We’re home. It’s hard to say how I feel about it; I’m happy, but a part of me misses wandering already. There aren’t many surprises here at home. Richard was able to put it into words when he said, “It’s like we never left, isn’t it?” Yes it is. Looking back, it feels like we were gone such a short time, such a long time ago. My memories are already starting to fade. I think back to our time in Hong Kong and it feels like a trip I took as a child, or a movie I saw once.

But not everything is as it was when we left. The car battery was so dead the car wouldn’t stay running without a new one. I can’t find any of my things and the memories of even owning them are so fuzzy that I can’t imagine where I would have kept them. The worst was locating a pair of socks. It’s been three days and I just discovered my sock drawer an hour ago.

I’ve been slowly adjusting my sleep schedule; I couldn’t stay awake in the evening and today, when I slept past 6am, I considered it a huge achievement.

Our cats remember us. We, however, had forgotten how misbehaved they can be. I am also shocked and concerned to hear that one of our cats has a cheese addiction.

While this is a free country, I realize now that we’ve had to give up a lot of freedom. When I look around I see how uptight we are. Now that I’ve traveled a bit, I can see the contrast. We have so many rules, speed limits, warning signs, hand railings, helmets, neon vests… Don’t get me wrong, these things are good, but we don’t have them simply because they’re great innovations; it’s because we can’t be trusted to take care of ourselves. It does, on the other hand, show how much we value the well being of each and every person.

I’m really glad to have seen the world. I’m grateful for the opportunity. What a privilege it is to be able to travel freely nearly everywhere. One thing I know now - Canada is, without a doubt, an excellent country to call home. We’ve got money, education and protection. We’re free to criticize our government and form our own opinions. It’s a huge country and I like to think we have everything we need, which isn’t exactly true, but I figure we probably have enough resources that we could build huge climate controlled domes for growing fruits and vegetables. We could create domed tropical resorts too… but never mind.  Perhaps the most shocking revelation is this: Canadians are in fact nice people. We’re way more polite than most. I will never, ever complain about standing in a slow moving, civilized line again. It will only remind me how lucky I am. Sure, there are a lot of problems in Canada, but they’re the kind of problems that only demonstrate that this is the greatest country on Earth, next to Japan… just kidding.

This is it. The end of our journey. Our last evening abroad. I can't believe it's over. Finally. Already. I feel relieved, but sad too and definately confused. I have no idea what I'll be doing when I get home. Not tomorrow. Nor in a week, a month, a year. I'm starting to think that the real journey will begin once I'm back in Calgary.

But I do know one thing for certain - it's cold in Calgary. So mom, if you read this in time, could you please bring my long winter coat to the airport with you?

I do intend to write one more blog once I'm back (all kinds of interesting things can and do happen on international flights), and I still need to write a 'conclusion' as I was taught in English class. So in the next few days I'll post one final entry. I'll make Rich write one too.

We fly out of Heathrow tomorrow and I'll be seeing some of you very soon!

Actually, they're cousins, not leprechauns. I found out today that some of the Irish actually believe in leprechauns.

Speaking of the Irish, we’re in Ireland right now. We really haven’t done much and haven’t seen much. I’ve got cousins living here and we’re hanging out at their place. We have seen some of the countryside north of Dublin and it’s quite lovely. Cold though. We’ve had frost the last couple of mornings.

Not much else to tell you really…

We’re just 3 days from going home and we’re looking forward to it, but we’re not getting too anxious or anything, just chilling out ‘til then.

We’ve posted a few pictures, but the Leprechauns kept running off before I could get a picture.

See you soon!

Greetings from London. It’s chilly, but we had a dry and nearly sunny day so we’re not complaining. It’s a big city and by big I mean really huge. It took something like an hour to get from the airport to our hotel in the tube – otherwise known as the subway. We’re getting the hang of the lingo. It’s weird though; it’s our first English country since Singapore and we’ve actually had trouble interpreting the signs here. Sure, it’s English, but what does it mean?

The city has a strange feel that I can’t identify. There are a few little things that stand out: the tabloids that everyone seems to be reading on the subway, the city wide video surveillance (it’s creepy). The police do carry guns, by the way. I even saw a machine gun today. It’s a nice city, well maintained and clean. The people seem friendly. But there’s something odd about this place and I’m not sure I like it.

But it’s been a long day. We saw the sights: Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham and Westminster Abbey. We stopped at Piccadilly Circus and walked through St. James’s park. Then, after lunch, we hit the museums. We went to the Museum of Natural History and the Science Museum. They were not only free, but good. We didn’t see everything in the museums of course, just some of the highlights.

The sun set early today (we’re further north now and we’re not used to the short days) so we saw London at night on our way back to the hotel. We discovered the river walk and some neat cobblestone streets lined with pubs and restaurants.

Tate Modern was open in the evening and we decided to check out some modern… ahem “art”. I have to admit that while I disliked most of the art, much of it is indeed art in the true sense of the word, but I just don’t see how anyone could associate the word ‘art’ with two square meters of orange paint. It’s not art, it’s a color. The artist didn’t create orange; they can’t claim it as their own. I think the plaque said that the unmodulated color was absorbing and disorienting. I found the beige wall behind it had much the same effect. I was also a bit annoyed with the description – they could have summed up nicely with: Orange, 2.3 X 1.7m.

I guess an orange line on canvas is a little more like art. The artist didn’t create orange or invent the line, but the combination of the two must have taken a bit of creativity. Hard to imagine it hasn’t been done before though.

But to prove that we’re not completely uncultured, there was one painting in the museum that both of us liked; Spitz by Bernard Frize. (Sorry, no online pictures, you’ll have to visit London to see it).

And that’s about it for now. We can’t afford to stay in London – the cheapest hotel we could find is costing $120 CAD per night and meals are outrageous. This internet access is costing us more than $15 CAD, but we needed it to sort out our day tomorrow. We’re heading to Birmingham to see my cousin Jordan and his wife Lis. Maybe we won’t do much of anything there besides visiting… and laundry...

 

We crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Tangiers to Tarifa, Spain because some guy at the port told us to. Really, this goes against everything we’ve learned this year, but when we did some digging of our own, it turned out that the guy was telling the truth. Tarifa was closer, cheaper and there was a free bus from there to Algecieras (our original destination). But when we got to Tarifa, we didn’t want to leave. It’s a really nice little town with a great beach, lots of cafes and restaurants, a huge grocery store, a tourist office and we found a great hotel that didn’t cost too much. We ended up staying two nights. We spent an afternoon on the beach – it was quite relaxing.

