually they let us back on and we dozed off for a bit until getting into Sevilla at the pitch-black, everything-is-closed-and-there-are-no-taxis-or-local-buses hour of 4:55 am. Anyway, we stumbled through the streets half-awake to our hotel for tonight, where the kindly front desk guy let us doze off again on some couches in the lobby until it was actually morning...

 Item Five: The sun came up and hey, we´re in Sevilla!

IMGP4684

It is very orangey and nice and full of gift shops that sell fans. It is also, seriously, closed down for today AND tomorrow because Christmas is apparently still going on. Give me a break, how can every single freaking day be a holiday? Don´t people here ever go to work? Lazy asses! By the way, I want a job in Spain.

And now I think I shall go back to the hotel and zzzzzzzz out while my mom frantically calls around trying to find her lost luggage and get it forwarded here.

half baked

THE CAMERA HAS RECOVERED.

Yes...after days of trying to dry it out on its own, I came up with the brilliant plan of putting it near the scary electric heater to bake it back into health. I put it there for an hour, and then tried to turn it on, and worse than before, it wouldnt even start to turn on. Oh shit! I thought I had ruined it for good, but actually I think I saved it, because an hour later I tried again and it turned on just fine and has been working ever since. Lucky lucky me.

And now for some reason Vox is not really working and also Im kind of drunk after sharing many bottles of wine and port with a german guy and some other people I just met. Everytime I try to hit the apostrophe key or insert a photo something bad happens. I am not sober enough to figure out this problem tonigh and make a good regular blog postt. I will try again tomorrow.

Night.

a sad day in blogville

MY CAMERA IS DEAD, OMG.

I think it died from getting wet, although it worked last night - maybe the moisture like seeped in overnight? I don't know, but I am hoping that maybe it will dry eventually and work again. This is terrible, terrible news, and it makes me think that this country (Portugal) might have some kind of CURSE against cameras, since Natan dropped his in Porto and it also died. So maybe...once I get to Sevilla, it will work again? Maybe? Yes? Come back to life little camera, I need you!!

Well, to make up for the no pictures of Sintra, I present instead a special blog feature:

*  *  *  *
Natan's Corner

So, as you know, Malka was not alone over the last three weeks. She had a trip companion over that last three weeks - me. Sadly, this is my last day on vacation as I have to return to my job. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I had a wonderful time on this trip and really enjoyed both Spain and Portugal. Malka has graciously allowed me to guest blog on my last day and give some of my impressions.

Some highlighits:
Tossa Del Mar - Beautiful cove and views.
Cathedral in Toledo - Amazingly ornate.
Porto - The whole city (when it wasn't closed on Sunday).
Barcelona - Gaudi's works.
Madrid - The great streets and the Prado.

Some lowlights:
Three days of rain in Lisbon - blah.
Being propositioned by a hooker in Madrid.
Breaking my newly bought camera - Totally my fault by the way.

Overall a very satisfying trip and one that I would recommend that others do as well - 3.5/4 stars.

*  *  *  *

There you have it folks, the trip so far has a 3.5 GPA and has made the Dean's List. So goodbye to Natan and to my precious, wonderful, killed-by-rain-hopefully-only-temporarily camera.

three angels

I started the morning close to tears after dreaming that a beloved place from my childhood had been destroyed, only to wake up and realize it never existed in the first place. Hello 2009.

IMGP4551

After breakfast, I thought I'd ring in the new year by taking a long walk uphill, in the rain, by myself, to a cemetary. I didn't have a map that showed where it was, so I followed the tracks of the tram that was supposed to go there. About an hour into the walk it went from raining normally to raining extremely hard, and since all the shops and cafes were closed I ducked into a church to get out of the rain for a minute and accidentally walked into a funeral. There were two soldiers guarding the coffin and a service going on. I beat a quick retreat.

An hour-ish after that, about when I got to the cemetary, the hard rain turned into an incredible downpour. I was soaked to the skin almost immediately - at first I kept trying to find dry parts of my shirt under my hoodie to wipe off the camera so I could keep taking pictures, but then it became impossible.

The cemetary itself is really more of a mausoleum city, very large, and totally deserted. Apparently I'm the only person who thought to celebrate the holiday in a downpour among the dead people...can't think why? At one point I hid under a huge tree for shelter, looked down and noticed four cats were doing the same. After that I spotted cats under a lot of the big trees. There must be a lot of cats who live there. They were the only other living beings around.

IMGP4603

I had thought that after the cemetary I would take the tram back, but by that time, I had started to feel like my wetness really defined me and that it would be wrong somehow to get on public transportation with all of the dry, tram-taking people. So I wrung out my hoodie at the bus stop the best I could, put it back on, set my ipod to sad Bob Dylan songs (thanks Abe) and started the trudge back towards downtown. It was all around a day for wallowing in misery, but in a good way. I was very happy the whole time, though also very sad.

On the way back I passed the same church as the funeral was letting out. One of the soldiers was outside pacing around talking on his cell phon

Back at the hostel, the atmosphere could best be described as "sleepover party that's gone on way too long" - all the same French people from last night's New Years Eve party are still cooped up here, stuck because of the rain and everything being closed, lying around on beanbag chairs watching the Simpsons and playing cards. Why are all of the people here French? I don't know, but they are.

IMGP4610

Tomorrow is Natan's last day before going home, and weather permitting we're planning an expedition to Sintra....