Category: Travel

Josselyn and I just returned from a weeklong trip to Morocco and we are still reeling from many amazing experiences that we had. While I’d been to Africa many years ago, it was my first time in an Arabic country and I had prepared myself for going by reading as much as a could on the customs of the country – such as baksheesh, the need to wear modest clothes that would cover up my tattoos and the fine art of haggling down prices of goods that I would buy while there.

We entered the door of the Riad, placed our bags down in our room and were brought cups of what the locals like to call Moroccan whiskey, which is really just mint tea. I found it refreshing even though it was a little too sweet for my taste and ended up finishing Josselyn’s cup as well. It was already evening at this time so we decided to get the most out of the day by leaving immediately to look around the Medina and specifically the open air-market that we’d passed in the car on the way over. One of the Medina employees walked with us to this market so that we would know how to get there and return.

The first object of my desire there was a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice from the #41 vendor. Whether it was the American dance-pop on the speakers inside his cart or the hand waves to come over and drink that made me choose that particular juice cart I don’t know. But it was delicious. While I was drinking though, a woman came up to Josselyn and began a henna tattoo on her hand without her having asked for it. She was very scared by this, having seen the tube with which the dye is ejected and mistaking it for a needle. I shooed the woman away, she washed her hand behind the stall I had just bought the O.J. from and we continued to explored the medina. We walked not even a hundred feet and saw men with King Cobras and other snakes that were making themselves available for pictures with tourists. I had several such pictures with them and they started to bring the snakes to Josselyn, but she was very frightened by them so they left her alone. I gave them five dirhams, roughly half of a euro, for the pictures and was immediately told to give more. “Paper money” was there precise phrase they used.

The research on cultural mores that I’d don’t informed me that this price was more than sufficient for the pictures and when faced by seemingly upset locals in this situation, as I was, to just laugh away their invocations for more and say that’s all you’re willing to give. I stuck to this and soon enough they left me alone in order to move on to other tourists that were circulating the area and wanting to take pictures with the snakes.

As we were hungry and Josselyn was afraid to eat at the food stalls in the center of the square we ate couscous dishes at a restaurant that wasn’t particularly noteworthy but was filling and cheap. Josselyn than got some pictures with some monkeys and the situation with the snake men repeated itself, though where I felt comfortable having expected this she was put off by it and the actions of the henna tattooist. I comforted her as we walked along the different shop fronts and sidewalk displays placed upon fabric by minor street merchants. There was a wide selection of counterfeit goods available for purchase, from glasses to watches to purses, of varying quality amongst the regular stores. Several times we were approached, asking if we wanted “sheet” or “wakibaki”, which I later found out were terms used for hashish, one of the largest export products in the area around the High Atlas mountains. I was also told that because of the cultural norms dominant in Morocco it is acceptable to offer such wares in the public, meaning in the square around women and children, just so long as the actual purchasing is done in private. Thankfully the people here were more accommodating to our responses of no then they were in Lisbon and we didn’t have any of these people start to follow us around while walking and make us feel uncomfortable.

One of the reassuring aspects of being in public as a traveller in Morocco was the observation of Muslim cultural norms. In most of the major European cities that we’ve been to, Barcelona especially, there are numerous pickpockets that target foreigners. Yet here the legal prohibition is tied to a moral one that is actually followed. What this says something about Christianity versus Islam, metropolises versus small cities and uniform versus personal religious schools is something interesting to consider but regardless of one’s reading of this – I was relieved of having to always be on guard. We walked around, looking at a mosque from outside and eventually stopped to take in all the sensations the square could offer.

There was a feast for the eyes in the sight of smoke rose from the restaurants in the square and wafted out in slow swirls, the sight of a throng of people in traditional dress whose paths were like a needle amongst the dozens of obstructions which prevented straight movement, the sight of people playing fair-style games of getting rings on strings around filled soda bottles to win a prize, horses with carriages lined up. There were also many light sources that made the view even more captivating. The lights of the battery-powered toys flying quickly into the air and slowly descending on florescent wings, the lights of the different sized wrought iron and glass candle-powered lamps flickering on the ground, the lights of the restaurants illuminating their small terraces empty of people as it was too cold and windy to enjoy a meal without some additional protection from the elements, the lights indicating the main street which went out into the residential area and the ones next to it which lit up the souks so that the light night shopper can see the myriad of locally crafted wares and spices, the lights of the motorcycles cutting through the pedestrian walkways. Along with all of this was the sound of Berber drums mixed with other instruments and the faint Arabic words of storytellers surrounded by eager listeners that gave a hypnotic feel to the movement going on in front of us. We stayed here for a while just looking on as our food digested and as we were starting to get tired returned to the Riad for a nightcap of port wine that I’ve bought at the duty free shop in Spain.

Based upon the recommendations found in TripAdvisor we’d signed up to take a combined cooking class and massage package early the next morning. We woke, had the typical breakfast of bland Moroccan bread with butter and honey and went at the Café du France to meet the driver who would take us to the cooking class. We drank café con leche while waiting and looked out at the square which while still busy was a shadow compared to the hustle and bustle of the night before. There were no men with exotic animals anymore, but instead a group of men that seemed to be talking with a foreman in hopes that they could hire themselves out for day labor. I finally spotted the car that was to take the two of us to the school and we entered in the car with a couple from England that was taking the same class.

All in all the cooking class was fun and would recommend it to anyone visiting, though I would suggest bringing a snack as Josselyn and I both wished we’d eaten more before going and that there was food to eat there for lunch rather than just a few pieces of Moroccan bread as both of us eat a lot and frequently. The class started with a smell-test of the typical thirty or so typical Moroccan spices and herbs. Despite the nasal and throat cold I had, I was able to identify most of the spices. Josselyn, who I’d started introducing to eastern spices since we moved in together, was able to surpass my recognition skills. The guide of this class, a former Parisian named Michel, then taught us how to identify good azafran from bad (by rubbing it on white paper and seeing how the only color on the paper is yellow), good argon oil from bad (placing it in a fridge to see if it is adulterated with another type of oil), and explained how Moroccans have an approach to food and spices that I found to be very similar to the Ayurvedic tradition in India.

