A FULL COMPLETMENT OF FEET BACK IN THE PIRINEOS!
March 1, 2008 to March 31, 2008
~For those of you lacking the want or time to read my lengthy words, I’ll sum up my month of March’s travel succinctly.
A) I could be camel-rich had I accepted all the offers I received for Lauren!
B) My Moroccan agenda deviated with a slight detour to Paris and Turkey!
Even Duct tape can’t cure broken plans!
~Life is all about BALANCE! Some people may not consider me “balanced”, given my choice of lifestyle, but I deem myself as the epitome of either “harmoniously stable” or “schizophrenic”! I love the freedom, challenges and “getting dirty feeling” of travel…AND…I love the comforts, routines and cleanliness of home! I love both existences, I want both existences, I need both existences…
I HAVE BOTH EXISTENCES!
TOP TEN REASONS I LOVE TRAVELLING!
1 Body language is a great form of exercise.
2 I feel most alive (less stagnant) when I’m travelling.
3 Liberates me from my OCD organizational habits, and dates and time.
4 Helps me re-appreciate a bed-bug-less bed, or even just a bed.
5 Can meet like-minded folk.
6 A break from cleaning the cat litter box.
7 Feels okay to be a bit dirty.
8 I get to learn new stuff.
9 The less I have to live with, the happier I feel.
10 I can do crazy(er) things knowing I’ll never see these people again.
HASTA ABRIL JACA…IF I’M NOT DEPORTED!!!
~On February 29, 2008, I bid adios to Carb and Gas, after loads of trips to the farthest Jacian grocery store stocking a month’s supply of scoop-able cat litter and Ultima cat food. I recruited a tag team of 3 reliable cat sitters, one deathly allergic to cats and one deathly afraid of cats, perfect, left them a 10 page document of “Carb, Gas and Apartment Quirks”, and never looked back as I boarded a bus…destination…the other side of Spain, Lauren (and Meagan) in Sevilla.
TRANSFER TO TRAIN IN ZARAGOZA
~While awaiting a train in the warmth of the southern Zaragoza sunshine, sitting on my backpack, looking like a traveller, I unpacked my brownbag lunch. I had resourcefully utilized the last of my still-psychotic fridge’s contents and hardboiled 8 eggs, storing my homemade egg salad in a Flora margarine container. I ziplocked separately two buttered slices of bread…by the way, I see a potential career doing Ziplock commercials, “The travellers best friend…keeps shampoo and underwear separate”! As I dined on my delicious egg salad, shovelling the yellow contents into my mouth by the spoonful, I imagined that innocent passers-by might actually think I was eating spoonfuls of margarine with my accompanied slices of bread! Things like this make me laugh! So I did! And there I sat, looking completely mental, laughing out loud with my mouth apparently full of margarine!
MY MADRID
~A brief layover at the Madrid train station, yes, THE very station location where Gas cruised through the x-ray machine 8 months prior, the probable cause of his current intense passion for shadow chasing and other psychotic behaviours! Madrid makes me smile. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for my sweet home of 8 months, 3 years ago. People watching while waiting, I was reminded of Madrid’s mental mentality. For example, instead of city planners reworking traffic signals to accommodate rush hour traffic, they send out cops with whistles, sounding like hysterical Phys. Ed. teachers, in the middle of major intersections. After an hour of frenzied arm flapping and frantic whistle blowing, the cop retires, looking exhausted. And really, I couldn’t actually see the point of his cardiovascular workout! Everyone would have eventually got home with or without his help! Hombre, I miss mental Madrid!
MARAVILLA SEVILLA
~A wonderful reconnection with Lauren and Meagan. How cool to find yourself sitting across an outdoor café table from your kid(s) in a foreign country exchanging travel and living abroad stories over una cerveza or 2! Chilled out a day in Sevilla. The first day of any holiday needs to be restful after the hustle of prepping for that holiday. March 1st and we were sun tanning on the rooftop terraza of our Youth Hostel. With Muslim and Macho Morocco our destination, I figured this may well be the last time our skin saw daylight for a while!
OK, CONFESSION…I’M LIVING ILLEGALLY IN SPAIN!