We then went to Seville for a couple of nights, one of them bringing in the New Year. One of Spain’s traditions is to eat twelve grapes at midnight, one each second as the bell tolls. The grapes represent the twelve months of the year and if you manage all twelve in twelve seconds, you’ll have twelve months of good luck in the year to come. So Rich and I each bought a cup with twelve grapes in it and we went to the town square where everybody gathered. There were hundreds of people watching the clock tower with handfuls of grapes and champagne bottles ready to be popped. As midnight approached, Rich dropped one of his grapes. Naturally, he declined to pick it up. He figured, eleven months of good luck in one year wasn’t too bad.

There was no countdown or anyone on a loudspeaker, just people waiting for the clock to strike twelve. It was exciting, but when midnight should have come, nothing happened. It seems the clock bells didn’t work. They chimed at 11:30, but I guess they weren’t working on the hour… Anyway, it became obvious that something was awry so people just started cheering and wolfing down grapes and spraying champagne into the crowd. I tried to eat my grapes (12 in 12 seconds isn’t as easy as it seems). Richard tried one and said ‘yuck’.

There were a lot of cheap fireworks going off in the square and a few hot air paper balloons with candles in them were set free. I wonder where and how those balloons come down. I’d think they could be a fire hazard. I don’t know how the fireworks don’t cause injuries since they were being shot into the crowd and so many seemed to misfire. Add to that all the alcohol consumption and it’s a wonder there weren’t several injuries – but everything seemed to come out okay. Maybe we just have too many unnecessary laws in Canada. Anyhow, things didn’t get any more interesting as time went on. We didn’t stay out too late, I think we were asleep by two o’clock.

On New Year’s Day, we wandered around a bit in Seville. It turns out it’s a really beautiful city. They have some amazing parks, squares, streets, churches and buildings. It was also really nice wandering around on a holiday – no cars and lots of people. I think Seville would be amazing in the summer.

After just two nights in Seville, we jumped on a bus to Lisbon. We were absolutely shocked to find out that we weren’t allowed to take any food on the bus. It’s a 6 hour trip! We brought snacks! All kinds of junk food – comfort food for the journey ahead. We said “okay, we won’t eat on the bus,” but that wasn’t good enough. They told us to put our food in the luggage hold. We had peanut butter sandwiches in a shopping bag and I couldn’t imagine how they would survive the journey in the luggage compartment, but I chucked them on top of the suitcases. Luckily, they didn’t ask to look in Richard’s backpack which contained the granola bars, chips, chocolate and juice boxes that we’d stocked up on. So we brought it on the bus with us. As it turns out, people were eating on the bus anyway (the driver didn’t care and he was the only employee on the bus). So we ate too. We stopped halfway and retrieved our sandwiches from below. They weren’t too squished. It was just weird though. It’s true, many people are pigs and they’ll make a mess if you give them the right tools, but it’s a six hour trip and the bus was full of adults. I would think chewing gum should be prohibited too. Not to mention that a rule as stupid as that really needs to be enforced, otherwise, why bother? Everything else about the trip was okay, I guess, other than the really old, bad movies they were showing, dubbed in Spanish of course.

So, yes, we’re in Lisbon. It’s nice here too. It’s a bit of a worn down, shabby city, but it has a lot of character and charm. The custard tarts are to die for and we got some great views of the city from the castle on the hill. The weather is kinda weird; dark and cloudy, bright and sunny, dark again, chilly and wet then sunny and hot again…. Sometimes calm, sometimes windy… I don’t know. It’s like it can’t decide. Richard’s feet are soaked, but otherwise we’ve been able to stay mostly dry. At least it’s not that cold.

Tomorrow we fly to London. We’re sorry we didn’t see more of Portugal, but it’ll still be here in years to come.

Driving through Morocco was interesting. It’s a country with a rather diverse geography; desert, oases, rock, cacti, mountains, forests, beaches and more. We were surprised to find alpine resorts and huge cedars on our way north.

Having a car was both good and bad. It gave us some flexibility and control, and we like being able to open the windows, turn up the heat, stop for pictures and take restroom breaks whenever we liked. We were able to avoid taxis in the cities and we liked stopping to spend the night anyplace that looked inviting. We also got a chance to drive through some cedar forests full of Barbary apes (I don’t know, I think maybe they’re just extra fuzzy monkeys). They’re great climbers and we got to watch them picking lice out of each other’s fur. Naturally, they eat the lice. We also saw them doing the wild thing.

The roads are great in Morocco, or at least I’d call them very good. They’re like highways in Alberta, paved but sometimes narrow and rough. The real trouble with driving in Morocco is that the other drivers aren’t very careful or considerate. On the narrow highways, none of the oncoming traffic moved over to make room for us. We always did, because we didn’t want to get hit, but it’s disturbing to see an old Mercedes come barreling down the middle of the road at 120 kph while you’re clinging to the shoulder and hoping it will all be over soon.

The pedestrians in Morocco are even worse. First of all, everybody wants you to stop. Everyone wants a ride or wants to sell you something, and they’re very aggressive about letting you know. We had more than one person jump out in front of the car and force us to stop. Others would point at our tires or front grille in an effort to convince us there was something wrong. But stopping for any reason can get you into trouble. We had many conversations through the car windows and they were fine up until the part where people wanted money or a lift in your direction. We felt guilty at times, but we never gave anyone a ride. We didn’t feel comfortable and we were sure that would end up costing us some money somehow.

There are a lot of police check stops in Morocco. We only got stopped once because Rich failed to stop at a sign neither of us saw. I think maybe it was behind a parked car.

Gas was pricey, when you could find it. It was over $1.50 Canadian per liter. Fortunately, our car had a big tank.

Parking was difficult. There aren’t a lot of parking lots and there is no such thing as a meter. You just pull up to a curb somewhere and an ‘attendant’ will help you park and then ‘watch’ your car while you’re gone. All of this means you have to pay him when you return – if you don’t, he’ll jump in front of the car as you’re pulling away.

The city streets are chaotic. Most of the cities have sidewalks, but everyone walks on the street anyway. They cross wherever they like and they don’t always pay attention to the cars. The other drivers were swerving around us and honking their horns to encourage us to run over people. It was ridiculous.