I won’t go into the details of cooking bread, making salad or tangines – but will share the new friendship that I made with a cat that had been adopted by the cooking school, whose name was Couscous. An old man in cat years, he came over to me and while we waited for the last part of our meal to finish cooking allowed me to baby him in my arms. He was a sweetheart, as are all cats that hope to extract some meat from you in the near-future, which I indeed gave him. Our meal was served with a Moroccan wine that could easily have been watered-down cough syrup or a sweet soon-to-be-red-vinegar, but this didn’t matter so much. The food was good and the company of people there, all English speakers, soon gave way to conversations not about food but of the typical “what do you do when not here?” and “where have you been and where are you going?” themes.

After our meal we went to a hamam for some time in a sauna and relaxing massages. On the drive there we got to talk with Michel for the first time and get his perspective on Morocco. He’d left Paris as he was tired of the hustle of Parisian life and preferred the slower tempo of African life. He’d moved with his wife a few months ago and while critical of some aspects of Moroccan culture, such as the excessive use of sugar in teas that in conjunction with rampant hashish and loose-leaf tobacco smoking leads to the endemic dental problem readily visible, clearly felt more at ease here as there was less demands on his time. This preference for the gemeinschaft over the gesellshaft is a preference many people have voiced since the industrial revolution and here I saw it in a form vastly different from some of the small towns I’ve visited in the States before. In this place with a relatively large population base so many people knew each other and I was constantly amazed by the manner in which the people entering our orbits were constantly greeting and giving cordial remarks to other people.

After dropping off a passenger, who surprisingly enough lived in Williamsburg, New York, my old haunt, Michel parked the car and took us through a series of tightly packed cobble-stone back streets and entered an unmarked door. Inside we discovered a hidden oasis of beauty and luxury behind it.

Feeling rejuvenated we started to walk back to the Jnna el Fna but soon discovered ourselves quite lost. While in these back streets we encountered a few shady characters typical of large, poor cities that are unhappily dependent on tourist money for it’s sustenance. Thankfully, however, while going down a dead end we encountered a Moroccan, Mou Mou, that spoke English and works for UPS and gave us direction to the main road, suggested that we take a taxi and invited us to call him tomorrow and come visit his house.

On his suggestion we took a taxi back to Jnna El Fna and Josselyn went back to our Riad in order to organize a trip for tomorrow into the Sahara desert while I ate in the square. I went to the #1 stand in the market and sat down for a nice soup and chicken tagine.  By the time I’d arrived back everything had been worked out for our trip and Josselyn then left with Ismail, one of the Riads employees to go get food and buy a knockoff Longchamps at the proper price. Not quite yet ready for bed, I picked up a book in the Riads small library.

The works of Honore de Balzac has repeatedly found their way to me through little to no effort on his own. Several years ago someone purchased his book “The Lost Masterpiece” for me on my Amazon wishlist and two and a half years ago I read Pere Goriot after finding it for free in a give-a-way box when people were moving out from the NYU dorms. In the library I found a 1987 Penguin copy of Cousin Bette that looked as if it have never been read and started giving it the attention that it deserves while waiting for Joss to return. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to bring it on the drive out to the desert. While there were many sights that caused me to stop reading during the drive and I found myself unable to read while going up and down the curvy roads of the High Atlas, the book was a lifesaver during the six plus hour drive through heat so strong that it left the back of our clothes slightly sweaty and cold so strong that at one point in the drive it started to snow heavily. Josselyn wasn’t fortunate enough to have a book with her, but with her small size and ability to sleep anywhere experienced only the parts of the drive that she wasn’t tired and those that I work her so that she could see some of the natural beauty of the landscape.

We stopped at Aït Benhaddou, shooting site of some two-dozen Hollywood films such as Prince of Persia and Gladiator, to look around the fortified city. It was very attractive and pictures do more justice than my words can. The only thing that I didn’t like was that one of the tourists with us was an obese British woman with asthma that was having such trouble walking up the steps that I was afraid she might die there or have some sort of attack that would result in death as we were hours from any medical facility. We ate an overpriced restaurant that I assume the guide had an arrangement with and then continued on our journey. Our next stop was to take a camel ride in the “doorway of the Saraha” to a Bedouin camp in the desert. Josselyn was extremely excited to be able to ride a camel for the first time and as the camels came into view she started to cry. The camel ride would have been more enjoyable had I been wearing the proper clothes, but as the sun was setting I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the beauty as my teeth were chattering together from the extreme cold.

Ours was the first group to arrive to the red and black tents arranges in a square and we were so famished that our hosts took pity on us that they served our food earlier than the groups slowly making their way into the dining area. Many of those arriving were Spaniards travelling during Semana Santa and British women in the school system taking advantage of their weeklong holiday. We had an interesting conversation about the current cuts in education respectively plaguing our countries. For desert we were served oranges and shortly after finishing this the Bedouins began playing instruments and inviting others to join in. I, however, didn’t hear or partake in this but only heard about it from Josselyn as after eating I immediately fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the morning. After gathering our belongings in the tent we mounted the camels again and took a different route back to meet up with our car. On the way one of the camels dismounted the Italian woman on it, which caused Josselyn to became so scared that she got off her camel “Blondy” and instead lead us through the desert while wearing wedges.

After getting back to Marrakech Josselyn and I stopped by the Riad to check that our travel plans for tomorrow had been arranged and then went to eat and look in the souks that had been made famous in Sex and The City 2. We ate kebabs and a host of other delicious food tapas style then spent some time with several of the hostel workers, Mohammed, Ismael and their friend in the upstairs seating area. Conversation was a little difficult, as only Mohammed’s English was very good and their friend didn’t speak English at all. We discovered, however, that we both had studied German so then began to converse in this language. This was admittedly poorly as the focus of my studies lately have been Spanish and it’s been several years since I last spoke German with regularity. I found myself searching for words and using Spanish rather than German. While I would immediately recognize my mistake shortly after saying it, pause to think for the correct word, and then say it this situation provoked some hearty laughter on behalf of everyone there. An hour or so passed here before we finally said our goodbyes to our gracious hosts and we grabbed a cab to the bus depot to catch our overnight to Fez.

