C'est Nice

hey dudes. i leave for paris in just under three hours, and i've got a mild case of pre-travel jitters. it's strange, because I've been pretty excited about paris for the past week and a half, so why the jitters are coming up doesn't make a whole lot of sense. and i'm taking the train which is always preferable to airplanes. the sources of the jitters are: 1) the fact that i get in at 11 at night, and have to go to a hotel somewhere in the Latin Quarter to pick up the keys to the apartment i'm staying at; this includes worries about the metro at that time of night, finding the hotel, being able to ask for the keys in french, the people behind the desk understanding what i'm talking about, and then grabbing what will probably be one of the last metros to where the apartment actuall is; 2) there is a planned general strike on tuesday, which is when i plan to return. My train is at 8 in the morning (it was only 20€ so I wasn't complaining), but apparently with a general strike, about 1/3 of the trains operate, and, to be perfectly honest, i don't like those odds, especially when I have to wake up at 6 AM just to get to the station on time. In fact, what I've been led to believe will happen is that I will get put on a later train, but, part of me is pissed that they can't just decide in advance which trains will be cancelled, and if mine is, figure out which train i can take before i have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn. christ.

But I'm sure once I get there things will be better. I'm supposedly hanging out with a friend of Jessica's (the Jessica in Nice) who is an Assistant in Rouen. His name is Richard, and I met him a few weeks ago; he seems nice, if not a bit quiet. And he's gay, so. I feel weird saying that, as if that means "so we'll have lots of sex..." i didn't talk to him enough last time i saw him to know if there was any there there, if you know what i mean. We'll see.

Also, on Monday I will be having lunch with one Gerard Beckerman, who my dad met (or the other way around, perhaps?) on the internet. he seems nice, though there's always the slight awkwardness of having lunch with someone you don't really know merely because you share the same last name. but it's all good.

other than that, I plan to hit the movie scene hard, which will be especially useful since it's supposed to rain all weekend (thanks, Paris). So, between that and the cafes, it should be a smashing time.

Hope all is well where you are.

since i did so much bitching in my last post, i thought now would be a good time to update everyone about my future plans, as opposed to my lame present.

first things first: i got an interview for Silvertree Day Camp in San Francisco! Without getting my hopes up too high, in my mind at the moment, this is the perfect summer job. in California, outside, doing something worthwhile, and getting not an indecent salary. i have an interview next tuesday, at 11 AM PDT, which is 8 PM EST (European Summer Time... I know, confusing) so everyone is required to keep their fingers crossed.

as for the ol' "School Year," i've reapplied to this English Teaching Fellowship at the Urban School, which I didn't get last year (i didn't even get an interview), but figured I have a bunch more experience now (the summer thing in Nice, this thing i'm doing now in Nice, teaching Kaplan klasses), and it would be a pretty sweet gig if I got it. I had also been thinking about the LAUSD learn-and-teach-at-the-same-time program, but it starts in July, and I don't think I'll have all my gross standardized test scores in by then. besides, if it started in July, I couldn't do silvertree; yes, there's something irksome about holding off on one job for another job I don't yet have, but the ultimate defeatism in the LAUSD one has sucked all the motivation out of me.

other prospects have yet to surface in any super-meaningful way, but i'm feeling watchful, and i have this idea that once i'm actually in the states, it will be easier to look for a job, you know? I get the impression that recruiters are really turned off by the phrase "I'm in Southern France on the Beach until May, but you can contact me here for an outrageous fee by dialling 0113367024215598298390232939." Anyway, we'll see.

well, that sums it up for today, i suppose. hope all is well where you are.

One month till I leave Nice, three more weeks of teaching. Weird.

So, it only took me a month to finish posting about my five-day journey to Morocco... sorry everyone.