Returning the car turned out to be just as difficult. First, it took us a couple of hours just to find the place, or for that matter, figure out how to get onto the street it was on. Then we had to park a block away. And the office wasn’t open. We waited ten minutes or so, and then called the assistance number to ask what was going on. We were told to keep waiting. Somebody did come eventually and the rest turned out okay.  We used Avis, I can’t imagine how much trouble a lesser rental agency would have been.

After all that waiting we missed the first ferry across the straight of Gibraltar. We were disgusted to hear that the next fast ferry was a four hour wait and that the slow ferries took twice as long to cross. But as it turns out, we spoke to a local who recommended crossing to Tarifa, Spain instead, then taking the bus from there. He didn’t ask for a tip, so we’re still a little stunned by his generous hint, but it sure is nice to leave a country on a high note. As for Tarifa, Spain… we love it here! And the ferry ticket was a little cheaper too.

Internet access isn´t very traveller friendly in Spain (that´s where we are). So we´ve got pics and stuff, but we can´t upload yet... soon!

Have a happy and safe New Year! (We´ll be partying in Seville).

 

We’re at the edge of the Sahara Desert and it’s absolutely stunning. There is a big set of huge sand dunes here, it’s called an Erg. From what I understand, the Sahara isn’t all sand, it’s mostly mountains, rock and dirt and from the top of the big dunes we got a good look in all directions. There do seem to be some mountains and while we can see more sand dunes on the horizon, the space in between is mostly rock and dirt.

The dunes here are amazing. I think I read that the big dune here, called the High Dune, is the biggest in Morocco. The sand is really nice, so nice that any beach resort in the entire world would want this sand if they could get it. It’s a nice color, a little pink from a distance and it’s the kind of sand that just falls off of you when you stand up. It does tend to collect in your shoes and pockets though.

We climbed the high dune today - not easy, but once we were on top we were able to walk around the whole thing, from peak to peak, on rather hard sand. We really enjoyed causing sand slides and running down the slopes of soft sand. I tried to get a snowboard for the day, but I couldn’t find one. I think it would be fun though.

The town here, Merzouga, is at the foot of the dunes in a dry lake bed. Strangely enough, it does rain occasionally and it actually rained both days we were here. Apparently, the town gets really wet and it suffered a nasty flood a while back.

The people here are Berber, not Arab. They sell all kinds of souvenirs, including rugs. The desert is full of minerals and semi-precious stones, so we’ve seen everything from jewelry to tea sets in silver and turquoise and a million other stones I don’t remember. They also use camel bone and leather for other things.

It gets really cold here at night, probably close to freezing some nights. Really it wouldn’t be so bad, but there’s no heating in our room, so it gets down to 13 Celsius in there. Richard made a little tent, I wore my toque.

We’re moving on today, heading north for Fes. Not sure when we’ll have internet again, but Quarks battery seems to be working again and we have a car, so it’s easy to seek out unsecured signals.

Hope Christmas is going well for everyone – no coal in your stockings… we have sand in ours!

Eid El-Kebir turned out to be much less terrifying (also less interesting) than we’d expected. Most of the shops and restaurants closed for two or three days while people feasted on sheep to honor Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son. We did notice a lot of sheep leading up to the feast. Every grindstone in Marrakech had been dragged out to the street so people could get their knives and hatchets sharpened at the last minute. On the morning of Eid, we saw a lot of sheep on motorbikes. I know that sentence may invoke a certain image, so I’ll clarify; the sheep were not driving, I doubt they could handle it with their hooves, though I’m sure if they’d known where they were going, they would have tried to flee the city to escape their demise. No, the sheep were riding on the backs of the motorcycles, either tied on or being held. I noticed that not one was wearing a helmet.

By 10 AM on Eid, there were no more bleating sheep about, just bloody sheep skins and burning sheep heads. I don’t know why they burn the heads, maybe to keep them from rotting, but even after seeing them in fires all day, we were a little surprised to find a box of burnt sheep heads in the lobby of our hotel upon our return.

We didn’t stay in Marrakech all that long. We rented a car and took to the highway to see more of Morocco. We drove through High Atlas Mountains, The Dades Valley, Todra Gorge and now the edge of The Sahara Desert. We’re having a great time.

We know it’s almost Christmas, though it was nothing here that tipped us off. It’s chilly in some places (cold at night) but it’s not cold like we’re used to at Christmas. Certainly not white. And Christmas isn’t celebrated here. Actually, we’ve heard little mention of it. But we will have a nice Christmas just the same and we hope you do too!

 

The wind really picked up yesterday and I’m thoroughly impressed by the result. Our little stretch of land juts out into the ocean enough that if we stay on the beach, the dust and sand aren’t too bad, but if you go up to the road it’s nasty. We can see that further down the coast the people have it worse. It looks like fog, but with a sandy brown tinge. We’ve kept the doors closed, but it’s only a matter of time before we have sand dunes in the hall.

The power keeps going out. It’s a wonder they bother to turn it back on. It went out at least 5 times during the night - it was off more often than it was on. I know because I couldn’t sleep. There was a lot of banging and thumping. I got up to close our shutters, which got rid of one rattle, but it only made it easier to hear the tapping, scraping and howling. Richard not only slept through the night, he’s still asleep.

I can’t stop staring at the patio doors. I knew glass was technically flexible, but I’ve never seen it bend like this. It is a little nerve-racking as it can only bend so much…

I’m glad we have such nice patio doors to look through. I do like watching the seagulls who, by the way, love the strong winds. They float past the window going backwards and I could swear they’re smiling. The gulls haven’t done much more than stand around on the beach for two weeks and now they’re swooping, diving and soaring all day long. I’ve seen some interesting aerobatics in the last 24 hours.

For those who are less amused by the gulls – the die hard surfers for instance – the wind is a real drag. The ocean is white capped and rough, and the surf has been chopped up by the wind. It’s a mess. I saw a lot of bummed out surfers yesterday, standing on patios and rocks, staring out at the sea with their arms crossed. It’s looking even worse today. But, oh, wait, there are some surfers out there! They’re not surfing exactly. I think they’re just trying not to drown. It looks rough. I was hoping to spend the day body surfing, since it’s our last day here, but I think not.

Yes, sadly, it’s time to pack up and leave this lovely apartment in Taghazout. No more surfing, no more strolling on the beach, and no more staring mindlessly out at the ocean. It’s been nice, but the apartment is reserved over Christmas and we’re being evicted.