The bus was, to use the idiomatic phrase that Josselyn had heard from several males “very nice”. She was able to sleep most of the way there, not finding the two seats to be too confining for her, whereas I kept waking up with a sore neck or back. The last hour or so of the trip I read more of Cousin Bette. A short and cheap cab ride to the hotel gave me some time to catch up on sleep before going to Fez’s Medina.

The Medina of Fez is the largest of such markets in the world and visiting there one can easily understand why it is a UNESCO World Heritage sight. Many of the facets of this areas beauty cannot be captured with cameras as unmarked but commonly understood social prohibitions that maintain an iconoclastic environment prevents picture taking. The larger merchants with elaborate displays and expansive shops will not shy away from violating these in the attempt to obtain business, however the people in smaller shops and around the mosques will signify to those about to take pictures that photos are not allowed. In a way it preserves the mystery about the place, as unlike so many other cities so much of it is not captured by photos and readily available for viewing from far away.

Since entering we were followed around by a young man who was pressuring us to go to the tanneries. I’d read enough in various texts speaking to the normality of relations here to not be really worried by this, but it was extremely aggravating at first, as Josselyn and I simply wanted to get lost in the Medina and not have him there. I politely asked several times for the youth following us to leave, but to no avail. I then took a more brusque approach but this didn’t work either. I then asked one of the security guards in Spanish to ask him to leave us alone, but to no avail as he only spoke Arabic and French. I finally asked him if I paid him if he would leave and he said no, he would not and then called me a Jew for, these are not his precise words, monetizing this experience and forbidding him from practicing English. At this point we’d gone to a rather poor section of the medina where the grinding poverty was more evident than in the buildings – besotted people with threadbare clothes lording over a pair of shoes, a few dirty toys or other items that looked like they’d been pulled from refuse bins. While I was scared, this wasn’t the place we wanted to see while here and as we both did want to see the tanneries Josselyn and I finally decided to follow him to the tanneries.

Abdul explained to me the process of treating and dying the leathers and I was amazed at the resourcefulness of their leather production process, informed as it was by an ecological and social concerns. They used only naturally sourced chemicals, such as the nitrates from pigeon droppings for softening and poppies for dye and the entire works was collectively owned and run by 250 families that had been involved in the patrilineal work for over five hundred years at this very spot. As we spoke about the history and relations of the place, a sudden torrent of rain came down and I was very grateful to be under the canvas overhead.

We chose the sandals we wanted and started to bargain down the prices. They’d first asked for 500 Dirhams, which was ridiculous given the production capacity that I’d just witnessed from above and cost of hourly wages typical of labor here – even if it was all done by hand. My first impetus was to offer 100 and end up paying 250-300, but I was so happy from the friendly service in the short time that I’d been there I started at a price I was more willing to pay – 300.

Josselyn taught one of the shop assistants adjuring her to “dance Berber”, meaning to shake her hips very provocatively, some ballet and then did a few moves on her own. Everyone laughed at his ineptitude and of course admired the skill and poetry with which Josselyn danced. At this the female clerk agreed over the objections of Abdul that 350 was a fair price and we went away happily with out purchases. I felt that I could have got the price down to my original offer had I low-balled my original offer, but I figured with the experience and hospitality that I was just shown this was a fair price – especially since a similar purchase in America or Europe would easily have cost double.

As we started to leave the formerly accommodating clerk, stopped me and started asking me about the jacket that I had declined to purchase. When going into it his spiel asking why I didn’t want to purchase it his eyes flared wide, the pupils went to the back of his head and he looked quite monstrous. While this was a very different tack then his previous attempts to obtain a purchase from me, I realized that this was simply the highly emotional means of expression typical to Arabic culture, laughed and reminded him that it was hot in Florida, where I would soon be living, and added the humorous rejoinder that if I did buy the jacket that I liked I would need to buy a motorcycle to go with it and thus the “deal” that I was getting there would turn into a much more expensive purchase later. He smiled at my response, laughed and gave me a pat on the back before walking us out, thanking us for our business and encouraging us to return.

As we left Ali, our guide, offered to show us around to some more shops and rather than fighting it we went with him. We went to a herbaria and a fabric shop and would have gone to a small pottery studio if at this time we weren’t getting hungry. Before we left, Ali invited us up to a café overlooking the Medina that “no one knows about but us”, and had some tea while looking over the city. To say that the café was beautiful is a cliché without giving form to it – but going into details about the wrought iron work adorning the rooftop, the intricate tiling of the floor and walls, the earthy tobacco smoked by natives in the section below us, describing the near-birds-eye view of the rooftops, the refreshing nature of the tea after having been on our feet for several hours also does not do it justice. It was one of those experiences best understood by actually being there and being present for it.

After having this tea we left our guide and decided to eat at McDonalds as the food we’d been eating had been causing upset to both of our stomachs. While my stomach still hurt after eating this, it was preferable to the effects of the tagines and couscous.

We woke up late the next day and decided to walk around the section of the city that had been built since the arrival of French colonialists. While the tri-color was no longer present, the structure of the streets was clearly made via the abstractionist style of French architecture. We walked to the Prince’s palace, around his and some other gardens, Mosque AL Hamra, Kasbah Chrarda, Medersa Bouananiya and several other charming areas. Josselyn was less than attracted to some of the places as they weren’t kept up was a depository for locals trash. I agreed that it could be prettier but shared with her an attitude that I’ve developed since I started travelling at a young age: It’s always important to see the squalor as well as the glamour of a city to understand its origins and contradictions. The attitude can take form in a refusal to turn away from the people smoking crack around the subway of Můstek in Praha and see that part of the beauty one sees in one places incurs a cost in another. It started to rain and as we were both tired we took a taxi back to the hotel for a siesta. After an hour or so nap, we returned to the Medina and ate atop a restaurant in the Kasbah Boujloud section. After a delicious mean we started to walk to the Museum der Batha – only to find that it was closed. We walked to the crafts galleries maintained by the Government, only to find that it too was closed. As we’d seen the spiritual triangle the day before and most of the other sites of the area, we decided to slowly walk back along the Avenue de L’UNESCO and enjoy the views it had.

While walking to our hotel I mentioned to Josselyn that this would be the first time that we’d be going to on a trip and not visiting a museum. Not five minutes after pointing this out we found ourselves in front of an art gallery that was having an opening. The Islamic prohibition against iconic art was evident in most of the works, however several of them were of people and pastoral settings and very attractive in it’s use of technique.

