Funky Cold Medina

Well, not cold so much as pretty hot during the 90+ degree summer days, but definitely funky. Medinas are playing a large part of our trip through Morocco: they contain not only the oldest parts of certain cities, but also maintain some of the oldest trades and traditions.

As you can see from the above map of the medina at Fes, they are not exactly laid out in a straight-forward, NYC gridlike style. Which, some might argue, is the point and the fun of walking through them. A seemingly straight street will fork and branch off in a million directions, the buildings all looming creakily at least two stories high all around youm making orienting yourself to a distant landmark impossible. I should know. I suffer, now, from medina-phobia.

It starts out fun enough. You wander down a long, organized boulevard or avenue in the ville nouvelle until you come upon the walls of the medina, usually 20 feet or more high. The great entrance gates are flowing in both directions with people, scooters, and donkey carts. So you hop in and get swept up in what can only be described as the current of people and vehicles. Its impossible to go at your own pace, as you are now at the mercy of the masses, and the only way to escape the push-and-pull is to stop in whichever shop or stall is immediately next to you on the cramped, cobbly street. Of course, the shop owners know this, and they immediately beckon you to look, "for free, just for the pleasure of your eyes". Once you've caught your breath and said your nicest "non, merci" repeatedly, you get swept up again.

It has been pretty impossible for us to do sight-seeing in the real sense of picking a place you want to visit and then finding your way there. Inevitably, we get lost. We stumble upon weird sights, quiet residential streets, plenty of tour guides and hustlers, food stalls, leather workers, shoe stores, trinket shops, as well as tons of places and areas dedicated to the everyday needs of the average Joe Morocco. In Fes, for instance, we spent almost three hours wandering, baffled by our Lonely Planet map and the lack of street signage in the medina. After circling past places we swore we had already passed, but also stumbling upon the main historic attractions, Lucy's directional sixth sense led us through a few empty streets and back to where we started at the main gates. We saw the touristy, the under-construction, the historic, and the everyday parts of the biggest medina in Morocco, and by the end we both agreed that it was exhilirating, and that we were tired.

Now that we're in Marrakech, I am determined to stick fairly close to the similarly gigantic but decidedly un-mazelike Djemma el-Fna, the giant UNESCO World Heritage square where, nightly, almost 100 restaurants set up outdoors and cook their specialties for tourists and locals. Right now, I think its safe to say we are both thinking about our next bowl of haricots (stewed beans) topped off with a salty, spicey, pickled sauce and a small loaf of khoobz bread. All for $0.75 each!

Andalucia Superlatives

It's hard to say which of the four Andalucian cities we visited last week was the best one. Each had something about it that made it well worth a couple nights' stay.

Sevilla had the best food. We had huge plates of salmorenjo, a thick cold vegetable soup about the consistency of hummus, as well as gazpacho with boiled egg, solomillos doused in blue cheese sauce and laid over fries, super yummy pickled vegetables, and chicken skewers with roasted red pepper, just to name a few.

Granada was the place where I felt that Andalucian culture was the most vibrant and still made relevant. Isabel la Catolica's ghost was everywhere, but so was the massive influence of the Islamic dynasties that ruled the province until 1492. I loved how Granada manages to make even the most tired tourist staples of the region--tapas, flamenco--feel fresh and inspired while never losing their sense of tradition. The flamenco show we went to was buried deep in the Albazyn, and with the boxed wine and the backroom theater, it had the feel of underground performance art.

Cordoba has the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen in my life, the Mezquita-Catedral, a mosque converted into a cathedral in the middle ages once the province was taken over in the Reconquista. I loved this blatant mix of styles, and the coolest part is looking into the exposed ruins and seeing the site of Visigoth church it was built upon.

Cadiz is the most fun and the most relaxed. Like a little Caribbean island tacked onto the Atlantic coast of Spain, I immediately fell into a beach rhythm once we pulled into this station. Everyone was sunburned, half naked, and stuffing calamari into themselves . . . even me, who usually hates seafood in all forms.