It isn’t the best time to travel in Morocco, actually. Eid el-Kebir starts tomorrow, and everybody is trying to get home in time to enjoy the festivities. We’ve got bus tickets to Marrakech already, so we’re set, but I’m not exactly sure what to expect when Eid starts. It’s basically a huge four day feast, but the only food feasted on is meat. We’ve seen hundreds of sheep being herded in the last couple of days and I don’t think they’re being shipped to petting zoos. But I hope they are. Richard says they’re going to the petting zoo in the sky.

Anyway, Marrakech should be interesting during Eid and after that we’re planning to rent a car and see more of Morocco the way we like!

Hello from paradise. We found ourselves a great apartment with a view of the ocean and we’ve decided to stay here a couple of weeks. We need the rest and relaxation, but we also need some time to think. I’m homesick and at the same time I’m afraid to go home because after all I’ve seen and done I know home will never be the same again; I’m a little worried that I might not like it.

At any rate, this village is perfect for me right now and I’m really enjoying every minute of every day. We have a great sitting area with sun and fresh air where I can watch the fishermen, surfers and birds. We have a fully stocked kitchen, washing machine, TV/DVD/VCR, satellite (1000 channels and nothing on – there are a lot of Arab sex channels and they’re weird, plus most of the ‘babes’ are blonde). There are goats that hang around town and I love feeding them carrot tops. Come to think of it, I’ve been eating a lot of carrots lately. The town is tiny and it’s a really relaxed atmosphere. There are a lot of surfers here from all over the world

I rented a surfboard and wetsuit and I’ve been trying to surf on the beach below our building. (In the water, not on the sand, I’m not that pathetic). I can surf! I’ve figured out how to paddle out when it’s rough: I just ditch the board and dive under the big waves, which means less pain and less ingested sea water. Once I’m out past the breakers, I’m great at sitting on my board and looking cool, which is important. Catching waves and steering are easy now. I’m sure I’ll figure out how to do it on my feet eventually! Doesn’t matter anyway, I’m having fun. I drank a lot of sea water, ate plenty of sand and exfoliated my face a few times (some of the waves are big) but I kind of enjoy getting crushed by the big ones – the ones that curl over your head and swallow you whole. I’m probably not going to drown or anything, it’s not very deep, just rough. I have several bruises, a really nasty one on my chin. As you can imagine, I’m hoping to avoid board-to-face contact from this point on.

Not much else to tell you, but we have internet now so I’m online everyday and I’m trying to ‘catch up’ with the world back home.

We’ll be back in a month – not long now!

I’m happy to say that Morocco is really quite pleasant. It doesn’t seem anything like India (so to those of you who said it was – thanks for scaring us half to death). It’s really been friendly, comfortable and (I dare say) relaxing thus far. We’ve only had one fight in three days and that was with a taxi driver, so it hardly counts.

We landed in Marrakech a few days ago and were surprised to see snowy mountains in the distance, not so much because there were mountains or because they were covered in snow, but because we could see them so clearly from the steamy parking lot in which we stood. Not that it’s all that hot here this time of year. It gets to the high teens and low twenties during the day, but the sun is really strong, probably because the skies are so clear. And when the sun sets, it suddenly feels like winter.

We took a city bus from the airport to town. It was a decent bus, maybe it’s nicer to cater to tourists, but we were the only people on the bus, so we can’t be sure. It dropped us off close to our hotel and we didn’t have too much trouble finding our way there. Our hotel was a traditional Moroccan Riad. It’s a home with 6 or so rooms opening into a central courtyard. Inside the riad, we were completely closed off from the city, unless you go up to the roof. The place was really unique. The walls were two feet thick, all of the surfaces were concrete. We had big wooden doors and a padlock over the doorway to our room, but I think they may have added them for us foreign guests who don’t trust a curtain to keep out thieves.

We checked in to our riad and stayed just long enough to identify the smell before heading out to check out the action in Jamaa El F’na, the infamous centre square of the city. The square did not disappoint. Within a couple hours of our arrival in Morocco, I’d seen snake charmers, been offered hashish by more than one old woman, had a monkey sitting on my shoulder, tried the mint tea and watched acrobats do kart wheels past me as I ate my Tajine to the beat of a thousand drums. Seriously! Well, okay, there were only about 10 drums, but they’re loud and the noise bounces off the walls and creates quite an effect. The square is full of locals trying to make a buck and they’ll do nearly anything to tempt you to watch and they’ll sell anything they think they can sell. Boxing, fortune telling, henna tattoos, massages. And then there’s the food; dried fruit, nuts, fresh squeezed OJ, escargot, cookies and more.

Some of the performers are quite talented, particularly the musicians. When they’ve caught you watching, they’ll hit you up for some cash. And if they catch you taking a picture, you’d better have a pocket full of cash. Actually, in one instance, I wasn’t taking a picture of the ‘guy’, but of the whole square. It was way zoomed out and I showed the guy the picture to prove it. He pointed out that he was in the picture so I complained that he was always “getting into my shot” and that he should move out of the way. Just as I was deleting the picture, the guy suddenly backed off and I noticed the tourist police rolling by. Too late, but it wasn’t a very good picture anyway.

The only not so interesting performers in the square were the snake charmers, believe it or not. I believe the snakes are toothless, but it doesn’t make much difference either way because the snakes are stoned. I mean, they just sit there, doing nothing, staring off into space. Occasionally the ‘charmers’ will play their flute or clarinet or whatever it is and the snakes don’t even blink. They don’t do anything. They just stare off into space but they move just enough to let you know they’re alive.

The old city in Marrakech is incredible. The streets are narrow and shaded and while we wandered around I felt like I was in a maze. We got lost every single time we went out. Fortunately, the local people are always pointing in some direction or another and I don’t think many of them were lying. It also helps that every road leads to the main square. Walking in the old city isn’t too bad. There are no cars on the streets during the day, just mopeds and donkey drawn carts.

We also visited the tanneries where goat, sheep, cow and camel leather are processed and dyed. I was fascinated by the big vats of pigeon poop - apparently a good source of ammonia. We got coaxed into a leather store after our tour and while the sales tactics were a little ‘high pressure’ they let us go without too much of a fuss. We liked some of the stuff, but it wasn’t nice enough or cheap enough for us to make room in our backpacks for it.