~I received a spankin’ new passport back in Canada before departure, ‘cause my old one had become extinct. It’s a beautiful navy blue little booklet, although I think it should be red, and now my new smile-free photo is imprinted directly into the paper to avoid fraud issues and such. How nice, new passport. So I have a total of 1 whole stamp in my brand new passport. Espana, Julio 16, 2007. It’s REALLY, REALLY, REALLY obvious when I arrived in Europe and where! For 7 ½ months I’ve been sweating it, trying to compose the perfect lie…any lie…that could be believable to the Spanish Passport people as to why I forgot to leave the EU after 3 months…my only pragmatic plan is to plead ignorance…it is possible an educated Canadian professional can be stupid.
So here’s kinda how the conversation goes between Passport Police guy and me!
Remember, I’m also travelling with Lauren and Meagan who have wall to wall stamps in their little navy blue passports. Also, the girls are young and attractive. I plan to either use them as my alibi or sell them if I’m forced to!
Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Analyzing every fucking empty page of my navy blue passport.] “Habla espanol?” (Do you speak Spanish?)
Me: [Secretly sweating profusely in my armpits] “Not really…un pocito.” (A little.)
Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Still flipping through my passport, front to back, back to front. Long dramatic pause. Makes eye contact.] “Cuanto tiempo estas en espana?” (How long have you been in Spain?)
Me: ”Un mes. Pero, viaje toda europa.” [Flailing both arms in huge circles.] “TODA europa, TODA!” (One month. But I’ve travelled all of Europe, ALL of Europe, ALL!) [Girls overly nodding heads in unison.]
Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Still longer dramatic pause, still trying to find another stamp in my empty navy blue passport. Again, eye contact.]
Me: “TODA.” [Flail arms again without exposing sweaty armpits.]
Uniformed Unilingualed Serious Spanish Passport Police Security Guy: [Reanalyzes empty passport pages once again. More dramatic pause.] STAMP!
Me: [Breathe. Walk fast outa there. Don’t look back.]
TERRIBLE TANGIER
~Terrible Tangier, still takes the breath away, and I find myself holding my breath a lot, not so much from the initial overwhelming shock of this foreign world but from the bad smells! Unavoidable Tangier, a half hour boat crossing from Algeciras, Espana, is the almost only Moroccan thing that absolutely has not evolved in 28 years since my last visit! Even the “vulture” “guides’ awaiting the naïve tourists at the port (“like flies on shit”…my words 28 years ago) may well be one and the same kids-now-adults from my first 3rd world exposure. Yes, we stupidly accepted the assistance of said vulture guide as I had yet to discover how much more doable Morocco is at age 46 than 19, and after 28 years of their exposure to tourists. These guy guides have terrible nerve, asking for money while in possession of a mouthful of braces! While I, with crooked teeth, hand over the money!
~We are immediately lost and at our guide’s mercy as we obediently follow him through the crowded, zigzagging labyrinth of skinny streets. Dragged to many sketchy upstairs Moroccan merchants who speak perfect English, as they have had ample opportunity to practice at the expense of, literally and figuratively, the tourist.
~Charif, our probably-richer-than-me veteran guide, who probably gets a commission on every purchase I make, immediately insisted the girls would “blend” better into this foreign Muslim mass of 1.5 million people if they wore Jalavas. Coincidentally, he so happened to have an uncle or cousin or friend etc. who had a souk (shop) that sold Jalavas! What a learning curve we rounded! Lauren and Meagan were outright pointed at, laughed at, in their face, by sheer Muslim strangers! Lauren’s sense of humour is slow to develop when it comes to fashion statements, even in the 3rd world! A priceless-almost-peed-my-pants moment!
~The second priceless-almost-peed-my-pants moment was witnessing Meagan, or hearing Meagan’s reaction, as she first opened the communal grungy Hostel bathroom door! When she ceased screaming…I yelled down the communal grungy Hostel hallway, “It’s a hole, isn’t it!” Indeed, the notorious HOLE, otherwise known as an Arabic toilet. Lesson learned, you get what you pay for! Cheap Hostels have holes! It gets better though, because later that day, Meagan discovers a WESTERN toilet on another floor, still grungy, but at least familiar to the western bum!