And yup, I did get a little too much sun (not enough swimsuit time so far this summer means my skin is way not used to it!) , though not as much as Doug, whose chest has a splotchy speckled effect due to his lackadaisical application of sunscreen . . . next time, I'm getting him a spray bottle.

More from Morocco soon!

The Thing About Tapas...

Well, there's not really a thing about them, other than that you (meaning I) will always want more. They are great.

Lucy and I tried a fair amount of tapas while we were in Sevilla, Granada, and Cadiz. Lucy was even a giant champ and chomped down on some octupus and fried calamari when she might normally not go for the shellfish. But we had a great time trying all of these little things because it let us unwind, socialize (even though we're never really far from socializing with each other) and do a little people watching without the burden of a whole meal put in front of us.

In Sevilla, we tried the tapas in a more traditional way: standing up, in a packed bodega or two. At one place we snacked on a plate of spinach and garbanzos and on another solomillo al whiskey, which is sauteed pork tenderloin atop fried potatoes with a whiskey sauce. Since it was getting so crowded we hopped over to an old-school looking bodega right near the cathedral, where we ordered the ubiquitous calamares fritos and a small pork sandwich.

Granada was a special place because apparently it is one of the last cities where a drink is accompanied by a free tapa, usually of the bartender's choosing. We slipped into an old, wooden, almost-empty bar around 6pm where Lucy and I both ordered some white wine. The bartender whipped around the corner and came back with a serving of boquerones fritos, which are small anchovies fried up and heaped up on a plate for you to devour whole, tiny little bones and all. The next round was a dish of sliced pulpo (octopus) marinated in red peppers, onions, and olive oil that was so tender I didn't even realize it was shellfish. Another round brought some sliced lomo de cerdo (pork loin) on bread. All for the price of the drinks!

I also received a weird tapa of some sort of long, rectangular-shelled (almost tubular, but flat) that tasted like a combination of mussel, clam, and scallop. Its pretty safe to say almost anything put in front of you, for free, will be pretty tasty.








If you don't want to sit or stand at the bar, you can still get the goods but don't call them tapas, which seem to be pretty much only served at the bar by the bartender. The same plates are available in raciones which are plates big enough for four to share, or a meal for one, or in the half-size media raciones. In Cadiz one night, Lucy and I enjoyed some queso curado (cured goats milk cheese) and jamon iberico (the best of the cured hams) with a couple glasses of wine.





Another thing I really, really, enjoyed on those hot Spanish afternoons was the red Rioja wine served almost cold. I could almost go for one right now, if they had it in Morocco...

Cruzcampo Street Performers in Granada

Memory is a Funny Thing

The other day, after Doug and I visited the Cathedral and Giralda in Sevilla, we were quietly wandering around El Centro, hot and a little tired. Left to my own thoughts, I began to contemplate how the nature of travel is that you go to other places to, of course, make memories, but after you leave, you`re bound to forget many of the details, and what does end up sticking is usually not what you thought it would be.

I thought about how I could likely easily lead you to the hostel in Zagreb that I left covered in the most painfully itchy bites from the bedbugs I`d slept with (while my friend Carmen suffered not a one) but I couldn`t tell you anything about the other sites to see in that city. I clearly remember the way my stomach turned when I walked into the former infirmary building at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp site outside of Berlin, when I saw what looked like an enormous bloodstain on the cement floor, and how I asked my boyfriend at the time if I could wear his sweatshirt because even though it was summer I was suddenly really cold. I remember how the meal I shared with my EAP friends in Koszeg was one of the best in my life, even though I was eating a powdery cheese gnocchi garnished with peas and carrots that didn´t really taste like anything. I`ll remember a conversation a Brtitish hippie was trying to have with me as I fell asleep in a hostel bunk bed one night, but for the life of me I can`t remember what city I was in or where we were staying. And sometimes all I can remember about a place is what it was called or where I stayed . . . a Super 8 in Tucscon, AZ, or a huge Holiday Inn outside Kansas City . . . but I could not tell you a single other thing about my experience of that place.