After just a couple of nights in Marrakech, we left for the coast. We’re now in Taghazout, a small fishing village north of Agadir. The bus trip out here was great. We took the state run bus that is generally used by tourists and it was quite comfortable. The scenery between Marrakech and here was unbelievable. We went through the Atlas Mountains and, as Richard said, it felt a little bit like we were on Mars. The ground is covered with red rock and sand and against the blue sky, it was remarkable. There are also a lot of trees on the plains, probably oranges and olives for the most part, though some trees looked a bit unusual. Speaking of unusual – I was trying to take a picture of a village when something odd appeared briefly on the camera screen. I turned to Rich and said, “It went by too fast for me to have seen it right…”

And then I saw it again. “Oh,” I said. “I did see a goat in a tree!”

“Yeah,” said Rich. “I saw a couple.”

“They can climb trees?”

“Apparently they can.”

The trees were quite short and the goats were standing on the lower limbs, but there were indeed goats in trees, munching on the green leaves. There isn’t much else to eat out there. But, no pictures. As I said, it went by pretty fast.

 

Let me apologize again for not posting an update sooner… for some reason internet has been a huge problem for the last few weeks. We can’t find any; we find it and it doesn’t work; we find it on an old 286 that can’t load a web page; we find an internet café and can’t install any of the necessary software… It’s ridiculous! This is Europe!

Anyway, tonight we’ve got a bit of internet. It took hours of fiddling to get Quark connected, so we’re just going to upload it all!!!

So, we’ve seen a bit of Spain. As usual, it’s just a bit. To be totally honest, it’s even less than usual. I guess we’ve finally burned out. We’re both finding that any city is like every other city, every church looks like all the other churches and museums… they’re okay, but they cost too much. It doesn’t matter that we are in Spain – we could be anywhere right now and we’d feel the same way.

I’m a little surprised by my attitude lately. Sure, I knew a year was a long time, but I thought it would be easy for me. I was worried I’d never want to go home. At least Richard hasn’t been hit by any sudden mood changes. He wanted to cancel the trip before we left.

But the end is near. The actual end comes January 15^th and we’d like to stick it out until then just to be able to say we made it. But the immediate end comes tomorrow when we fly to Morocco.

Now, let me explain… Richard is worried sick and dreading everything about Morocco. I will admit, Morocco isn’t going to be a lovely, civilized place and it hardly sounds like the right destination to hit given our current state of minds. However, I found a nice little fishing village on the Atlantic coast of Morocco that is supposed to be great for surfing, snorkeling and just chilling out. And the promise of chilling out on a beach has convinced Rich that Morocco won’t be so bad. I really hope I’m right.

Anyway! About Spain… Um, it’s okay. It’s not that much different from the rest of Europe for the most part, except that there is a lot of very dry, deserted land in the middle of the country. Lots of olive trees (I mean millions and millions).

The trains in Spain aren’t all that great. The trains are older, (brown tweed? Seriously, how is that even possible? Don’t they have to reupholster every decade or something?). They’re also a little louder and there seem to be more people on them. We got a couple of meals on the trains here, which should be a good thing, but I guess I don’t really like calamari in brown gravy. And the cold salmon in clear jelly didn’t go down without a fight. They did serve alcoholic drinks before, during and after the meal and we tried to get our money’s worth in that department, but I don’t think we even came close. You see, the trains would be fine, I’d even say great, but I’m complaining about the little stuff because the trains are really expensive even with the rail pass. For the Barcelona – Cordoba trip we paid 24 Euros each as a supplement to our rail passes! For brown tweed and jellied salmon! As it turns out, every train in Spain has been expensive for us. We aren’t really sorry we got rail passes, but there are certain countries where train travel isn’t free or even cheap with a rail pass. If we’d known about all of the ‘supplements’ we’d need to pay, we would have given the rail pass a second thought.

As far as our sightseeing in Spain, Barcelona is nice, but expensive and I don’t even remember much of what we saw there. The opera house and the port and a bunch of the ‘old town’ are all that come to mind. Oh, and we found out that Barcelona has a lot of pick pockets. At the train station, the information people told us to ‘take care’ of our money and belongings before leaving the train station. They told us to be careful at the metro station. We always are careful, but we double checked that our pockets were empty and zipped up just the same. When we arrived at the metro station, it didn’t look too ominous. It’s probably all brand new since the Olympics were in town. We got tickets and made our way to the platforms. I heard Richard causing a commotion; bashing his bags against the turnstile – this happens from time to time. I spun around to make sure he wasn’t stuck and saw Rich scowling at another guy. When Rich caught up with me he said, ‘That guy was patting me down!”

“Wasn’t he just trying to sneak through the turnstile with you?”

“No, he was trying to figure out what was in my pockets!”
”Really? Are you sure?”

“Yeah! He did it twice! Seriously, if the pick pockets here are that incompetent, this city has a real problem.”

Richard has considered putting wieners in his pockets to give the pick pockets something to think about. An interesting idea, but I don’t want his pants to smell like wieners.

From Barcelona we went south to Cordoba. It was a little more memorable because there are so many old alleys and streets that cars don’t even fit on, which makes wandering a little more fun. And one of the best things I’ve seen in a few weeks is the Mezquita. It’s a huge (3^rd largest in the world), old mosque with a church built in the middle. It looks like they actually poked a hole in the roof of the mosque so they could put the traditional high cathedral roof in. Of course, there was scaffolding and we couldn’t go into the church part, so I don’t really know what that looked like, but I really liked what I did see.

In Cordoba we spent some time on the internet trying to figure out what we were going to do next. Once we agreed on Morocco we had to agree on reasonable travel. We found a cheapish flight from Madrid to Marrakech and we booked it. We’re now in Madrid and we’re flying out tomorrow.

Oh, and Madrid… I really like the old part of town. We haven’t done much, museums are closed today and there isn’t much else. But it’s a great place to walk around and we went to a huge park – that was fun.

So here we are. Where? Good question. We thought we’d take the train through Spain to Gibraltar and then take the ferry to Morocco, stopping along the way to see some of the sights. That’s what we started off doing, but we’re a little tired of sightseeing. We’re doing well if we manage to spend five hours out and about. So blogs? Well… I’ve just run out of things to say and since we haven’t done much… there isn’t much to write about.

