Photos, Films, and the Information Super Highway

I am sure it is user error, but I'm not having an easy time getting Blogger and Picasa to talk to each other. And as Tina says, they're supposed to be friendly!  However, I did manage to get a little film that I took in Fes uploaded to my gallery on me.com.  This was taken in the Medersa Attarine during a call to prayer, so don't mute it.  Unfortunately, I forgot that you can't rotate films.  But most of you can rotate your heads, so do that.

http://gallery.me.com/meshirley#100005&bgcolor=black&view=grid

This is a pretty typical, though very well maintained; example of Moroccan architecture and decorative elements.

Essaouira: Latitude:31.51272 Longitude:-9.77172

In Meknes, I met someone at the hostel.  He is super cute, from Switzerland but half-Indian, half-Mexican, and we were both thrilled to have someone to speak English to. 

Killing time while my photos upload

This is going to be a rambling post, but I would like to get the following disclaimer out there:  All the browsers here are set to French as the default language, and the keyboards are Arabic, so I would like full immunity for any and all spelling errors.  Let the rambling begin.

House of the Labors of Hercules

First, thank you to all of you who have let me know you're enjoying this - I appreciate it.  These posts do not write themselves, so encouragement helps.  Yesterday was a travel day - Chaouen to Fes, Fes to Meknes.  I am staying at the youth hostel and last night I was the only guest who was not part of a group of French high school students.  I did not stick out at breakfast AT ALL this morning.

Latitude:35.57097 Longitude:-5.36377

Today, I'm writing from a cyber (internet cafe) from Tetouan, a city about halfway between Tangier and Chaouen.  I am only here for the day, and it happens to be the same day the king is here too, so the big street, Avenue Mohammed V, is largely barricaded to allow His Highness unobstructed access to his Palais Royal, which is right where the Ville Nouvelle meets the medina.  I didn't see the king, but I did get to see his royal motorcade leave the palace.   Everyone was pressed against the barricade waiting for him to leave.  I had originally started waiting a few blocks away but got impatient.  And I'm glad I did because even with a view of the palace itself, all I saw were guards in dress unforms salute and secret service types bow as a slew of Mercedes and Beemers flew out of the gates.  And the people clapped.  His Highness must have recently returned to the palace because I heard the crowds clapping just a few minutes ago.

The royal family is highly revered here.  Most towns and cities use the same names for their main thoroughfares and plazas:  Mohammed V, Hassan I, and Hassan II.  Mohammed V was exiled to Madasgascar and returned to Morocco in 1955 when, I believe, it gained independence (fact-checkers activate!), so he gets the most street cred, literally.  But most businesses keep a photo of the current monarch somewhere, and you are advised by the guidebooks not to criticize.

I have bad luck being in cities when the museums are closed in Morocco.  It's typically Tuesdays, but it varies, so I won't see the Musee Ethnographique here in Tetouan since it's closed Sundays and Mondays now.  But the consolation prize is a school almost at the coordinates above where they teach Moroccan crafts to the young.  Only boys may attend this school where leatherworking, woodworking, and other artisan skills are taught.  But when it's open, you get to wander through the classrooms and see the action happen, which is a really cool way to see how all this beautiful stuff is made.  And the building itself is wonderfully decorated with a central gallery displaying the fruits of their labors.  Very neat and alone worth the visit to Tetouan.

I did finally break down and buy an umbrella - the battered thing I had brought so far was simply unable to cope with the frequent deluges I'm experiencing.  If I am repeating myself, I apologize, but you absolutely should visit Morocco.  However, absolutely do not come in February.  Not a single day has passed where it has rained less than 6 times a day, not counting drizzle or mist.  The only time I'm ever truly dry is when I get out of bed in the morning.  From there, it's a constant dance along the continuum of damp to dripping. 

But it's just water, so yesterday after the hammam, Anouar (this is how he spells it) and I brought our umbrellas on a hike up the hill that Chaouen is built on.  It was fantastic - beautiful views of blue Chaouen below and some of the countryside beyond.  It's part of a national park, and there is camping as well as more extended hikes of the 6-7 hour variety.  It's a special place - you are high up, with the Chefchaouen mountain in front of you (loosely translated 'to see the horns' as the mountain has two peaks), and the oued (river) below, and all the wind moving the clouds over the mountains so quickly you can just watch it.  After all that walking and nature appreciation AND learning to count to 10 in Arabic, I was hungry, and I wanted to treat Anouar to dinner as a small thank you for showing me his town, so we had a fried fish feast at a restaurant in the ville nouvelle.  Good stuff.  I will get you photos - of the view, not the fish, though I was tempted to take a photo of that too.   I think I was just too hungry to be bothered to get my camera out.