Thinking about how most of what I am doing on this trip, and every other trip, will be swiftly forgotten as my brain makes room for all the other less fantastic details of day to day life made me sad. I thought of all the street names I would forget in Sevilla, all the Portugese pleasantries I`d learned in Lisbon and Porto, and all the kinds of ice cream I had tasted . . . I thought of how many glasses of beer and wine we would savor and then not remember what they`d been called . . . and how even our lodgings, our train rides, all the things that we spend the very most time deciding about, will fall into a backdrop of other more pronounced memories that at this point we can`t even anticipate, though hopefully they will be good.

These ruminations reminded me of a somewhat more profound passage I really loved from Steve Toltz`s novel A FRACTION OF THE WHOLE. It`s the part near the beginning where Steve describes what the main character sees--a long list of strange things passing all around that you might never think about-- during his long period in a coma. I suddenly had the strong desire to reread that passage. A while later, we walked into El Corte Ingles so that I could try to find a book about Queen Isabella of Spain in English. They didn`t have any, but what did they happen to have on the top shelf? Two of the British versions of Steve`s book.

Probably our only paid tour this trip...

As a (fairly) general rule, Lucy and I are pretty DIY. We usually enjoy making our own food more often than we enjoy meals out, and we tend to relish in the way we plan our trips for this same reason.

Ok, ok... so maybe I don't bring quite as much to the table as Lucy does, and she might shoulder a bit more of the planning than I, but our combined and accumulated travel experiences together has made us confident enough to plan our excursions without relying on tour guides, tour companies, or travel agents.

While in Lisbon we had planned to take a couple day trips: one to Fatima and another to a small medieval city called Óbidos. When we realized that our Eurail pass wouldn´t take us directly to either, save for a five hour five-train possibility to Óbidos (and public buses leaving us there for six hours before a possible return, too much time for us in any small town), Lucy's hightened travel Spidey-sense quicky realized we'd save time, money, and headaches if we caved in, poneyed up the euros, and booked a one-day tour to Fatima, Obidos, Nazaré, Alcobaça, and the monastery in Batalha.

The brochure promised a picturesque day-long journey through these towns, all on our own air conditioned bus with a tourguide fluent in all the romance languages, as well as German.

We were picked up promptly at 8:15 AM on an admitidly nice Cityline tour bus (though any bus is almost always guaranteed to give my knees bruises by the end) and taken to the central hub where we met our fellow tourmates for the day. There was a Portuguese couple, a French couple who was alright with an English language tour, too many English speakers to count, and a hold-out German couple who insisted on a German translation for themselves. So, every roadside attraction between cities was thus pointed out to us first in Portuguese, then English, and finally German, though the Germans had most likely missed, by then, the attraction being referred to.
But our tourguide was a trooper who rarely, if at all, showed any sort of exasperation at repeating herself three times whenever she uttered a sentence.

In the end, we both decided this was one of the first paid tours where we really got our money´s worth. We were given precisely an hour to wander each town before the bus picked us up at our drop off point and we were whisked off along Porgual´s unbelievable hilly, windy roads to the next stop. This amount of time, as well, was precisely the amount required to get some great pictures and see the major sites before one had time to succumb to the standard tourist traps common in every day-trip city.

Obidos was an amazing, cobbled, picturesque medieval town, famous for it´s production of a cherry liquer called ginjinha, often served in chocolate shot glasses for about 50 cents. Nazare was the perfect place to stop for lunch, right along the coast with a stunning beach surrounded 110 meter cliffs where we enjoyed a delicious restaurant recommendation from Lonely Planet (tuna with onion sauce, salad, and fries for me, while the chef made up a pork with port wine-sauce for Lucy, with freshly caught prawns with olives and bread, and vegetable soup to start). The stops in Alcobaça and Batalha both centered on the monasteries, of which I got some great photos that I will post as soon as I can.