The last month has been good. I know, that didn’t sound too convincing to me, either. I’ve been hitting the no-boyfriend blues pretty hard the past few weeks... a combination of Charlotte’s boyfriend visiting and being around them a lot, a couple of one-two “I likey/oh wait, he’s straight” punches. I don’t know if you all read my drunken St. Patrick’s Day post, but one of them happened there... gross. My friend Helen, who has one of those deadpan senses of humor, kept saying “I’ve slept with him [the guy I was totally crushing on] several times,” and I thought she was joking, but then found out, no, she wasn’t. I’ve gotten to that kind of disgusting place where I start preparing myself for let-down before I’ve even really had an opportunity to get excited about it, some sort of self-defense mechanism that, let me tell you, is not working.

I also feel like its been ages since I’ve had a real, full-on crush, you know? I search back into the databases and my most recent heartaches seem to date from more than a year ago (I’m pulling up that Nick guy from the Valentine’s Day Party at Molly and Julia’s). What’s that all about? I know, I know, I’m surrounded by straight girls, so that doesn’t help. But I can’t get particularly excited about the prospect of going to a gay bar or club either. Maybe that’s also some sort of self-defense mechanism, a much more sinister, destructive one.

I had a bad night on Friday; nothing happened, really. We drank first at one friend’s flat, then another’s, so by the time we got into town it was around midnight. Our favorite bars were in the process of closing, and so we headed to Thor’s which is gross and crowded but not too expensive and has a late-night license. It was me and about a half dozen girls, and all of a sudden, all the girls seemed to vanish into conversation with various and sundry guys. It was one of those situations where I wanted to make sure I didn’t get in anyone’s way (I would be mortified to discover that so-and-so had missed a chance with Mr. Cute/Hot because he thought I was with her), but then found that I was sitting alone with a beer, and that’s not attractive, even from the drinker’s standpoint. I looked around the bar, at the many hetero couples chatting, and you could see the hunger in their eyes, and the comfort they took in seeing the hunger reflected in the eyes of the person they were talking to, and I had a very depressed few minutes. I ended up walking home alone, having missed the night bus, frustrated that I felt this shitty but really couldn’t blame anyone (even blaming myself seemed a little too extreme). And at the moment, I’m riding a wave of disappointment incurred from discovering that a cute new waiter at Johnny’s is dating the waitress whom I’m quite good friends with at Johnny’s. So it goes, I guess.

But anyway. I’m sitting on the Promenade des Anglais, not at the bench, but still, it’s quite nice. There’s something very peaceful about watching the planes take off... something about big, heavy things moving slowly through the air. There’s a huge sailboat on the horizon. And I keep running into people I know from school (a teacher, a student). It’s funny, those moments when you feel most disconnected from the world, then someone pops up and says hello.

Until next time, then.

Hey folks. I'm going to be bold and see if I can't finish out the Morocco trip in this post, which would give us a nice trilogy. Wish me luck.

We awoke the next morning in Essaouira, returned to the main square area and had petit dejeuner, which apparently is the same all over the country. But it was satisfying enough, and I grew quite fond of their café au lait, which I actually suspect might have all been instant coffee... anyways, it was good, and got us ready for the day. There was more shopping done, which was fun, although even the advantageous exchange rate wasn't keeping us from spending more than... well, more than we probably should have. We walked up by the ramparts, now in their full daylight glory; here's Annapaoala near one of the cooler towers.

As you can see, it was a ridiculously gorgeous day. We spent most of the morning walking around, revisiting some shops the girls had wanted to return to (okay, I may have returned to a shop or two myself). Having missed the bus we had originally intended to take, we ended up with most of the day in Essaouira, which the nice weather made it difficult to complain about. We lunched at another restaurant in the same area as the last two (I indulged in some moroccan pizza, which actually is a bit better than French pizza, since they don't feel beholden to put French cheese on the damn thing, and use mozzerella, like they should).