Like so many of the Miami and New York galleries they served refreshments, however these were of mint tea rather than beer or wine. We drank this before some eminent personage gave a short speech. Tired and needing the rest for the bus-plane-bus-subway trip we’d have to take the next day to return home, we decided to call it an early night and go back to the hotel so I could teach Josselyn how to play poker with better mathematical insight.

The next morning we dined at the hotel then took the 16 Bus to the airport. On our way we conversed with a Slovenian girl on the way found it equally amusing that our bus driver stopped at one point so the man selling tickets could run across the street and buy him a bag of oranges.  She said she was staying in Morocco for 27 days and wished us a pleasant stay in Slovenia when we go. Hopefully her benedictions will come true.

November 2005

Falling asleep on a train is like no other sleeping experience. More so than any other form of transport, it matches the bumpy rhythms once felt in the womb and can reward those that give in to their body’s demand for rest a reminder of peace and expectation of a new journey ahead. Or, in a particularly jarring journey, you can wake feeling on edge. From the latter slumber I woke up in my sleeper car to the sounds of gunshots. I quickly sat up and looked outside the window as the first rays of sunlight emerged from the horizon just outside of Split, Croatia. Our route took us past a group of soldiers firing into the air while another plays instruments that couldn’t penetrate the metal sidings of the passenger car. Shortly thereafter, the train conductor came by to check tickets. I asked if he knew the reason for the military processional. He informed me that it was in honor of those that had died in the Balkans War, which ended exactly ten years ago that day. Despite the gravity of the event that ended a decade ago, nothing visible betrayed dolorous sentiments around the station upon our arrival. Based sole on appearances the people present there seemed to already have forgotten past travails and look forward to celebrating that joyful time of the year that brings them a bountiful harvest of fish, fruit, grains and tourist dollars.

Shortly after arriving, I made accommodations for the night an older women that held up a placard saying “Sobe” through a mix of German, English and hand gestures. She took me to her house, gave me a tour of the space I’d be allowed to use and provides me keys and a towel. I took a quick shower, changed and immediately headed to the area around Diocletian’s palace. Once there I slowly ambled my way around marble streets to peruse the various wares that had been set up in a similar fashion around the Cathedral of St. Dominus for hundreds of years. Lined up in stalls that gave the feeling of an outdoor mall there was a mix of counterfeit designer goods and tourist kitsch from China, local crafts, artifacts from historical events and a wide variety of delicious foods. Not looking to weigh down my pack and hungry, I purchased some famed Dalmatian ham and continued to aimlessly wander around as a flâneur throughout Diocletian’s Palace. When I finally made my way up to the Cathedral, I was rewarded by being able to behold a beautiful assortment of religious paintings, sculptures and icons fit for placement in any “proper” museum. In addition to the typical religious arts, there was a large collection of religious relics including the severed fingers, hands, feet and even the heads of saints. While this might seem grotesque, their presentation made it hard not to reflect upon the human condition in a manner wholly different from the church decoration of the Kostnice Ozzuary or the practical use-value evident in the form of the Parisian Catacombs.

Here the decomposed remains of the body was to be seen as proof of divinity. Rather than serving as a reminder to our never-ending proximity to death, the intent of the presentation of these particular bones was to give hope for something sublime and divine now as well as in the hereafter. Thinking upon this caused me to spend more time that usual in such a small gallery and helped me ignore and forgive the bustle of tourists that would inevitable bump into me considering the tight confines. After leaving, I walked to the bell tower adjacent to the church. For a nominal and well-worth it entrance fee I climbed the narrow stairs which terminates with an impressive view of the newer city, the white brick tops of the building nearby, the verdigris domes of several more diminutive churches in the nearby vicinity as well as the azure and golden flecked Mediterranean. From here it appeared as if the color palette of the city was chosen to match the sea. The light blue and whites of the water matched almost all of the roofs and facades of the old city buildings. The wide-open windows of the observation tower that could easily allow the most obese to fall out and the strong wind at that height hinted at danger, but provoked more fear from imagination than actual circumstances.

After I returned to the ground floor, I made my way up Marjan Hill. This is a location able to be appreciated by all due to its beauty. By me it was particularly so due to my interest in history. Specifically, this area was known to be an anti-fascist stronghold from where various attacks against the Nazi’s were planned and staged. Additionally, former Yugoslav president Joseph Tito once used the area as a summer residence. I took in the beauty of the Sustipan cliff and the Marjipan Forrest Park next to it while resting a park bench that overlooked them both and from which the Old City of Split was also visible. After an hour of absorbing the view and writing in my travel journal I left. I took my dinner at a cheap and delicious restaurant just outside of the walls of the old city suggested to me by a barista that had sold me some of the best-tasting börek I’d ever had. After eating inky black squid risotto there, a local specialty, I make my way back down to the area I’d been earlier that day.

The battered but beautiful white marble streets that had earlier reflected the sun in an almost frivolous manner at night took on a whole new set of characteristics. Now the walkway threw off shadows in a variety of directions based upon the shape a particular piece of stone has taken from hundreds of years of people and goods on wheels going across it. While walking I heard coming from the speakers of a bar the music of The Cure.

I entered to discover that they served the locally distilled slivovitz of quality that can’t be found in bottles anywhere else. I soon found myself in a spirited conversation with a group of locals that were planning to take a ferry the next day to Vis. There was a fish and music festival being held there, and would I like to join them? Of course I would! After exchanging our contact information, discussing some places that we wanted to go in the immediate future, sharing some more drinks and many more laughs we left. Rather than take the most immediate way back to a beach-front spot they wanted to share with me, we decided to perambulate the waters edge. We passed through a circular stone building is hundreds of years old: the Temple of Jupiter. From inside the streetlights, which had obscured the night outside, ceased to reign. Our discussion stopped its jovial tenor. As we looked up at the stars and the full moon, we spend several minutes pontificating aloud about sundry deep topics. We dissected mankind and our role within this vast universe of location and meaning, then put everything back in it’s place to continue on our travels. Realizing how far by foot the next place was and wanting to get sleep, I peeled myself from the group and made my way to the sobe.