The main point of the trip, I´m sure for all embarking on it, was Fatima. For those who don´t know, Fatima is Portugal´s main pilgrimage site. In 1917, Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three shepherd children on the thirteenth day of each month, for six months in a row. Conferred to the children by the Virgin Mary were three secrets, the last of which was only released by the Vatican in 2000. Definitely check out the Wikipedia page for some interesting information on this, though bear in mind that it is also, well, Wikipedia you´re looking at.

So, this is not some centuries old spot, where generations of pilgrims have visited. It is fairly modern, the main basilica only dating back to 1938. It was extremely interesting to see what a ¨modern¨pilgrimage site looked like, with its considerations to the increased populations, the handicapped, and the other languages of the world. The 9000-seat megachurch opposite the great basilica was a spectacle, something that contrasted greatly with the ancient cathedrals and monasteries we had just been touring.

What is my point in even mentioning that I deigned to take a tour? That even experienced travelers can benefit from sucking it up and just taking one! Public transit in a foriegn country is not universally cheap when you have many day trips planned, and the timining can especially be a pain (especially when it is hot and you want to lounge around). There is no shame if it actually benefits you, and you might (for once) thank yourself.

Good Morning, Sevilla

It took about a week, I think, for me to get into my travel groove. That was about as long as we were in Portugal, so Portugal was a little awkward. I was letting myself get a little overwhelmed by all the choices of things to do and where to eat and what I'd regret not doing. Doug was being very patient, and helped me ride it out with two dinners at the same Indian restaurant - one of those other things that makes me feel right at home, for some reason - and continuously being there for me when I couldn't get my backpack closed. I may have overpacked. Doug also always lets me play Bejeweled on his iPhone whenever I want. He's so sweet.

It wasn't until we were trolling around Bairro Alto at 2am Saturday night, laughing hysterically and getting lost in the tangled, crowded streets filled with revelers, that I felt for the first time how much fun I am having here, and how lucky I am that my number one travel partner just happens to be my boyfriend. Some girls don't have it so good.

The next day we blissed ourselves out in the park after visiting the Museu Calouste Gilbenkian, which like most musems, made me wish I had a house to decorate. The reason for this is a game I play at museums that I picked up from Bill Bryson to make viewing collections less tedious. In each room, you look at each painting or work of art as if you could buy just one in each room for your own house. The thing I would really liked to be able to take home with me was one of the perfectly intact Roman Era bowls. Really nice lines. And I do love antiques. I left itching to do something creative. Instead I wrote postcards on a bench in the sun while Doug finished his book.

As Doug and I walked back down to the Marques de Pombal and toward Rossio Square for more Indian food, we got our first really sweeping view of magnificent Lisbon. I looked over at Doug, and he was drooly faced not at the view, but at some dog scamping around nearby.

We got to a pitch black, absolutely empty bus station around 5 in the morning, wandered without incident through the desolate streets of Sevilla to our hostel, and were graced by a nice receptionist who let us set up camp on the lounge couches until we can check in. Now we're a teeny bit more refreshed, and about to set off looking for flamenco performances and Jambon Iberico.

When I don't look like I've been on a bus all night I will post some pictures . . . so far, so beautiful.

Perfectly Portugal

The national dish of Portugal is, apparently, bacalhau, or codfish. Against my better judgment, I partook in some last night and am now suffering from a touch of le gastro today. Having not eaten a single smidgen of seafood (well besides the fake, mostly mayonnaise blend from Subway) since approximately 1997, it was somewhat stupid of me to try and combine creamy white fish draped in grilled onions and cheese with a few bottles of Super Bock and a very nicely mixed mojito courtesy of the Lisbon Lounge Hostel, where Doug and I are staying.

I forgot that one rule I usually stick to when dealing with food (in travel and in life): avoid seafood. It´s so simple. But I guess I got carried away when the hostel chef presented us with an amazingly fragrant three-course meal and bacalhau was what was on offer.

And yes, you read that correctly: this hostel has a chef, along with well-mixed cocktails. And in the chef´s defense, it was just me who ended up with a stomachache after the big shared dinner . . . perhaps proof it wasn´t really the fish that did me in but in fact my own overindulgence.