[<--Here is the Square where we ate almost all our meals in Essaouira, all at different places. ] I guess I forgot to explain that the reason we had to go back the next day was because Charlotte, due to various extenuating circumstances, had to fly back to London, not Nice, and the only cheap flight available left at the crack o' dawn on Friday (we're at Thursday at the moment). So, we whiled away what was basically our last moments of relaxation is a trio in the various streets of Essaouira, catching what rays of sun we could. The bus trip back was pretty much the same as the way there, but in reverse, you know? We arrived in Marrakech just after sunset; there were armies of petits taxis drivers waiting to whisk off the tourists who'd just arrived at the bus station. We chose one and were whisked off back to the Medina, back to the madness we'd left behind only a day ago, though it seemed like a lot longer. On our way there, Charlotte, who had a 7:30 flight the next morning, and had been worrying about how she was going to get to the airport (did they have taxis out at all times? did she need to book one) asked this one what the deal was, and he (not unsurprisingly) volunteered to take her at 5:30, even though she had been keen to leave at 5:00. She finally accepted, though she spent much of the evening worrying about whether or not he would actually show up, and feared that even if he did, being fifteen minutes late could get her in trouble at the airport.

The intersection he dropped us off in was insanely busy, and we got out of the car hurriedly, Charlotte reconfirming her plans with the driver, though I did manage to remember the number of the taxi, so Charlotte would know which one to look for the next day (498). We walked all the way from where he dropped us off to the Hotel CTM, where we'd "booked" a room before we'd left (there was no actual formal booking process... we just told them we'd be coming back and they said they'd keep a room for us... I got the impression that the place didn't usually fill up at this time of year); the total distance was about three quarters of a kilometer. We dropped our stuff in our room and decided to go search for some food. It was then that I realized I didn't have my camera.

I had left my digital camera (unintentionally) in New York (to be completely honest, I'm not sure where it is at home... eeek!). I had had a big internal struggle about whether it was stupid to bring my SLR film camera. It's bulky, big, and not as easy to take care of (for instance, I wouldn't fit in my pocket). In the end I decided to take it, hoping that I wouldn't do something stupid. Well, as Jayne so poignantly says on Firefly, "If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak." I immediately began panicking, thinking that someone had just taken it off of me while we were walking through the Djeema El Fna, not at all an unlikely scenario. We consulted with the people who worked at the front desk of the Hotel, who told us that if I left it in the cab, cab drivers were required to take any lost stuff they found in their cabs to the police, and advised me to walk over to the bus station where the Police had an all-night station or whatever. I started to get a green, sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach, wondering who would want little "gifts" in order to help me. Should I give these guys at the front desk some money if they helped me find it? Would the police require some? I thought about how stupid it was to not have the camera sewn into my clothing, and how much money it was worth... groan.

Charlotte and Annapaola graciously offered to walk with me over to the police, though they wanted to pop in to a shop first that would have been closed later. They went to the shop while I retraced our steps to where the taxi had dropped us off, thinking (but not believing) that maybe I dropped it and no one had seen it yet. Unsurprisingly, I didn't find it there, and waited in front of the restaurant we ate the first night for the girls. It was right on one of the few big roads that runs through the Medina, and, feeling stupid just standing there doing nothing, I started to look at the cab numbers. I wasn't expecting any of them to be the one we had been in, but, lo and behold, who did I see drive by? Good ol' taxi 498. I ran right out into traffic, which was probably the most dangerous thing I've done in years. I started running behind his taxi, and finally, reaching the back window, knocked loudly. The driver looked like I scared the shit out of him; I probably did. I wanted to get in right there and look for the camera, but he signalled to me that he had to pull over. Okay, so he was right. He pulled over, I opened the door, and in my gasping french, was barely able to explain that I had left my camera... I reached under the seat and felt the heavy soft pack still there. I brought it up, and I must have been grinning like a hyena.

