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!

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.