Some friends scoffed when I told them of Doug and my plans to stay mostly in hostels on our trip through Portugal, Spain, Morocco, and the Dordogne, and in truth, I was very nervous about it, too. Finances being such that we couldn´t really justify charging the kind of hotels we (I) deem acceptable, we are finding that the hostels in Porto and Lisbon were excellent choices. With earplugs to drown out the snoring, and a decent locker for our valuables, we´ve enjoyed two amazing places that you should really check out should you come to Portugal. Supposedly hosteling is somewhat new to this country and you can tell from the fresh-faced staff and the beautifully equipped lodgings these hostels aren´t yet jaded or run down from dealing with hysterical, drunk, rude or just plain idiotic travelers. How refreshing!

Today feels like kind of a waste, because my sleepless night watching my dinner come back up has left me a bit too hazy to navigate much of the city, and I´ve instead been hanging out with a fat British romance saga and nursing the nausea with Coca-Cola Light. However, Doug´s got a lovely tour lined up for us tomorrow to Obidos and Fatima, lasting all day, so maybe I´m smart to save up my energy.

Later on this afternoon I plan on visiting ViniPortugal with Doug, so that I can let the free-flowing wines of Portugal soothe my system once and for all. It´s a free wine-tasting place on the Praça de Commercio that lets you try the good stuff for free as long as you´ll fill out a survey about what you think of their local vintages. After that, I plan on going out and ordering a steak, or something else reliably easy on the stomach.

(If you know me at all, you know that a steak always, always puts me right.)

Putting the "Porto" back in "Portugal"

I can't say how great it was to be back in Paris: to meet up with Lucy, be back in the city in which we both shared innumerable good times, and to anticipate the arrival of our friends Conor and Jerem. The seven hour layover in Toronto during my flight over was actually a plus, and involved an hour-each-way commute to the downtown area, some aimless wandering, a meal made affordable thanks to the surprising purchasing power of the USD, and some free wifi back at Pearson International Airport.

Before I could blink a week had gone by, and it was time to clean the rental apartment, squeeze our worldly possessions into every last available space in our backpacks, and catch an early morning flight to Porto.

Porto is the reason for "Portugal". It sits just in from where the Douro meets the Atlantic, and has been the door to Portugal for centuries. It's also the beginning of our six week whirlwind through Portugal, Spain, Morocco, and France




Ryanair dropped us and our packs at Francisco de Sá Carneiro Airport 10 minutes ahead of schedule, which seemed amazing considering the plane had the feel of an inner-city bus (plastic instead of fabric, garish blue-yellow color theme, ads plastered along the length of the plane). The Porto metro system is grand-spanking new and had us to the city center along Avenue Aliendos quicker and easier than NYC can manage from JFK or La Guardia.

Our hostel, Rivoli Cinema Hostel, is just a block off the main drag. A bright red door led us to a friendly and CLEAN multi-story hostel that I would definitely recommend. There is a shared kitchen and movie-themed dorms, and a big lounge with a couple computers and wi-fi throughout.







While we waited to check in to the hostel, Lucy and I killed a couple hours and took a walk down to the Ribeira district, which is part of old Porto. It is full of steep, cobbled streets and buildings that are fading and rusting from the ocean air. I could have taken a picture of just about everything.



The weekend of our arrival was also the weekend of Serralves em Festa, which is a yearly 40-hour non-stop (but somehow family-oriented) art and performance festival in the giant Quinta de Serralves, a sprawling park in the newer part of Porto, that starts early Saturday morning and doesn't let up until midnight on Sunday. There were numerous stages setup for music and performance art, concession stands everywhere, and art exibitions along the way between them all. The nicest part, hands-down, though, was the nap in some soft grass, in the shade.


Afterward, somewhat more languidly, we walked back to the hostel along the Rua Boavista, stopping at the nicest McDonalds I've ever seen, and falling into deep conversation about our lives and relationship. Ultimately, whether it was the good vibes from Serralves (or the eerily-tasty McDs?) or from the start of another epic trip, we made it back, in the dark, to our hostel, laughing while hand-in-hand.