I was so elated that all I could say was merci beaucoup! merci beaucoup! I was sure he hadn't seen it under the seat, though after I got it, he said something along the lines of "Peut-etre vous pouvez donner moi un petit..." [Maybe you could give me a little...]. Still so stupidly happy to have it back, I said, yes, of course, I'd give him something when he came to get Charlotte the next day. I must have been clicking my heels all the way back to our rendez-vous point, and took pleasure in producing the camera under the surprised faces of Annapaola and Charlotte.

We had a dinner of Tagines at a place recommended by the guidebook. I had some delicious thing that involved ground beef, tomato sauce and an egg. It was piping hot, but still quite good. We went for another round in the Souks thinking about last things we wanted to get. I allowed myself to plunk down 110 dihram for a silver ring, which I quite like. Afterwards, we made it an earlyish night, since Charlotte had to get up so early. I agreed to get up with her and make sure she got the cab (and to give the cabbie the "reward" I'd promised him, though I felt like a bit of a chump for having agreed to give him one, since he hadn't actually helped me recover it... he just hadn't noticed that I'd left it there).

That morning Charlotte and I got up while it was still pitch black. We unfortunately had to wake the night-man at the front desk of the hotel to let us out, and he was even less enthused to hear that I was going to wait there and come back in ten or fifteen minutes. Anyway, we kept an eye out for our taxi driver, but he didn't manifest himself, and Charlotte decided to take one of the taxis that were out there then.

By the way, the djeema el fna completely transforms in the early hours of the morning. Unlike times square, it empties out entirely, save for a smattering of berbers sitting around fires in garbage cans, or some just built right on the ground. Yet there's no sinister sense of danger; the square is too open for that. It was kind of tranquil, one of the only tranquil moments I can recall in Marrakech.

I bid goodbye to Charlotte, and waited about fifteen minutes before cabbie 498 showed up. I told him Charlotte had already gone and went to give him a reward... I had been thinking that 100 dihram would be good, but, having looked in my wallet before I came down, realized I only had a 200 dihram bill or a 20 dihram bill. Thinking that I didn't want to insult the guy, especially since he wasn't getting Charlotte's fare anymore, I gave him the 200 dihram bill, feeling kind of chumpy again, but humbled myself by remembering how panicked I had felt when I thought that my camera was just gone. I returned to bed a little lighter in the wallet, but much calmer in the head.

Annapaola and I enjoyed our third breakfast on the roof of Hotel CTM, and decided that one last trip to the Souks was... well, unavoidable. We both tried to get the other person to keep us from spending too much money, but that was more or less a non-starter. It did give us an opportunity to get a few pictures of the souks, which, while a little harrying, did have their own kind of coolness. In fact, I imagine if one could get all the sellers to take tranquilizers, the souks could be quite peaceful and restful. That's not the case, however, which is probably for the best; they are what they are, yeah? Anyway, we had also become more used to the practice of getting hassled and the practice of shaking it off. Non, merci became our mantra; moreover, now that we were in the mindset of the bargainer, the bargaining process wasn't so nerve racking. The guidebook said that a common phrase heard in the souks was "Ça coûte 100 dihrams; combien vous payez?" [This costs 100 dihrams, how much will you pay?] which is totally true. And, once I shirked my puritan notions of pricetags, I sort of got into it. I'm sure I was still paying more than I could have, but part of me didn't mind, and part of me decided that it was okay to pay a little more since I had a little more to pay. It certainly put my monthly stipend in perspective.

In the afternoon, Annapaola and I decided to go to some architectural sites. We hit up the Saadian tombs, which were very ornate and pretty, though quite simple, and not terribly well kept up. Still, it was insane to see the craftmanship. I found myself particularly amazed by the use of writing: it was everywhere. It kind of reminded me of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, except it was much much older. The writing went up walls, down posts, and it was beautifully intricate. I wish I was able to read Arabic only so I could read what it said on the walls.