Tomorrow, inshallah, I leave the north and head down to Meknes, west of Fes, and formerly an imperial capital.  Not sure how long I'll stay, but there is a lot to see, including Roman ruins at nearby Volubilis.  And I'm a sucker for Roman ruins.  And maybe I won't need my umbrella...

Yesterday, or Saturday, I left Fes on a very nice bus heading to Chefchaouen, also known as Chaouen, also known as Xouen.  It's about a three hour bus ride, and it is truly lovely, going through orange farms, hills, over many rivers, all of which are moving quantities of silt downriver at this time of year.  I didn't nap, and that is unusual for me.  Planes, trains, and automobiles typically put me right to sleep.

Chaouen is a very picturesque town in the Rif Mountains.  I am writing from memory, so fact check at your leisure, but I believe it was founded by Andalucian Muslims escaping Spain after Ferdinand and Isabella  expelled the remaining Muslims at the end of the 15th century.  And all the guidebooks love to mention that only 3 Christians had entered the town walls prior to 1920, all under some form of disguise - and one of them didn't make it out - he was poisoned.  It's quite different today, as the town seems to be a required stop for backpackers in Morocco.

At the bus station in Fes, I had met a couple of Californian college students who were visiting Morocco after studying in Berlin.  We ended up staying at the same pension and sharing a room together, and I got to have real conversations that didn't require hand signals!  Truly a treat.  The town is adorable.  It is like a little Spanish village in many ways - tiled roofs, buildings painted in varying shades of blue and white, and more Spanish than French being spoken, though more English than I've encountered elsewhere in Morocco (people kept asking if we were Australian, so I think they see it all in Chaouen).

After a fantastic beef tagine with apricots, prunes and onions at Restaurant Timmeskal, we went to the "bar."  Alcohol is legal in Morocco but certainly not omnipresent.  Rare is the restaurant that serves it, and ours hadn't.  But our waiter told us that Hotel Palador had a bar, so there we went.  Imagine a brightly lit hotel lobby that is decorated more like an old folks' home, and you're getting the drift.  Inside the bar itself, which was off to the side, it was smoky with nary a female until we walked in.  No wine on the menu, but liquor and beer.  But they were out of the Moroccan beers, so we each got an Alhambra, all 250mL of it.  That was our wild night, and Becca and Elisha were off to Assila today.

Now we come to my umbrella.  It's just one of those umbrellas you buy from Walgreens when you're caught without one, but I somehow managed to hold onto this one for four years.  It had one droopy spine when I left the US, but so much the better from my perspective - I could ditch it at any time and no one would want to take it.  This poor umbrella has seen a lot of use in the last 13 days, and has degenerated considerably.  Half of it drooped, and closing and opening were feats of wrestling on my part.  The night manager of the Pension Castellan saw me fighting it this morning, and offered to repair if I would wait 5 minutes.  Now I have seen Anwar in action - he is handy, learned it from his father, he tells me.  But 15 minutes later, no amount of copper wire, plier application, or wood splints was bringing this one back to full life.  He did improve the opening and closing of it though, so I was quite grateful.

A bit later, standing on the square updating my GPS coordinates (35.16921,-5.26112 if you're interested - you can pop them into google maps and get the satellite view), I heard my name being called.  Anwar wanted to know if I would like a traditional berber soup for breakfast.  Yes I would!  So he took me to a small stall where we had a very tasty pureed soup of beans, I think, topped with olive oil, and eaten with chubs (ch like challah), which is how I'm spelling the round loaves that are omnipresent everywhere I have been so far in Morocco.  Some olives on the side and some mint tea, and I was satisfied.  I did feel rather like I was impinging on manly turf because I was the only female dining under the plastic awning, but foreign women live by looser rules as far as I can tell.  But it was another example of Moroccan hospitality that I have enjoyed.

My pension is next door to a hammam, and since the weather is terrible, that is my next destination.  Tomorrow, I may travel to Tetouan, or I may start the long journey to Essaouira on the Atlantic coast.  I haven't decided, but I will break up the journey to Essaouira in either Meknes or Marrakech or both.  I'll keep you posted.