I slept well, ate a sufficient breakfast, dropped some instant coffee into the hot water my host brought me then said farewell. I encountered the group I’d met and we took a ferry to Vis, where a steady stream of natives had been making there way since the six in the morning. The joyousness of the upcoming festival on the island seemingly infected the ship. People were already drinking from bottles in bags and a single person starting to sing soon had everyone there joined in. I’ve travelled extensively all over the world and have yet to witness anything like it. At least two hundred smiling faces singing together without planning! Amazing! On the ride over I befriended a group of fellow travellers from Ireland, Hungary, Canada.

Upon arrival we took a bus to the other side of the island. As soon as the doors opened I could smell the roasting anchovies being given out for free in dark brown fish paper rolled up into cones as if they were for Belgian fried potatoes. It’s not just in this carvinalesque atmosphere that camaraderie between a group of strangers can be formed, but certainly us being all in a place new to us helped. Much like the European pilgrimages of old described by Chaucer, we shared stories in praise of life late into the night in the square are between the small shops and docks. Later, however, we followed a group of people trekking a few kilometers away to a beach party. I was worried about leaving my backpack unguarded on the beach, but it’s so many others did as well that my worries were diminished. The DJ’s played deep and hard house as we danced atop the rocky beach. Towards the end of the night I got into a discussion with a burly locals who expressed some upset at the fact that I would soon be going to Serbia, the wounds I’d thought healed over did, in fact still exist and told me that as it’d be impossible now to find accommodation that it’d be best to sleep on the beach. This is precisely what we did. After a few hours of rest I woke to a beautiful view that the dark had kept from me. Hiking back into town for food and transportation, I then made my with the international coterie of travellers I’d befriended back to Split and from there took a bus to Dubrovnik.

Josselyn and I arrived into Edinburg late Friday night. During all of our previous explorations that the two of us have gone out, I’d been in charge of knowing where we were going and how to get there as due to the extensive time I’ve spent navigating strange cities as well as my old home of New York I’ve gained a internal compass, a strong sense of direction and a keen location memory. This trip however, Josselyn was determined to prove herself equally capable and prior to our departure from Barcelona researched the directions to the hotels we would be staying at and writing down the addresses of those we wanted to visit afterwards so she could get GPS directions as need be. After checking in we were hungry and wandered nearby to get some food. The streets were mostly empty except for the people making their way out of the closing bars and all the restaurants we walked past were closed except for a late night kebab and fried fish shop with walls plastered with club promotions for New Years parties and concert venue announcements. I ordered the typical British dish of fish minus the chips, add lettuce and a tomato topped with a garlic sauce on a bun, making it a delicious sandwich, and Josselyn ordered a veggie burger. We ate this inside while drunk-people of varying ages, speech capabilities and levels of aggression came in and out to get food and pass the time by harassing the workers for speaking English with an immigrants intonation and grammar.

The next day we woke up early to go on a tour of the midlands with Hairy Coo tours. We met at Deacon Brodie’s Tavern, named after the infamous historical person for whom Robert Louis Stevenson found the inspiration to write Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and from there were given a fantastic tour by Donald. The already beautiful scenery and human constructions was made richer by his knowledge of Scottish social and geographic history. His self-effacing humor was even able to turn the most grave and tragic of historical stories into lighthearted moments. We first stopped first at the largest metal bridge, made to showcase the financial power of the burgeoning Scottish bourgeoisie. Following this we went to several others stops, including one of Scotland’s William Wallace monument. Here Donald went into the historical details about the real William Wallace, who was the son of a wealthy lowland aristocrat and not a dirty highland nobody as depicted in Braveheart.

Following this we stopped by two castles, one of which that was used in the Monty Python film “The Holy Grail”. Outside of the connection to the film, the castle had nothing particularly special about it, though Josselyn and I did have fun while walking around the castle and banging together a pair of coconuts. The most beautiful part of the tour for me was the various Trossachs lochs that we stopped by and drove past. One particular loch is famous for being the setting of Sir Walter Scott’s poem The Lady of the Lake and it is understandable why this is so – it’s breathtakingly gorgeous. This particular region is widely associated with the faerie folk and has connected to it the story of a priest who apparently started to learn and talk too much about them and so was spirited away by them. While the story is false, it is true that this region is unlike anything that I’ve seen in Western Europe before. Donald explained that the reason for Scotland’s geographical peculiarity stems from that fact that it was once a separate volcanic island with a geological history vastly different from that of England so as they collided with each other it formed a large number of distinct attributes.

As Donald spoke about Scottish tourism and its relation to the Romantic literary movement in Britain he explained that it was originally conceived of as a pleasure formulated to counterbalance the anxiety ridden daily life during the nascent days of industrial in England. Anyone familiar with William Blake’s famous descriptions of black churches or any of the Romantic writers of the late 18^th century who were a witness to these changes in the capital intensity of manufacturing can understand why visiting an area of nature untouched by capitalism would be appealing. As someone that has extensively read the British Romantics, and indeed was named after Percy Bysshe Shelley, I was thrilled to be here. Though there is clear evidence that market considerations and operations are existent in the countryside, the wilderness still appears to be mostly left to the developments of nature and in the villages most of the businesses are locally owned, operated and seem only concerned with continuing to exist as they are. During a break at one of these little towns, Josselyn and I had lunch at a restaurant wholly stocked by locally grown produce and fishers. Josselyn’s squid was delicious and the halibut that I had was by far the best I’d ever eaten. Our last stop was to see a hairy coo, which means hairy cow in American or British English. The cow-like animals that were once a sign of wealth in the region in the same way camels still are in parts of Egypt. As we drove back, Donald recounted several humorous stories about his life and played music by The Pretenders.