Anyway, there is the whole Morocco issue that has had Rich and me arguing for a couple of weeks. He doesn’t want to go anymore and meanwhile I found out that there is some great surfing along the Atlantic coast so I really, really still want to go. My birthday is coming up, so we agreed we’d go, find a nice apartment for a week and just stay there. But we also agreed that 24 hours on a bus was out of the question and the place we're going in Morocco is rather far south. The train, ferry, train option is okay, but Morocco isn’t as cheap as we’d been led to believe and it turns out that for a little more, we can fly.

So we’re in Cordoba now, but we’re heading to Madrid where we have to catch our flight 2 days from now.

I will post a blog about Spain tomorrow and we do (of course) have pictures, but I haven’t sorted them out yet. We’ve spent every available computer minute working on flights and hostels… and there is no computer time on the train since Quark’s battery is dead and there are no electrical outlets. I will tell you all about the trains in Spain… in time.

We’ve done a lot since Venice, and yet very little at the same time. Because of internet issues, we’re a little behind, but with a few short paragraphs I think we can get caught up.

First of all, we went to Genova, Italy. It’s a lovely port town and it’s probably got some neat things to see, but we never got around to doing much in the city itself.

From there we took a day trip south and went to see Pisa, specifically the leaning tower. Really, we wouldn’t have bothered but it was a free trip with our rail passes and we couldn’t think of anything better to do.

The next day we were hoping to take a trip to Monaco, but as it turns out, Monaco is inside the France border and the rail strike made it impossible to get there. Sad really, since it’s only 20 kms from the end of the Italian rail line.

So, we went south along the Italian coast to Cinque Terre. It’s a section of the Italian coast line named for the five villages perched on the cliffs beside the sea. It’s also one of the priciest places in Italy. There is a national park of some kind, but technically it was all closed for the season and we’re not sure what was what. But, even though it was ‘closed’ the trails were still open and we hiked some 15 kilometers along the Mediterranean, through olive groves, orchards and vineyards, over steep cliffs and through villages. It turned out to be an absolutely spectacular day that rates among one of my favorite destinations this year. It was cloudy though, so the pictures are a little less than amazing. I would love to go back sometime, maybe do a little snorkeling in the crystal clear, blue water… ahhhh…

The French rail strike wasn’t looking any better that night, so we decided to head north to Torino (Turin). We thought we’d go further north from there – we discussed Hungary and Romania, but it didn’t come to that. After a couple of internetless, frustrating, rainy days in Torino, the strike was ‘over’ and we decided to head to France.

Of course, the strike wasn’t as over as we would have liked. We did have a three or four hour delay at the border waiting for the French train to arrive. There were a lot of people waiting and we were worried that the train would be packed, but somebody had the good sense to hook up a few extra cars and there was plenty of room. The trip through the mountains was great, but foggy. There was a lot of snow, which scared us a little, but it kept warming up as we got further south.

So we landed in Nice. Very, very nice place. It feels really expensive, but thankfully the low season has provided some great deals on accommodation. We spent a day wandering around town and just enjoying the sea air, but not, however, enjoying the rain. We’ve had too much rain and cloud this week and we were starting to get grumpy.

But today! Oh, what a glorious day! Sunshine from sunrise to sunset. And so – we saved the best for last – we spent the day in Monaco. We really loved it, though we never really ‘experienced’ much of it. For one thing, you can’t really do a lot without spending a lot. Two of the world’s best restaurants are within walking distance of the train station, but there was no chance we’d be dining in either of them today. For one thing, we don’t even own the right clothing, never mind what we were wearing.

Speaking of which, the Grand Casino has a dress code (coat and tie) and you have to pay to get in. I did step into one of the casual, ‘American’ casinos, but the 2 Euro slots frightened me and I left pretty fast.

We didn’t see any famous people, unless you count Princess Grace Kelly’s grave. We did see a lot of rich people though. At least, I assume the people in the Yachts and Bentleys were rich. I haven’t seen as many Ferraris in my entire life as I saw today. And Lamborghinis. I saw a Ford GT too. I think Rolls Royce, Mercedes, Porsche and BMW made up the remainder of cars in the city.

We didn’t fork out the bucks, but apparently it’s almost affordable to take a helicopter into Monaco from Nice. I guess because there isn’t an airport in Monaco. I’m sure it would be a really nice ride up the coast, only 300 Euros (yikes!).

That’s about it for now. All caught up. We’re heading West tomorrow to Aix-en-Provence. Good night!

The internet is finally working. I've been trying to upload a blog for days, but getting Quark connected was tough and I tried a memory stick in other computers, but they didn't have the right software and I didn't have Administrator access... And  then this hotel - which we picked because it had free WiFi, well the internet didn't work the first day and a half and now we need to catch a train in an hour so I can't write much more. But here is the original Venice blog that I should have posted days ago:

 

Fecal Matter and Flies

 

Yep, you guessed it! I’m talking about Venice, Italy. One of the most beautiful cities on Earth. Fortunately for us, it’s late autumn and it’s really, really cold in Venice. I think the high was 9 degrees celsius. We wore toques. That means almost no flies and nothing more than a slight odor. We only found one particularly smelly part of town which isn’t bad considering that most of the sewage goes straight into the canals without treatment. The water was still ugly though, very gray and cloudy.

There is a beach not too far from the city, but it was too cold to visit, not that I was all that eager to go for a swim.

The city is really quite nice and we loved the fact that there are no vehicles anywhere – not even bicycles! We walked all day and never had to watch out for anything more than a pile of dog poop.

We also discovered that parts of Venice flood frequently – some places are flooded half of the year!? There are planks and platforms stacked everywhere – they’re set up to create walkways when the water is high. We didn’t get to see them in use, but we can imagine that it would be quite an adventure, especially when you take into account all the tourists that were in town (and it’s the low season!).

We didn’t go on a gondola ride. We found out that it’s at least 80 Euros to rent a gondola for an hour. We just didn’t see the value in it. You can get anywhere you want in Venice by walking. Besides, the people in the gondolas looked really cold and possibly even bored. We never saw any of the gondoliers singing either. They looked bored too.

We had to wait ten minutes to get into the Basillica di San Marco and once inside there were so many tourists around me that I didn’t really enjoy it. Apparently, in the high season, the wait time to get in can be around 4 hours. It’s nice, but not that nice.