~Entering Morocco through the Tangier door, is like inviting a Hoover vacuum cleaner salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness into your living room! Persistent, especially the Moroccan carpet salesmen. I tried every imaginable excuse like, I don’t have a house to put a carpet in, it won’t fit in my backpack, I’m allergic…finally, NO! Worked the best, but took lots of practice, and we had lots of opportunity for lots of practice.
PAINTED CHEFCHAOUEN
~Imagine an entire town or Medina (the oldest part of a North African city), even the streets, painted bright Mediterranean blue. An extraordinary and remarkable site! Peaceful and clean! I figured a sale on blue paint.
~Here, in clam, quiet Chefchaouen, we can clearly hear the repetitive, haunting, and amplified prayer call 5 times each day, and night. It’s novel to my unaccustomed ear so it awakens me at 4 AM and stops me in my tracks throughout the day. Although the words are all Arabic, I can only make out “Allah” and “wet bum”! Okay, I know they obviously aren’t actually saying “wet bum” but this is what my ears hear, and it makes me giggle uncontrollably, 5 times a day, even at 4 in the morning, and once you have these words embedded in your head it’s impossible to tune them out or refocus. As soon as I pointed this out to Lauren and Meagan, they were doomed, and they, too, could hear nothing but “wet bum”!!! So, the 3 of us spent 4 days in Chefchaouen giggling uncontrollably 5 times a day!
~In a world with no electric appliances, one improvises! Meagan was 1st time ever hand washing clothes on the Hostel’s rooftop while I was taking photos to give her mother as proof. I stopped at one point to agitate my wet hair with my hands in the breeze, as Meagan was moving her wet laundry around the plastic washtub in a circular motion. Meagan says, “Look, it’s the spin cycle of a washing machine!”, while I said, “Look, it’s my blow dryer!” Okay, maybe you had to be there to see the humour…we thought this was hilarious!
~A new meaning to the concept of Junior Kindergarten! From an outdoor café, observed a handful of young, hip-high, happy-go-lucky children walk by and a traditionally dressed, sullen woman waddling behind. Was just about to relate to the teacher, when she suddenly whipped out a long wooden ruler and started hitting these little kids on their heads and backs! A Canadian lawsuit…a Moroccan way of life!
~Innocently enjoying a pleasant Moroccan meal on a rooftop-terraced restaurant, watching the sun set over distant mountains…naively witnessing a Palestinian demonstration/rally in the town’s central square below which terminated in the burning of the Israeli flag! An unappetizing site! Powerful and really disturbing!
FRANKLY MY DEAR, I DON’T GIVE A DAMN!
~Humphrey, I hear ya! CASABLANCA! Nothing, but a name!
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE CAPITAL CITY OF MOROCCO IS? (RABAT)
~Big city, big minds, big McDonalds. Great used English bookstore! Problem…gotta carry what you buy! Ok, one book…”The Lone Traveller”, it’s about a 60+ year old woman who bicycles around the world, TWICE! Makes my life’s adventures seem meek in comparison.
~Wonder if Muslims would cut off my left hand for stealing toilet paper, which has become 2nd nature to me! Steal it when you can, and use it where it’s not!
HAPPY 47TH IN FES!
~Best gifts ever…a bathtub in our immaculate Hotel room (it’s been 8 months since I’ve had a soak!), Schmirnoff Ice discovered in a obscure rear room of a little local grocer’s (it’s been 8 months since I’ve sipped a Schmirnoff!) and a day and dinner in the company of my kids, Lauren and Meagan! The cake and gifts (more literature mmmmmmm) were bonus!
~Sucks to be sick when travelling, ‘specially in a 3rd world country, ‘specially without health insurance! Lauren suffered a “weird head” whilst (I love that word) an even weirder red, woven, waffle pattern materialized on her upper thigh! But she lived!
~Traditional Muslim Moroccan man dressed in Jalava, pointy-toed slip-ons and skullcap reaches for cell phone ringing to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”! What’s wrong with this picture?!
~Our unofficial “official” guide informs us that up until 5 years ago men could still have 4 wives. Then the women’s rights movement exploded and now a woman can demand a divorce and is entitled to 50 %. Only a century slow in coming!
~We also learned that every Moroccan Medina is divided into “neighbourhoods”, each one containing 5 communal things: Hammam, Koran School, Mosque, Bakery and Fountain. Okay, so sometimes having a guide is worth it!