After we got back to the city we walked aimlessly for a bit. Josselyn and I were both hungry and when we get like this we have trouble making decisions on what to do. We eventually decided to get something to nosh on at “The Last Drop” pub, so named for it’s being next to the former site of the Grassmarket gallows, before going on a ghost tour. Tradition and storytelling ghost tours define the old city of Edinburg in a way that I’ve not seen in other places. Guided narratives which recount place-location history is typical, but in Edinburg I noticed that more so than in any other place I’ve been many companies rely less upon important historical occurrences than upon old stories of for-profit killing (Burke and Hare), the unusual (Deacon Brody), revenge or the grotesque (Half-Hanged Maggie) to provide anecdotes for those wishing to get insight into where they are visiting. This is not to say that there are not those tours available, but a brief walk down Royal Mile and you’ll see the posters for several different guided ghost tours. One of the reasons for this stems from the amount of medieval and mid-gothic architecture that compose the old city and the proximity of protected cemeteries which give it a spooky vibe. After having visited Edinburg and Porto, Portugal I understand why J. K. Rowling describes Hogwarts and the magical world architecture of Harry Potter as she does. The city does get very creepy at night and a wrong turn can literally take you from a semi-modern street to something that feels is in the 16^th century. Regardless, after this rather uninspired twenty-minute “tour”, we walked around the downtown area for a bit, popping in and out of places like the Three Graces and The Hive before returning to the hotel.

In the morning we woke early to make sure that we were able to connect with yet another Sandeman’s walking tour. We got breakfast in a café within sight of the meeting point and met an American from California who, like myself, had recently completed their Masters degree and was now working abroad with their significant other.

We went a graveyard where Scottish patriots were tortured to death. The site, called the Poltergeist, is supposed to be one of the most documented haunting sites ever and is interesting to unbelievers like myself as it shows the horrible cruelties inflicted upon patriots and thinkers ahead of their time.

Visible from inside the graveyard is the school which is supposed to have inspired the description of Hogwarts as well as several dead people whose name is the same or very similar to those found in Harry Potter. I mention Harry Potter because, of course, this is the city that Rowling wrote some of her first books. Following the cemetery we passed the café wherein she wrote her first book and at the close of the tour the guide presented us with a history of Scottish nationalism in relation to the rock upon which early kings were crowned.

After the tour we walked into the National Gallery. It was small, but free and had several good paintings and comfortable seating so we could rest for a bit before going on the last tour of the day. In fact it was here that I’ve seen one of the few 19^th century portraits of an attractive aristocratic young woman. Seeing it immediately made me recall how the Vikings used to take most attractive women they found on raids as war brides and how in Scottish writer Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting, Sick Boy says that the only attractive women in Scotland are tourists. I realize that this sounds weird as I write this – but it made sense at the time. We continued to look around the museum for a while then went to the Canonsgate Kirkyard as I wanted to see the grave of Adam Smith. It was a good idea, however due night falling in Edinburg around 4pm here we weren’t able to find it. We looked around for quite a while then went back to the area around the statue of Adam Smith on Royal Mile to get food before going on a Underground and Ghost Story tour with Mercat Tours.

Our guide took us around to various parts of the city around Royal Mile telling us of the various crimes, punishments and strange happenings that occurred in the place we were standing on at that moment. In narratives that reminded me very much of the opening of Foucault’s “Crime and Punishment” and several of the scenes in Peter Linebaugh’s “The London Hanged”, our guide detailed what would happen to the body of the condemned following the courts verdict of guilt. The storytelling was  engaging and we ended our tour up by entering an old underground cellar and work area that was abandoned with the development of the new city and is of course now “possessed” by various ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts, but as Josselyn does she was rather frightened. Knowing this I furtively threw a small rock in the room our guide claimed was possessed by a little boy. This evoked a scream from her and a series of apologies after she realized that she was the only person scared by the sound. Following this we went to a live Rhythm and Blues bar to watch a live performance and then to a Latin club to go dancing.

Despite the long night we had we woke up early the next day to visit several places that had we’d chosen beforehand. We got on the bus early in order to go to Gilmerton, a small town about 35 minutes from Edinburg. Josselyn found a cove there that was supposedly a must view when in Edinburg, however the doors were locked when we got there. We waited a few minutes and knocked heartily, but no one came. After this we went back to the city and started walking our way up to the Castle.

We went into the Writer’s Museum, which had special displays for Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Raleigh. While I find the development of literature and the historical novel to be interesting – hence my appreciation of Lukacs – and the scandalous and peculiar lives of creatives to be intriguing – hence my love of Henry Miller – the actual desiderata of their daily lives makes for poor presentation in a museum as in such a setting they appear so dull and ordinary. While there was pipes which originally belonged to the authors, locks of hair, pens, and other trinkets the more interesting aspects about their personal lives cannot be sufficiently displayed as writers be definition achieve their fame by making something intended for reading and a place wherein books are available to study about a person in depth is not a museum but a library.

After snacking we took a bus a little outside the Old Town in order to hike up Arthur’s Seat, a volcanic rock formation adjacent to the Queen’s Palace at the end of Royal Mile. There was no seat on top and the site has nothing to do with King Arthur, however there was a beautiful view of Edinburg well worth the effort it takes to climb up. After this we viewed the Queen’s Palace and then returned to the hotel to pick up our stuff and catch our flight to Stockholm.

The road from Sintra to Porto was completely clear being that it was Christmas Day. The toll lanes, however, still functioned. Not realizing it at the time, I drove through one of the toll lanes designed for people with speed passes and didn’t pick up a ticket. This didn’t bother me so much until an hour and a half later when I stopped at one of the toll points and was asked to deposit said ticket into the machine. As I had none and only a five Euro bill in my pocket the cars started piling up behind me. All possibilities of escaping not just the fine but being able to continue driving seemed impossible. Surly, if I was pulled over, the Civil Guard would see how terribly I started the car into first gear and would follow me until I made some sort of other gaff that would then cause him to pull me over and prevent me from getting to my destination. As all sorts of contingencies ran through my head as I was unable to think of what to do next the intercom came on. In English I explained that I had lost the ticket. Responding in kind, he told me that I had to pay 60 Euros, the cost of driving the whole of the toll road up to that point, but that as they only accepted cash he would print me out a bill that I could pay in a few days. With this printed out he opened the gate, and let me go.

I thought this escape to be a positive portend for things to come but after arriving in we found our hotel closed. The lights were on but no one was home. We knocked. We called on the intercom. We called on the phone. Both rang endlessly. And after a half an hour of this we finally decided to drive around and find someplace else to stay. Nearly immediately we found a hotel right next to the main square that was open. As, we decided to take care of our hunger pains with some Indian food – one of the few restaurants that were open and something that I’d wanted to try since getting into Portugal given their colonial linkages. It was good, however it was little different from the northern Indian cuisine that I’ve had at dozens of other restaurants.