Perhaps the most interesting thing we saw in Venice was the pigeon flock in the Piazza San Marco. The pigeons are fat and hungry and very, very tame. They landed on us a few times and we each managed to pick one up. We didn’t get pooped on, which was a stroke of good luck! The bird seed vendors were really funny, plucking pigeons from their carts every three seconds, and with a smile too!

Oh yeah, and did you know that the Venice airport has the only floating runway for commercial jets? They can adjust the direction too, based on the wind. Of course it would be really cool if it were true, but I just made it up. Venice does have a floating pedestrian bridge though.

 

By the way, we didn’t actually stay in Venice, we stayed in Traviso, which is just a half hour away by train. It’s a lovely town, complete with a moat, wall and petting zoo. We saw a lot of it on our walk to our Bed and Breakfast which was 5 kms from the train station. It was a little further than we were expecting to walk, but the weather was nice and it was rather enjoyable. But when we got to the B&B, there was a sign on the gate saying that the door bell was broken and we were given a phone number to call. Sure, that could work, IF WE HAD A PHONE! We maybe could have flagged down somebody in a passing car and asked to borrow one, but neither of us were in the mood to try to talk Italian, so we started walking back into town to find a phone. We stopped at another hotel to enquire about rooms, but the price of 200 Euros a night stopped our hearts. We think maybe we were just quoted that rate so we’d leave. We asked if there was a phone we could use, the hostess told us there was a payphone a few blocks away. How thoughtful.

We did find the pay phone, and Rich called. No answer.

We set our packs down and had a coffee. We asked the café staff about cheap hotels, but they only knew about the Hotel where Oprah and Donald Trump stay when they’re in town.

We decided to call again and this time there was an answer. So we walked back to the B&B with the sun setting on our backs and when we arrived the second time the gate was ajar.  What should have taken 45 minutes ended up taking nearly 3 hours.

As it turns out, the B&B was really nice and the owner was apologetic. He also drove us to the train station each morning so that we didn’t have to walk so much for the rest of our stay. I guess we’ll probably call from the train station before walking to our next B&B.

 

 

 

We’ve been doing the Italy thing for a couple of weeks now.  As usual there are good things and bad things.  For example, a couple of the bad things have been traffic and smoking.  There are a lot of cars here as well as motorbikes and they don’t necessarily follow the traffic rules, actually I’m not sure there are traffic rules sometimes.  The procedure for crossing the street is to just start walking and the traffic will generally stop or more likely dodge you.  If you try to wait for a gap you’ll be waiting a long time.  As far as smoking is concerned, I think everyone does it; the men, the women, the teenagers.  And they do it just about everywhere, except for restaurants and trains, and they do it all the time.  It doesn’t bother me too much but it really bothers Bry…and we know what Bry can be like when she’s bothered!

 

There are also a lot of good things here, mostly in the way of food.  This is definitely my favorite food country.  There is pizza and pasta everywhere and it’s really good and sometimes almost cheap.  They have pizza bars with about a dozen varieties of pizza sold by the gram.  This means you can try a whole bunch of different varieties of pizza.  I haven’t done this however, I’m still satisfied with pizza of the margarita variety but Bry likes to experiment.  Her favorite kind so far was the potato pizza (I liked it too).  Something else we’ve come to appreciate are the bars.  Unlike a bar at home, a bar here sells coffee.  And of course it’s not coffee like at home but the cappuccino/espresso kind of coffee.  My first cup I found somewhat appalling for a couple of reasons.  First of all it cost about $1.50 which doesn’t sound like much but when I saw the size!  It was literally about 5 thimbles of coffee.  And then there’s the taste.  It was the strongest coffee I’ve ever had, hence the small amount.  Anyways, I’ve gotten over the size and taste and now I’m addicted.  I think we’ll have to buy a cappuccino machine when we get home to sustain my addiction.

 

After Naples we headed to Rome.  Rome is of course a big obnoxious city.  But besides being full of pollution it’s also full of Roman ruins and churches.  I thought we’d go see the Colosseum and maybe a few other sets of ruins but they are literally all over the city.  I think it must be really hard to be a city developer in Rome because every time you’d dig a hole you’d hit more priceless ruins and have to call in a team of archeologists to painstakingly excavate them while your project gets put on hold.  The coliseum was very spectacular, like I had expected.  Imagine a Saddledome like building but instead of holding 17000 people it can hold 50000 people.  Also imagine it was built almost 2000 years ago out of really big stones.  Besides the Colosseum I also really liked the Pantheon.  The Pantheon is a really big dome.  And of course that doesn’t sound that interesting and you’ve got to see it to appreciate it.  Here are a couple of facts:  it’s almost 2000 years old, it’s 142 feet to the top of the interior of the dome, the inner diameter of the dome is also 142 feet, and it still holds the record for the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.  In the top of the Pantheon there is a large hole.  As wind passes over the hole it draws air in through the entrance thus ventilating the building (rain of course falls through the hole but the floor is designed to handle that).  I found it to be a very impressive building.

 

Besides the ruins and churches spread all over Rome the other place you have to go is the Vatican.  The three things to see at the Vatican is the square (where the pope address the crowd), the museum and St Peters Basillica.  We only managed to see the square.  We decided to skip the museum because it was expensive, there was a long line up and we’re kind of bored with museums.  We tried to see the basillica but they wouldn’t let us in.  You see at the Vatican they are quite sticky on security.  This means that you have to go through airport style metal detectors and x-ray machines.  As we were standing in line we noticed a sign saying you couldn’t bring in Swiss Army knives.  We didn’t have one of those but we did have a cheese knife (you always have to be prepared when a fine piece of gouda comes your way).  We waited in line thinking the worst thing that would happen would be that we’d have to check our bag (and we confirmed that they did have lockers).  When we went through security they did find our knife and when we suggested that we would check our bag they said that we could check our bag but only if we threw out our knife (apparently it was too dangerous).  Now it’s not that it’s a really great knife or that it was really expensive.  But do you know how hard it can be to find a cheese knife when you’re constantly in strange cities?  And conversly do you know how easy it is to find a basillica in Rome?  We asked where the exit was and left.  We probably should have just thrown out the knife so that we could have seen the basillica but as our travels continue I find that I have very little tolerance for stupid rules.  I understand that my knife could endanger people, of course only in the hands of a derranged psycho killer, but why is it more dangerous in the Vatican than any other place in Rome or Italy for that matter?  One of the hardest things about being in a new place all of the time is learning the arbitrary rules that people in the area take for granted as making sense when they really don’t.  I’m sensing some ranting for an upcoming blog…

 

We’re currently in Treviso which is very close to Venice and we’re looking forward to a city with no cars!