I am having trouble inserting the photo, but here is a link that hopefully will work.  Ladies and gentleman, a shot of Chefchaouen:  http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/kDQnNR2hV7yV6KVI8OByKQ?feat=directlink

The Never-Know

If you ever watched Arrested Development, you may remember Tobias was a Never-Nude.  I have determined that I am a Never-Know because really I  never know anything - not where I am, not what somene is saying,  not if I am heading in the right direction, etc.  Basically, I am almost always somewhat confused and sometimes totally clueless. 

Keyboqrds qre tricky

Upon the advice of my friend, Claire, and the not-explicit advice of my guidebook, I blew off Casablanca, but where to go?  The distances in Morocco are enormous, but it has a very good network of trains and buses.  So I could get to anywhere but it might be late and dark, and that did not appeal.  So I chose Rabat, Moroccos capital (pardon the spelling and punctuation - Arabic keyboards are tricky - it took four of us to find the exclamation point!).  And I am glad I did because Rabat is very manageable, especially compared to Fes, my current location.

Error Checking

Good evening and happy Valentine's Day, folks.  I realized I either need a copy editor or I should not write blog posts after Chianti.  I was looking over last night's post and I realized I committed apostrophe errors (horror of horrors!) and I also informed that Michelangiolo's David was at least 12 inches tall.  Yes, I pulled a Spinal Tap Stonehenge gaffe.  It is now corrected.

In that vein of the dumb things I do, there is nothing like travelling to really make you realize you don't know anything.  For example, I popped into a supermarket in Florence yesterday, getting some provisions for my train ride, and I picked up a couple of mandarins.  Once I'm getting checked out, the girl says something to me, I automatically apologized (a useful reaction when you don't know what's going on), and then she leaves her station, goes to the back of the store, returns after a bit, and waits until another employee brings back my two little mandarins with the addition of a sticker that has the weight and price on it.  That was my job to do.  Who knew?

My first night in Florence, Mathias had invited me to meet him at his rowing club, which just happens to be in the basement of the Uffizi.  I left my hostel a little late, so I raced through all these tiny little cobblestone streets (a 23 minute walk that had 15 turns) and keep coming upon these landmarks, the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi's sculpture platform.  But I was late, so no time to enjoy the view.  I found the entrance to the club - it's this low green door on the ground level of the Uffizi, right on the Arno river, and I pressed the buzzer.  I heard the lock unlock, so I pulled on the handle.  I pulled and I pulled, making the kinds of sounds you do when you think you're alone.  I could not get this door open.  Just then, a member of the club comes by, and he saunters on up to the door, greets me, and pushes it open, as easy as can be.  I laughed more than he did, but he didn't see my struggle.  A few minutes later, I tell this story to Mathias and his rowing partners, a group of strangers I'd just met, and the bartender at the club interjects something in Italian.  I believe she said that when I was trying to open the door I sounded "like a whining puppy."  And she imitated me for the group.  I dispute that exact characterization; however, I will admit sounds of a plaintive nature may have been made.

I have been paying extra attention to push and pull signs from that moment on.

Off to Morocco tomorrow, I will get you pictures sometime....

Plus Florence

Tonight is my last night in Florence.  My days have been spent ogling the riches of the Medicis and my nights have been handled by my Florentine travel advisor, Mathias.  Mathias and I were introduced by our mutual friends, Matt and Kate.  Both Matt and Mathias are lawyers, so here is how Mathias describes it to Matt:


Hey Matt and Kate,

so here are my hours spent with YOUR friend Monica.

Three evenings out:

1st night after rowing workout....took her to authentic Pizzeria with friends: 3 hours
2nd night took her to my favourite restaurant and then on to a party with view onto Arno and Duomo: 8.5 hours (yes, we had loads of fun and some drinks)
3rd night invited her home for dinner: 3 hours

My hourly billing rate is: $250
You do the math!!!!



Mathias is obviously a trooper - putting up with me and even introducing me to his friends who have been both lovely and informative (they are all working on PhDs at the European Institute here in Florence).



But you can't eat pizza and hang with the rowing club all day long, so I have seen some of what Florence offers to the eager museum-goer. I need to emphasize the "some" because there are so many museums and churches...well, let's just say I'm on crucifix overload.


Some observations:

Michelangiolo's David is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay bigger than I realized. Someone who isn't paying 1€ for 15 minutes at a computer can tell me the exact height, but the statue has to be at least 12' tall, not including the base.  And it is a masterwork.