We were lucky again with the weather, as you can see in the picture. I don't exactly understand how the tombs were originally organized, but you can see those squares on the ground are some of the graves; they aren't arranged in rows or anything like in the states, instead the kind of look like people just happened to be buried wherever they happened to drop. It is a little disconcerting at first, but after a while just starts to feel organic. It was nice.

After the tombs I took Annapaola on a bit of a death march down to the bottom edge of the Medina (and, seemingly, the city as well) in hopes of getting a glimpse of the Atlas mountains, which are this enormous range that runs around Marrakech. I had seen them in some pictures, and at first thought that they were farther away from Marrakech, but then, on our bus ride home, the clouds on the horizon cleared, and I realized not only were they quite close, but they were, well, mountainous, rising well above where the horizon would have otherwise been. Unfortunately, the clouds had returned to settle on the horizon, and I was unable to see them. We ended our walk at a rooftop café near the Badi Palace, a runied palace that was supposed to be pretty. However, our waiter told us that the Bahia palace, also nearby, was better. We went over there and weren't disappointed; once upon a time it had been party central in Marrakech. I took a bunch of pictures of the place; it too had absolutely beautiful Arabic script all over the place. You can't see it in this picture, but you do get an idea of how over-the-top this place was, especially in comparison to the poverty that was all around it.

By this time I was feeling pretty funky. I had started feeling it that morning at breakfast, but managed to chalk it up to everything except what I think it had ended up being. I was thinking I was dehydrated, that I had drank some funky water, but I think, in the end, it was the meat dish I had had the night before. The reason that I mentioned that I didn't think it had been was that we returned to that same place that night, and I got the exact same dish. This is what we in the business call "doing yourself in." What business that is I don't exactly know, but there we are. Anyway, we had a simple night; I taught Annapaola how to play "Greedy" with a set of dice I had bought in Essaouira. I beat her the first time, and she won the second time, which was nice. I wrote a few more postcards, and kept hoping that my stomach would stop hurting.

I awoke the next morning not having had my prayers answered. I was in a bad way, but, determined not to let the last day in Morocco be tainted by some stomach unpleasantness, I suggested we go to visit the old synagogue in the Medina. It wasn't until we got to the place that I remembered it was Saturday; not only was the synagogue not open to the public, but neither was the Jewish cemetery which was supposed to be pretty remarkable. I felt pretty stupid, though I'm happy to choke it up to my illness. We wound our way back through what seemed to be the souks for the locals, which sold only practical items: food, household items, workclothes. We made it back to the Djeema El Fna in time for a little lunch, and then grabbed a cab to the airport.

The flight home was rough for me, rougher than usual, once again thanks to my tender state. I tried to eat some of the food they served, which I managed to keep down. We somehow ended up at the back of the passport line in Nice, and though we had been hoping we'd be able to convince one of our Niçois friends with a car to pick us up, none of them came through. Normally I would have tried to take the bus, but feeling like I did, I agreed to split a cab with Annapaola. This is probably the most telling comparison of Nice and Marrakech: the cab from the Medina to the Marrakech Airport cost 35 dihram (~€3); the cab from the Nice Airport to the Lycée cost €30. Wow.

Anyway, I was laid up in bed for a day or so feeling feverish and ill, barfing up what food I managed to get down. I was worried I was going to have to take my first sick day from work when Joy handed me some Antinol, which she had bought during her trip to Egypt to fight a similar bug. All I can say is that shit is a wonder drug.

So, that's it, really. It was a good trip, though I keep telling people it wasn't a super-relaxing one. Which is fine, I hadn't wanted it to be; that's what the week in Italy with Gram and Jerry was. And althoguh I didn like it, i'm not dying to go back. Whether that's an indictment of the place or not I don't really know. Anyway, I'm hoping now to get back to slightly more regular blogging. I'll catch you guys later.