~The best Turkish baths or Hammams, are in Morocco! This weekly local gathering place for gossip is where men and woman, separated according to gender, have their skin scoured with SOS/Scotchbrite textured washcloths and black taffy-like soap made from olives, by a large and powerful masseuse. We nervously laughed at the excess jiggles of our nude bodies, held our breath as every crease, crack and orifice was scrubbed, were grossed out by the copious rolls of dead skin peeled off our epidermis, and flinched when muscles we were unaware of were pounded! As Lauren and I discovered, superficially, Canadians are quite filthy, modest and wimpy!
~Morocco…how does one verbalize what the senses can barely describe or even identify! Starting to see patterns in Moroccan lifestyles:
~Prayer Calls (haunting, five times a day)
~overpopulating=overcopulating starving stray cats (e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e) ~Couscous and Tajine (top two tasty traditional dishes)
~limited alcohol (big wrong)
~Moroccan whiskey (=mint tea, saturated with enough sugar to make
Lauren happy)
~Kif (legal Hash! Makes you Couscous in the head!)
~no dogs (“the dog’s breakfast” takes on a whole new meaning here,
I think someone’s eating them, hope it’s not me!)
~rooftop vistas (laundry and satellites) as far as the eye can see
~satellite dishes (even the poorest of dirt-floored piecemealed shanties
have dishes!)
~donkeys (the transport trucks of the 3rd world, Eeyor wannabes)
~Medina (a”maze”ing, winding labyrinth of narrow streets chock block full
of miniature souks/shops and workshops)
~shoeshine guys (flip-flops, Crocks and running shoes saved us from this
hassle)
~pedestrian traffic signals (non-functioning or non-existent, J-walking
must be legal here)
~clock illiterate roosters (they can’t tell time)
~tuque (a Canadian invention, but all the poorest older geezers wear
them in this heat! They look ridiculous!)
~men are Muslim (no souvenir shopping this trip!)
~water (don’t drink it)
~uncooked veggies (the untouchable water, saturates plants during
growth and washes vegetables once mature…salad’s on the menu in
Jaca!)
~diarrhoea (an unintentional but effective weight loss program)
~haggling is exhausting (but it’s just as exhausting avoiding purchasing)
~the HOLE or Arabic toilet (not yet extinct)
~palm tree climate
~badly translated but entertaining menus (cuckoo pie…should be coconut
pie)
~water looks a lot cleaner in a clean sink (Moroccan definition of “clean”
is really different from mine)
~fuck Lonely Planet’s recommendations of “friendly service” (I just want a
hot shower!)
~window cleaning (still use newspapers)
~Moroccan Berber (Native/Aboriginal) not to be confused with Turkish
Berber (barber)
~Meagan leaves us for an Amsterdamal experience! Lauren and I head east…
MAMMA AFRICA
~The Sahara Desert! Wow! Who would ever have thought…to me, the Sahara was only ever a photograph in an elementary school geography textbook, THE example of a desert ecosystem! And here I am, meeting camels. I’ve always wanted to meet a real camel, and now I’ve met Abe, short for Abraham, as intimate as a pet lizard! A sensible and efficient creature, but you would be too if water didn’t grow on trees. He’s quite passive and obedient, but you would be too if you were lead your whole life by your nose ring!
~Our international caravan was comprised of 2 Canuks (Lauren and I), 2 Argentineans (Julia and Manuel), 2 Brits (Lauren #2 and Sophie) and Bert from Belgium. Our fate rested in the hands of 3 Arabic bongo-playing, hash-smoking guides and the hooves of our trusty vehicular camels. At our base camp we feasted on Tajine, smuggled booze and hash while pre-celebrating Lauren’s 19th birthday beneath Saharan stars, singing, drumming and dancing summed up with a sand dune summit. The latter would have been a difficult enough excursion without the influence of the aforementioned contraband!
~Toilet facilities…pick a dune, any dune, and dig!
MAGNIFICANT MARRAKESH
~Shared a 12 hour luxurious, worry-free Grand Taxi ride through dessert fog (sand and dust) and tenuous car paths of the Atlas Mountain range with our Argentinean friends to avoid the discomforts of the Moroccan bus. Not that I don’t enjoy Berber burps, cramped and dirty seating and the fear of missing luggage!