The Medicis were not afraid of acquiring.  These people owned 100 of everything so far as I can tell, but bless Anna Luisa, the last Medici, to give it all to the city of Firenze upon her death.

The Uffizi is the Italian Ikea.  You know how Ikea stores have the path that you must follow?  So it is with the Uffizi.  Do not try to reverse course!  You will be rejected, no matter that the staircase is rightthere.  Dude does not care.  Go the long way, tourist.

All in all, Florence has been a delight.  I even got another room with 8 beds and no roomies again, so the lodging hasn't been too much of a shock to the system. I'm back on the slow train to Rome tomorrow (the difference between the slow and the fast trains?  Three hours and 28€ each way!), and then to Morocco on Monday, where the acclimation period officially ends.  I've had rumblings from my devoted cult following that my posting is too light in frequency and photo content.  Please be patient.  I am the woman who has never brought herself to update her facebook page.

Rainy Roma

I've spent the last two days in Rome and will be heading to Florence later today.  I took a too long, too late nap yesterday, so I've been awake since 5:30 and decided I might as well be productive and update here.  But I left my camera in my room so no pictures for now.  I've been staying in Trastavere, one of Rome's oldest neighborhoods across the river - all cobblestones and teeny-tiny alleys and piazzas. 

If you ever want Rome without the crowds, come in February!  Now it might be drizzly, gray and cold, but it won't be crowded.  My only waits have been for restaurants, and those have been worth waiting for.  I "did" Rome many years ago, so I decided to just wander instead of sightsee.  And aside from my using a payphone at a hospital to call my credit card company (yes, payphones in Italy are just as crap as those in the US) to get the hold taken off my account, things have been very easy.  Except for the Trenitalia site, which has the unfortunate tendency to accept only about 20% of US credit cards.  So I'll buy my ticket to Florence at the train station.  But those are easy problems.

Let's get to the important stuff - food!  How could I have lived this long and not have had sweet dried cherry tomatoes?  And dried lime slices too?  I picked up those at Campo de Fiori, and then I popped around the corner to get a couple of pignole, those delicious amoretti-like cookies topped with pine nuts.  Last night, I had pizza at Da Poeta, which is tucked away on a small alley here in Trastavere.  The patataccia pizza with potatoes, mozzarella, and sausage was very good and will be my lunch today on the train.  But the calzone stuffed with nutella and ricotta I had for dessert!  If I could do it over again, I would probably skip the pizza and get the grande (large) calzone instead of the piccolo (small).  It was fantastic. 

I did do a few other things aside from eating - the aforementioned wandering, a church or three, a museum, and the Pantheon again, which is technically a Catholic church now, but it just doesn't feel that way to me.

It's now a respectable hour for me to make noise in my room, so I'll sign off.  But I want to thank everyone who has wished me well on this trip.  It was a hectic month prior to departure, and in the last few days, I was veering between completing my to-do list and getting weepy at the enormity of this.  Extra thanks go to those lucky folks who got to deal with teary Monica! 

PS - snow is predicted for Florence today and tomorrow.  Now I'm really glad I have boots.

Dismantling a Tidy Life

Until very recently, I had a job, an apartment, too many shoes, a social life, a gym membership, and a yoga studio membership.  But 10 months ago, I decided to ditch all that and go travel for about a year.  Obviously, it took me a while to get it all together.

But here my trip comes.  I've moved out of my apartment.  I've packed the backpack that will be my traveling companion (it weighs as much as a 5 year old).  I've got the Cipro, the vaccinations, and the dramamine.  I think I'm ready.

I have flights booked for the first six months of travel, 182 days to be exact, and that's about all I've got in terms of plans.  Here's the itinerary:

2/8/2010 Rome, Italy
2/15/2010 Casablanca, Morocco 
3/8/2010 Cairo, Egypt
3/19/2010 Istanbul, Turkey
4/16/2010 Jakarta, Indonesia
5/6/2010 out of Bali, Indonesia to Darwin, Australia
5/12/2010 Cairns, Australia
7/12/2010 out of Melbourne, Australia to Christchurch, New Zealand
8/8/2010 out of Auckland, New Zealand to Bangkok, Thailand

Do you know anyone in these countries?  Have you been and are dying to share your tips and recommendations?  Let me know what you know because I haven't done my research.  I was too busy getting rid of my stuff.