So far we’re enjoying Italy. It’s better than Greece; still dirty, loud and smoky, but the trains are a little nicer and the people are very friendly (bordering on polite).

Our first real sightseeing adventure in Italy was the city of Pompeii. I’d always wanted to see it – to be honest, I knew very little about it, but the idea of a city frozen in time was very intriguing. I still know very little, but here are the highlights:

 

• The first people of Pompeii started building walls around 2700 years ago
• The original population was Greek, Native and Etruscan (You’ll have to look that one up)
• The Romans took control a couple hundred years BC (around the time the city started to look attractive, by my estimates)
• Pompeii was something like a resort town for a time
• The city had gladiators, theaters, swimming pools, parks, snack bars, plumbing and brothels. Yeah, like I said, resort town.
• By the way, Pompeii is huge. – 66 ha – we walked around for 6 hours and saw just some of it
• The city is built on Vesuvian lava rock (you’d think that would be a warning)
• There was an earthquake in 62 AD which caused a great deal of damage. Repairs were underway when the city was destroyed and the damage is still apparent.
• There is Roman graffiti on some of the walls – “Celadus the Thracian gladiator is the delight of all the girls”, “Phileros is a eunuch!” - You get the idea.
• Pompeii was covered by ash and rock when Vesuvius erupted on August 24^th, 79 AD.
• Naples was closer to Vesuvius but was not destroyed because the wind was blowing south.
• Another city, Ercolano, was also destroyed that day and is apparently really well preserved, but we ran out of time and didn’t visit.
• The ruins of Pompeii were discovered in the 16^th century but exploration didn’t begin until 1748. Excavations are still underway. About 1/3 of the city is still buried.
• Many of the structures are in great condition, some take a bit of imagination, and other parts of the city have been restored.
• There are paintings and intricate tile work everywhere.
• A few bodies were found (skeletal remains), the rest were more or less incinerated. In a few instances, people shaped cavities were found in the ash during excavation and plaster molds were made. The casts are fascinating and slightly traumatic, but they are poorly displayed and none are in their original locations.

 

We had a really great time and would put Pompeii near the top of our favorite’s list for the year.

 

By the way, I just found out how helpful Microsoft Word can be – when I typed August 24^th, 79 AD, Word wanted to help me check my calendar and schedule a meeting.

We were on the train bound for Kalambaka.  Why Kalambaka you may ask…why not.  We’ve been deciding largely where to go based on where our eurail pass will take us.  Greece doesn’t have a very extensive rail system so our choices have been limited.  The plan was to go to Kalmambaka to see the monasteries which are perched high on the tops of mountains…sounded good.  We had a guest house booked and were planning to walk the 15 minutes from the train to our accommodations.  Unfortunately when we got to Kalambaka it was raining like crazy.  No problem we thought, we’d just grab a taxi, it was only supposed to be a couple of euros.  Ironically, unlike Asia, there aren’t thousands of taxis hounding you for your business as you’re walking off the train.  Instead there were only two cabs and they both seemed to have passengers.  As we were wandering around the station in our post 8 hour train ride daze, a cabby came up to us asking if we needed a ride.  We were moderately convinced he knew how to get to our guest house and we were willing to pay the outrageous price of 5 euros.  When we got to his car however we noticed that there were other people already in the cab.   This is where we had to draw the line.  If you think about it, the people in the cab probably thought they were being ripped off too never mind having to share limited taxi space with two back packers and all of their crap.  So we told the driver no and decided to walk in the rain…and the dark.  The experience was quite liberating (kind of like telling your boss where he can shove your job) until we realized all we had to find our place was a badly drawn dissolvable map.

We did up our rain gear and pack covers making sure the computer, camera and passports would stay moderately dry and were off to find our guest house.  We didn’t go very far when we saw the cliffs.  They were spectacular.  They went straight up to the clouds.  I think they seemed especially big because we were so close to them.  To add to their splendor was the lighting.  You know how they light up really big buildings at night?  Well they lit up the cliffs the same way.  And if all that wasn’t enough there was lightning.  When the lightning would strike it would illuminate the cliffs passed where the lights did.  We kept walking and sort of darted from building to building trying to not get too wet.  We managed to find the street our guest house was on and soon found a sign pointing the way.  After following the sign and a few more, we arrived to a warm fire and a greek lady showing us our room.  It was quite lovely.

The next morning the rain had been replaced by sun and we set out to see the monasteries.  Most people take a tour bus to go up the cliffs and then to visit the monasteries…but not us.  Like usual, we didn’t really know where we were going but we had heard that there were paths up the cliffs.  We started walking through the maze of deserted streets towards the cliffs but weren’t really sure where to go.  We thought we found a path but weren’t too sure.  Fortunately there was a guy who, speaking greek, seemed to be quite confident that that was the path up.  And it was and it was a very good path.

After quite a lot of huffing and puffing we were nearly at the top and we saw the first indication of human intervention on one of the cliffs.  Just for clarification the cliffs aren’t really on the sides of mountains like one might expect.  Instead the mountains are more like pinnacles with cliffs all the way around.  Generally speaking one would have an extremely difficult time ascending a pinnacle never mind putting a building on top.  As we got closer we could see that around the pinnacle was sort of a crack and in the crack you could see what looked like a brick wall.  We had heard that some of the monasteries are essentially impossible to reach unless you have climbing gear.  I figured this must be one of those.  As we got even closer we were able to see that the brick wall was only a small portion of a stairway allowing you to go from the bottom of the pinnacle all the way to the top.  Once we got to the top the monastery itself  was very good but not spectacular.  What was spectacular, besides the amazing stairway up, was the view.  It was from this pinnacle that we got our first glimpse of all of the other monasteries perched on other pinnacles as well as the crazy staircases, bridges, ladders and cable cars to access them.The monasteries were built between three and five hundred years ago.  Apparently there are 24 pinnacles and at one point there was a monastery on each one.  Today they are in various states ranging from ruins to the six that are currently frequented by tourists.  One of them was even used in a James Bond movie.  We managed to see four of the monasteries.  Some were certainly larger and more elaborate than the others but each one was unique and you certainly couldn’t beat the view.