~City culture shock after the Sahara!
~Marrakesh rocks! My fav Moroccan Medina. Let me paint a picture. In the large open central square are vendors, merchants, musicians…cobras sway to snake charmers flute music or upon request you can have a snake wrapped around your neck…a photo op! Buy a cigarette individually or choose your dentures from a table of other people’s extracted teeth and molars! Pyramids of rainbow coloured spices or dried fruit to keep you shitting through the eye of a needle, live monkeys chained to their masters, silver jewellery sold by weight, freshly squeezed OJ, shoe shiners, prayer calls and millions of people! Even photos don’t do it justice!
~Upon entering the doorway of the Marrakesh airport, I spied a younger-than-me English-speaking-looking guy sitting on the cement ground leaning on his backpack. Jokingly, I leaned over and offered him some money…3 weeks of daily confrontations with beggars warps one’s sense of humour…the guy laughed. Lauren, walking 2 paces behind, says, “Dana, you can’t just do that.” Poor Lauren, so easily embarrassed. OK, the story gets better. Pre-boarding, I go out for one last quick smoke and re-approach the guy I had joked with only to learn he had actually considered taking me up my offer of money as 2 days prior had had his wallet stolen and was awaiting a money transfer!!! Lauren and I heard his story out and pooled together our chocolate bars and disposable cash. In the end, ‘twas an intuitive random joke that helped a fellow human and traveller!
GIRONA AIRPORT FLOOR
~Who am I kidding…I feel old, trying to crash for a night on a cold, hard floor…and I feel even older the next day!
~Happy Saint Paddy’s Day on an hour’s sleep and 2 green Breezers!
MON PARIS!
~Lauren dragged me across 2 continents to meet the human souvenir of her travels! “Dana meet Nick, “he’s just like you!” Uh oh.
~Indeed, the famous-at-the-moment Nick who is just like me, is a GREAT person! No, seriously, he’s a good guy, I approve! Re-met Meagan and 2 friends of Nick’s and “did Paris” and crepes in 2 days, including the 668 steps up La Tour d’Eiffel, again, on minimal sleep! Toronto’s still 6014 km from Paris…some things never change!
~A final 3 weeks spent in Lauren’s company, although shared with fellow travellers, has been a gift, the gift of experiencing and observing her maturing process! She’s grasping at adulthood and my job now, as a parent, is to remind her to appreciate the moment. Ironic isn’t it…first we teach them to be independent, to grow up…then we tell them to slow down, smell the roses and enjoy life! I’ve always loved Lauren’s excitement about life and her ability to verbalize it, and now she’s at the peak of that excitement! She brings me life (…and wrinkles and grey hair…), and I miss her more when I’m with her! I am SO proud of this kid of mine, surviving 6 months of the most memorable education she may ever receive! SO proud!
~I have no idea how Lauren turned out to be so girly!
~As Lauren walked away through the Charles de Gaul security gate, I turned to Nick with tears and said, “There goes 19 years of hard work!” My heart hurt simply not knowing when we will meet again!
DETOUR TO TURKEY
~Quintessence of globetrotting…touching 3 continents in 3 days, Africa, Europe, and Asia! No wonder I returned home exhausted. My first steps in Asia, ever! The concept was actually bigger than the actual experience.
~Kebab is pronounced Keh~bob (soft “o” sound) in Turkish! I did a survey! Ha!
~Canada must have done something to REALLY PISS OFF the Turkish government, because the cost of a Canadian visiting Visa is more than double any other country in the world! See what happens when you do things the legal way!
~A smokers first and most commanding desire when arriving anywhere after a flight, is to have a smoke! So upon arrival to Istanbul (not Constantinople), I immediately exited the terminal building to smoke! Now clear headed, at midnight, I could cope with the duties of exchanging money, purchasing water and sussing out a shuttle bus to central-ish Istanbul, so I proceeded to walk back inside the airport. As a current connoisseur of dealing with constant harassment, Morocco taught me well, I consciously ignored and literally, physically brushed off some guy yelling to me in his foreign language, until he stuck his machine gun in my face, then I paid attention! Had I taken even one second to look, I’d have noticed he was a military security guard, and I would have paid attention, I swear. Body language with a rifle is totally comprehendible. He was pointing with his weapon to another door I needed to enter through, the one with x-ray security where they would quickly discover the bomb I was concealing, disguised as a bicycle pump…doesn’t everybody travel with a bicycle pump?! Every single content of both bags had to be analyzed individually because of that bicycle pump. They documented my name and passport number on a list, probably their Turkish Top Ten Wanted. That stupid cigarette cost me an hour of hair-raising persecution and interrogation. Moral of this story is wear a “Patch” when flying into Turkey!