hey folks. I'm bad, i know, not updating the ol' blog. of course, the only time i can see fit to do so is in the midst of a st. paddy's day drinking sesh. I'm with (from left to right) Charlotte (fellow hallmate), Bridie and Martin (parents of Irish Claire), Jessica, Helen, Robyn, some random guy, and Franck (ex-boyfriend of irish claire). Irish claire has just shown up with vodka cokes for her parents (what a loving daughter) and I'm on my sixth or seventh pint of beer... Murphy's Irish Red, if you're curious (which I know you are). Anyway, I've already fallen in love with someone tonight... believe it or not his name is Gaëtan or something like that, easily heard as "Gay Tom"... needless to say, I'm smitten (in my drunken state, of course... I hope that come morning I remember next to nothing...). Nothing will happen, don't worry. I'd just thought you'd like to know that for a few shining (in more ways than one) moments, I saw hope.

I miss you all, and hope you're saint paddy's day is as rich as mine.

hello again folks, sorry for the delay; i know you're all on pins and needles waiting for more wild tales of Morocco.

When I left off, we were at the Jardin Majorelle, which is about a ten minute drive from the center of Marrakech. While in the taxi on the way there, our driver asked us what we were doing that day. I don't know if Annapaola hadn't read the part of the guidebook where they warn you against taxi drivers offers of "one-fee days," a kind of on-the-spot charter of a taxi, but she started telling him all of our plans: first going to Majorelle, then to La Palmerie, another set of gardens a good ways out of Marrakech, then maybe to the Ensemble Artisanal. Anyway, the guy offerred to drive us around all morning for a fee of 20 Euros, about 220 Dihram. Feeling very on the spot and not feeling impolite enough to say (even in English) that this guy was obviously trying to swindle us, we let ourselves agree to his offer. Which, truthfully, wasn't horrible, however, I started feeling extremely taken advantage of, recalling from the guidebook that the average ride was only supposed to cost about 20 Dihram. Anyway, in my own white-American kind of way, I began feeling extremely uncomfortable, and very wary of other advantages on the verge of being taken. It's not the greatest feeling.

From the Jardin Majorelle, we were driven to the outskirts of Marrakech to La Palmerie, which the guidebook describes as a beautiful garden of Palms that runs along a road that is well suited for horse-drawn carriages and bikes. In actuality I thought it was pretty gross. There are huge amounts of development going on, and it is being turned into a kind of mini-Hamptons, replete with golf course, mansions, and tall security walls. The taxi driver pulled over on the side of the road where about half a dozen camels were eating some sort of mystery greens. We were being offerred a camel ride. Now, I know I'm a nerd, but I had never ridden a camel before, and I got pretty excited about the prospect. We asked for the price, however, and were quoted 300 dihram, which is about $33, for a twenty minute ride. Our feelings of self-protection taking over, we tried to bargain them down as far as we could, and got to 150 dihram for 10 minutes. I had never ridden a camel, and probably would have plunked down more dough than that, but being in front of the ladies, I had to make a stand for a price that didn't emasculate me. So, I got on the camel, giddy as a schoolgirl, and let me say one thing about camels: they are strange muthafuckers. For one, they seem to have more knees than I'm comfortable with. Two, they pee out of the side of one of their legs. Three, they've got weird feet. Four... I don't know what four is, but, Christ, they're strange. None of them spat at me, thank god, although my camel was tied to the back of Charlotte's, and for a while there I was worried that her camel was going to grace me with a golden shower. Ugh.

So, then the ride begins, and let me tell you something: a camel ride is not smooth. There's lots of pitch and yaw involved, and one has to decide whether they want to become loose like jelly and let the motions of the camel test the curvature of your spine or sit rigidly and risk being thrown over the damn thing. Let's just say I'm not eager to bring one home.