My alarm woke me up at 7 a.m. so I could find the free parking spot the hotel receptionist had gave me directions to. She said that it was only four blocks away. I passed by the x she’d market on the hand made street map and saw the number on the building but there was no lot there. After an hour of driving around and not being able to find it I reluctantly settled on an underground lot by a mall. I walked back to the hotel and slept some more. Around 9 a.m. we woke, had the hotel’s free continental breakfast and started out on our day to walk around the sights of Porto.

Because my foot was still in pain from my sprain, we decided to get tickets for one of the hop on hop off bus tours. As so many tourism websites state with more florid verbiage, Porto is beautiful. The gothic churches which abound with blue and while tiles are gorgeous. The old schools and homes of the rich give it an imposing air deflated by the massive amounts of unoccupied buildings and homes. Next to grand edifices are dilapidated houses claimed by stray animals and wayward substance abusers. We stopped at many places, such as the statue in honor of those who died defeating Napoleon’s army, a cultural center bankrolled by British merchants with regional investments and went into many unique places, such as the bookstore once frequented by J. K. Rowling. There are many beautiful statues and fountains in Porto worthy of note, but they almost seem to slip into the background as even the storefronts and apartments above them have a distinct old-world charm.

While attempting to check in for our flights at the hotel we discovered that there were no tickets for our return trip. As we were having such a pleasant time in Porto, we decided to stay an extra day. This meant, however, that I had to return the car back immediately rather than on the way to the airport. Now my ability to drive stick goes as far as that I can do it. I can’t do it very well, and I can’t do it very calmly. This is because ten years ago, over the course of a half an hour, my friend Aaron taught how to drive stick and since then this skill has lain dormant. This lack of practice combined with no area or language knowledge made driving for me a very anxiety inducing experience. How Josselyn was able to find the grace to deal with me like this I don’t know, but I am very appreciative for it and her help in getting us to where the car needed to be returned. After dropping off the car, we walked to the ocean. It was perhaps a mile and a half walk but it was such a wonderful day. Josselyn and I sang and talked on the way over.

We stayed there a bit then took the bus back to the main part of town. One there, we took a boat tour up the Douro River and down to the mouth that leads out into the Atlantic. We passed by many boats that one loaded Port wine onto larger ships for delivery to the New World and now take tourists out.  It was gorgeous and pleasantly brief.

In order to catch the last Cortez port tastings we went down the Teleferico. Compared to the one in Medellin it is very short, but having the carriage for just the two of us was romantic. The Cortez tasting had just closed when we got there, but luckily for us there was another one open nearby. There we had several glasses of Port as well as an appetizer of cheese, chorizo, olives and tostadas. Because this wasn’t very filling, we walked out towards the river looking for a place to eat. Facing the water was Sandeman’s restaurant, which has no connection whatsoever to the tour guide promotions company. We walked in and had delicious food and amazing sangria without a huge price. Now slightly tipsy, Josselyn and I chased each other around, her running and my skipping on my one gimpy foot, before arriving at the Dom Luis bridge. We walked across the bottom and then climbed some four hundred steps, which I nicknamed “The Steps of Truth,” in order to arrive at our hotel.

We slept early that night so we could have a final look around in the morning – yet when morning came our plans for an early wakeup didn’t come to fruition. We were both tired and didn’t end up leaving the hotel until almost noon. We ate lunch at a vegan restaurant then ambled our way around the city until finally catching our flight home.

After arriving in Lisbon I immediately encountered a problem: There was no immigration controls and therefore my passport would not get a stamp. This was a point on which my refined particularities could not rest and so I asked a police officer near the exit in Spanish if we had somehow passed an examination point while gesturing to my booklet that I wanted it stamped. He gave me a dimissive chuckle and said no. I swallowed my disappointment and Josselyn and I grabbed a bus into the city center to go to our hotel.

Making the west to east path from the airport in even on just a public bus was a beautiful sight. In the outskirts of the city we passed by large single-family houses, buildings that look like middle class South American projects, amazing graffiti and then we came across a statue of Christopher Colombus. From this point on the rest of our journey would be around the city center and we would be seeing beautiful statues referring to conquest, peace and the foundation of new constitutions, large gothic buildings for churches and schools, opulent plazas made to showcase the wealth extracted from the New World. While in this public bus I felt so taken aback by the tight proximity of so many significant buildings. We got off the bus at the last exit and from there got out first sight of the Atlantic from the other side of the ocean.

While at the moment finding our hotel was a greater priority than a little oohing and ahhing at a sight that I had spent many hours of my youth looking at across from the other side, it did strike me as being an important moment.

After checking in and dropping off our bags we ate and walked around Belem. Here we had our first taste of the Belem pastries. They were as delicious as I’d heard they were and we ended up eating a dozen before leaving four days later. These pastries are so important to the region that rumors circulate as to how many people know how to make them. In fact, over breakfast the next day I listened to two British travelers heatedly discuss whether it was two or three people who knew the secret recipe for them. They both agreed that none of them were allowed to travel together in case an accident happens which would cause the recipe lost forever, but whether or not a teenage grandson, whose name escaped the graphic designer from Manchester, had been informed of the family secret seemed to be the cause of discord. The high-bred, Hong Kong born youth on a gap-year claimed that this was non-sense. He claimed that as he hadn’t worked his way through the company yet from the lowest position to the top he hadn’t yet earned entry into the inner circle or trust and it was only at this point that he would be told the secret recipe. It was at this point I couldn’t resist joining in, saying that it didn’t matter if all the family owners disappeared as the workers, despite none of them being informed of the whole recipe, would be able to talk to each other and recreate it perfectly. This new set of considerations caused an immediate row, though I didn’t listen to the fruition of it for Josselyn and I then made our way to the attractions of Belem. Coming back from the future, following our meal we walked around without any particular place on the itinerary for a while and eventually retired for an early evening over some port.