We start riding through the garden, with the promise of getting to visit a Berber village having been part of the deal, and, first, two little kids start tagging along behind us, offering us "presents," which are narrow palm fronds they've woven into little bookmarks. I'm still paranoid from the guidebook that I'm going to become some sort of Pied Piper, and have these kids follow me around like Yossarian and Nately's whore, popping out of garbage cans and service doors in Nice or New York; so I decline, politely, but firmly. Annapaola gladly accepts the gift, and the little boy immediately asks for a petit cadeau (little gift) in return. Annapaola gives him her pen--I don't know if it was a fancy pen or what; later on we had a waiter who's pen died on him when we asked him to write out our check, and none of his coworkers would give him their pens, so maybe there's a run on Bics in Morocco--and suddenly another boy pops up, also wanting a gift. After a moment or two of pestering, Annapaola gives him one of the two "Winnie Puh" she has on her backpack, and then the other kid starts crying, cause all he got was a stupid pen.

While she's dealing with that, though, me and Charlotte are noticing that this "beautiful garden" is a bit of a pit. There's litter everywhere, and there sure as hell aren't any Berbers around. The place is a bit of a sty.

By the time our camel ride is over, we feel pretty much like stupid tourists having been taken for a ride, and I suggest strongly that the taxi driver leaves us near our hotel, and that we figure out the afternoon for ourselves, which we do. First he drops us by the Supratours Bus Station, where we buy our tickets to Essaouira, a city on the coast that various friends and the guide book have suggested as a nice one-night trip from Marrakech. The ticket for the three hour bus ride costs 60 dihram, about $6.50. What a deal!

We eat lunch and decide to go to the Ensemble Artisanal, a market run by the government where most of the crafts available in the souks can be found, but where the shopowners don't hassle you and the price doesn't fluctuate quite so dramatically. It's right across from the Koutoubia of Marrakech, a Minaret that's the tallest thing in the city, and is sort of the architectual calling card of the place. It's pretty tall, though you can't go inside it, and non-Muslims aren't allowed into the mosque that it's attached to... but then again, we weren't allowed to go into any mosque in Marrakech. There are two or three in the whole country that allow Westerners in, but they were up north; one is in Casablanca, the other I think in Fés? Anyway, the Ensemble Artisanal was about as different from the souks as one could have hoped for, and we spent a leisurely afternoon looking at stuff, trying to get a grasp of what prices were going to be reasonable at the souks later and what prices were going to skewer us. It was nice enough; one of the nice things about the Artisanal is you can see people actually doing their crafts... every now and again, you can witness an apprentice getting a lesson in somesuch activity, like these two painters here.

After the Artisanal we followed the advice of the guidebook and ventured out of the Medina into Guéliz, or the "New Town"; the part of the city that is currently being developed. Walking through it was like walking through a city that has one foot in the third world and one foot in the first. Mercedes and Beamers would occaisonally race down the main street, but you also had donkeys drawing carts. Everything seemed to be covered in a fine layer of dust from the various construction sites that dotted the place, each with ambitious looking architects' visions of what would some day end up there. This may sound really strange, but Guéliz sort of had the feeling one gets from a twelve or thirteen year old who's grown six inches in as many months; that there was a lot of money and power there, the wherewithal of a grown nation, but that there wasn't a whole lot of coordination behind it, the new, shiny, towering buildings were like gawking limbs shot out at weird angles because what else was there to do with them?

It also started raining on our walk, which wasn't fantastic, although my female co-travelers incurred it worse than I. The guidebook had suggested Guéliz as a place to find some of the more sophisticated food to be had in Marrakech. We decided to go to Chez Jack 'Line, which had the promise of good food and a parrot on the owner's shoulder and a reasonable prix fixe menu. Madame Jack'Line met us at the door, and we could tell pretty quickly why she had a parrot on her shoulder: she was a few polly-want-a-crackers short of a barrell. She sits us down and instantaneously begins telling us about her restaurant and how she won an award in NYC, as if at any minute we might bolt out the door unless she continuously waylayed our inevitable anxieties. We did the polite thing, saying "oh, how nice!" and then, before we knew it, she was describing some special appetizer they were serving that night. Annapaola was having some stomach issues, so she was sticking to soup, and only Charlotte and I ventured into the mystery appetizer. It was delicious, to be fair, a kind of pastry stuffed with chicken and nuts and other delicious things, but it turned out to be 90 Dihrams, about $10. Anyway, that bumped our dinner up into the "pricey" bracket, which we were none to happy about. The rest of the dinner was pretty good, though not as magical as our friends at the Rough Guide had promised.

We treated ourselves to a taxi ride home, dove under the multiple blankets at Hotel CTM. I slept pretty crappily, since things didn't quiet outside for a few hours, and a nice parallelogram of street light found it's way to a white piece of wall right in front of my face. I woke up the next morning not a little grumpy. We had breakfast once more on the roof of CTM, packed up the room, and grabbed a taxi to the bus station. The ride to Essaouira was not exactly riddled with pleasure. The "highway" that went to the coast from Marrakech was exactly two lanes with a dirt shoulder, and we shared the road with cars, trucks, donkeys, horses, and bicycles. You might think this slowed our progress, but no: the bus maintained a pretty good clip, the driver swerving around whatever needed swerving around (I couldn't see out the front of the bus); anyway, it was one of those tall coaches, so my stomach wasn't really happy with the driving style. Thankfully, I didn't spew, and we made it to Essaouira early.

We couldn't find the ticket office there to buy our return ticket, something that would come to bite us in the ass when we would find the office later on and be told that the bus we wanted for the next day was sold out. Anyway, we trudged our stuff into the Medina of Essaouira, much smaller than Marrakech, and much more tranquil. Don't be mistaken: there were still hordes of people (tourists and locals), badgering or being badgered, but it wasn't as incessant as in Marrakech. The sea air was cleaner and the air slightly warmer, and the place reminded me of California a little (not the least of which was because the ocean was in the west, where oceans belong). We made our way to Hotel Majestic after being turned away from some others (they were complet), dropped off our bags in our very sunny and pleasant room (although it still had no heating), and had lunch at a café where we could sit in the sun. That's a picture of our lunch, up to the left.

I was finally prompted to buy some sunglasses, and there was a man sitting across from our café selling them, so I walked over, picked out a pair of fake Ray-Bans, and got out some money to pay for them, at which point the man told me that one of my bills was fake. He showed me that the two serial numbers on either side of the bill didn't match up; someone had taken two different bills and quite subtly taped them together. I felt enormously stupid, even though it was only a 20 dihram bill ($2.20), and paid with some other money I had. I had gotten the bill from our taxi driver who had driven us home from Chez Jack'Line; I hadn't even thought of checking the serial numbers on the ratty bill he had given me as change. This is what their bills look like.

So that was dumb. We went touristying that afternoon, walking around the ramparts and over to the beach, and eventually over to the bus station ('nuff said). Essaouira is beautiful in ways that Marrakech just isn't, and I could feel myself relaxing as we strolled through the white-washed alleys, the buildings dotted with uniformly pleasant blue shudders on the windows. We walked along the ramparts, saw the fishing areas, saw more than a few boats which were being gutted and repaired. It was all very nice, very peaceful.

That evening we went to a restaurant on the center square kind of area, which made up for us getting robbed at Chez Jack'Line's the night before. All the prix fixe menus were around 45 dihram ($5), and included soup, salad, main dish and a dessert. Nothing fancy, but very pleasant. Here are Charlotte and I at the place. Okay, so I look a little bit like I've been doing the crack, but I'm going to chalk that one up to an incomplete night of sleep.

We went walking around after dinner, down to the ramparts that run right along the ocean; there are a series of stores built right into the ramparts, which was pretty cool. Annapaola and Charlotte spent ages looking at jewelry, I spent some time in a shop that sold wood products. It was nice.

We slept at Hotel Majestic like wee babes.

All right folks, that's going to have to do you for the momentito... I've got to work on some resume/cover letter type stuff. I know, buckets of fun. Hope all is well where you are.