The next morning we woke early and went to the Jeronimos Monastery. After the visiting De Gama’s resting place  we went to the Maritime Museum – a testament to the role of sea exploration in Portugal’s culture and history. Everything related to the seafaring life was documented, save the cargo going to the New World, and a mighty picture did it paint. Not only were there paintings of battles with the British, but there were many a model of ships that were greater in size than human beings, giant maps showing Portuguese possessions along Africa and India, showing the natural goods of a region, showing the holdings of other powers, paintings of important captains and admirals – all with beards indicative of powerful patriarchs, cannons and guns, compasses, astrolabs, anchors, portable examples of ropes for use in the maritime academy – even a dozen full ships taken from the ocean and placed in the museum so that they royal glory can be held onto as a relic an looked onto as a sign of continual importance despite the fact that it is from a outdated world of, as Nietzsche would refer to is, as monumental history. The ships that ended the exhibit, transitioning from wind powered war ships to combination wind/engine to just engine sly not so slyly commented on the Portugal’s decline in relation to other western powers. One exhibit here specifically showcased the ordinance used in a pre-World War I naval battle between them and the Germans. While the latter used 20 mm guns, clear evidence of their intention to be able to conquer other industrialized nations, the Portuguese responded with 7 mm guns, evidence of orientation to rule over people without access to industrial weapons capabilities.

After this exhibit we went to the Tower of Belem, the site at which many of the voyages to the New World would get their official farewells from royalty and a place that was used for a short period of time as a political prison.

Following this we went to the Berado Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which has a very impressive permanent collection of modernist artwork starting with the Dadaists and moving up into the myriad “isms” of the post 80’s art scene. What I liked most about the museum was though there clearly an imperative to obtain certain artists’ works to be able to say that they were represented there, none of them were chosen with care onto the work itself. Thus though a small museum in Belem, the collection was impressive even after having seen Madrid’s gems.

In addition to the permanent collection was a temporary display on the propaganda posters from the Second World War. The posters were from every combatant’s side, though predominantly from the American, and ended with a long animated documentary originally shown in movie theaters that illustrated the importance of building long-range bombers to fight the German war machine. I’d seen many of the posters before when doing a research projects on American propaganda and looking at them now gave me the same sort of feeling – that despite all the tragedy involved in such a large conflict, the social strains that happened for the non-combatants, what an amazing effort towards organizing daily life for a purpose. I found the manner in which all sorts of items and practices were limited, tabooed or structured in such a way that it benefitted the war effort, such as the saving of animal fats at home for dropping off at butchers who will pass them on to the government for bomb-making, to be fascinating. Especially so as now more and more scientists state there is increasingly a need for all human’s behavior to be monitored and corrected or it is highly probable that barbaric conflict caused by global population movements in response to climactic change will occur on a scale never before seen.

After we left the museum, we walked to the Presidential Palace to get some pictures of the gardens and statuary across from it. From here we watched the sun set and then went to eat at a Chinese restaurant.

Lisbon is also known as the city of seven hills and going up and down it’s three highest points over a three hour perambulation through the thin pedestrian corridors leaves one drained but still fascinated. The city itself reminds me in many ways of some South American cities I’ve been too – a very clean city center with evidence of decay all around it. Buildings with cracked paint are endemic and there are literally hundreds of abandoned buildings that have been bricked up. I was to see this not only in Lisbon but in Sintra and Porto as well. Strangely enough, considering the state of economic affairs in Portugal, I didn’t see evidence of squatters in any of the buildings. This contradiction between the high cost of housing and the wide scale availability of use for residential or business use is something that needs to be addressed by those that are fighting for reforms not created by the E.U. I saw several posters for a United Left movement in Lisbon, however there’s none of the direction action culture here like there is in Barcelona. Yet unlike the Brazilian barrios, there were no barriers between the hillside/poor areas and those below that are richer.

In the poorer section of Lisbon, where once the Arabs and Jews were segregated following the reconquest, you can see their lingering influence in arcitectural qualities that aren’t as readily apparent as, say a migilah. The streets are very narrow, which keeps the sun out, thus making it cooler. The age of the city is also apparent in how it is made, evident in the communal showering and clothes washing facilities in some areas.

As we walked back into the city center area Josselyn and I were immediately harassed by drug dealers. Despite my very firm refusal of their offers, people would continue to harass us with offers of hashish and marijuana. After the third time this happened, I stopped being polite when someone would greet us and just ignored them. This was more effective than a firm “no”. My experiences in Dublin, where we stopped and talked to amiable people with enjoyable accents speaking on behalf of groups such as Doctors Without Borders and Greenpeace had softened my normal New Yorker tendency to ignore people I don’t know trying to stop me on the street. Ignoring their advances brought many of the more admirable qualities of the city into view.

Many of the Lisbon’s buildings facades are tiled with light blue patterns or large pictures if not maritime influenced decoration. I can only imagine that it was having grown up in a house where Danish plates of similar color but different images attracted me so much to these blues and themes – but I kept commenting on them to the point that Josselyn started to make fun of me for constantly gushing on how beautiful I thought it all was. I was somewhat sensitive to such poking fun at my expense, but when she agreed that this would be a nice color theme that could be brought into an imaginary “kitchen of our dreams” one day I felt happy. While walking we also met a few honest, lazy beggars who provided us with a hearty laugh.

After all this walking around we went to a Portuguese wine tasting to relax. We got to try several whites, roses, reds, and muscatels and followed this by eating cuttlefish and squid at a non-descript restaurant a few blocks from the Praça do Comércio.

The next night we went out and visited some more of the city and finally decided to see some of the nightlife. There are few places on this world that I would view parts of as being favorable to New York and Barrio Alto is one of them. Here the people fill the streets like I’ve never seen. I imagine it being similar to the gin bars that Engels describes in his tome on the conditions of the English working class, but rather than the desperation born of super-exploitation written on the faces of those present there was the drinking for an enjoyment of the epicurean kind. Barrio Alto is the student quarter and here there are indeed thousands of people on the street chatting, going in to dance, outside to smoke from bar to bar to circulate. The drinks here were exceptionally literally 1/5 to 1/8 of the price that it is in Barcelona and the people much more welcoming and convivial. We looked for a fado show amidst the anarchy of the street but found none. However we did come upon a live music venue. As the song playing when we came in was Oasis, Josselyn’s favorite, we stayed there for a while dancing and making friends with the locals then followed the four a.m. torrent of people down the hill to go home or to other less than respectable locations.