~30 room Youth Hostel dorm living adds insight to understanding human nature!
~Turkish coffee could convince me to change my religion…and put hair on my chest!
~Fact: Istanbul has 17,000 people living in it, and I’m guessing the same number of homeless cats, the equivalent of ½ of Canada’s population!
~Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and Spice Market are much more civilized than Morocco’s Medinas. For one thing, the indoor streets or aisles are set up in a grid system so you only get temporarily displaced as opposed to totally lost. Also, the merchants here aren’t quite as aggressive, for example, only 100 carpet sellers approached me, versus the 1000 predators in any given Moroccan Medina. Overall, a somewhat gentler vending culture.
~3 weeks of travel equates to way beyond the expiry date of wearable underwear, I only own 10 pair! Laundry lady across the street from my Hostel will dispose of the 3 kg of Sahara Dessert I’ve been lugging around in pockets and cuffs for 12 YTLiras! But always the dilemma of what to wear on laundry day?!
~Toured town with 2 Brazilians (Paula and Tomas) and a German (Andre) and an Istanbul-ly (Fatima) who was a friend of a friend of a friend etc. Saw and tasted Turkish stuff only a local could locate in a city this size, like Kumpir, big frigging potatoes filled with anything you can imagine and even things you can’t imagine.
~I fled the city for a few days to recuperate in a manageably sized Southern town near Ephesus. The 11 hour night bus trip was, as usual, sleepless. I sat next to a very pregnant tiny Turk who arrived armed with a huge stash of plastic shopping bags. I suspected she had no intentions of going shopping even before she began vomiting. I willingly sacrificed my soul water bottle and packages of portable Kleenex, and rubbed her back for 11 consecutive hours, stopping only when the bus paused long enough for me to jump off and deposit the full bags of vomit into the Petrol station’s garbage cans. Now suffering Lauren’s sickness of 2 weeks past with the added bonus of a literal “wet bum” (Allah was paying attention), I was quite content to sleep a lot in Selcuc, and in a private room thank you very much!
~History in Turkey has substance! Stuff here commonly dates back to B.C.! And I don’t mean Before Children!
~Despite being sick, I managed to eat a lot of melt in your mouth Baklava sprinkled with ground green pistachios, stuffed grape leaves drizzled with fresh lemon juice that looked like cigars but tasted more like heaven than Havanas. Although booze in this country is pricey, tried the Turkish version of Ouzo called Raki. Even tried a taste of TESTICLES! And I’m still alive!
~You simply don’t see Muslim women smoking!
~And you never meet Turks or Moroccans travelling outside their countries!
~I had NO idea Istanbul had 2 airports! Oops and fuck! I had bused back to the same airport I had been interrogated at, back through the scary security, only to discover, two hours prior departure, wrong airport! Right airport is an hour’s drive from wrong airport. Ran, which is difficult when one is fully loaded with luggage, to find non-English speaking Formula-One looking taxi driver. Arrived at right airport with my heart in my throat 36 minutes later ! Taxi cost me more than the flight! Life is so exciting!
THE SCENIC ROUTE TO JACA…VIA LONDON AND BARCELONA
~Stansted airport, somewhere in outskirts England, was truly one of the highlights of my month’s worth of journeying! Completely uneventful but it had a W. H. Smith bookstore! English books…lots of them! And Stansted sold coffee with milk and Stansted had BLT sandwiches and there was English language everywhere at Stansted! I invented questions to ask perfect strangers JUST to hear them speak my language. Stansted was blissful!
~Barcelona, too, was like being home ‘cause they spoke my 2nd ish language. It’s just a really nice feeling to be able to communicate with people! I mean, I know people can’t help it if they can’t speak my language, but I like talking.
~4 airports in one day is at least 1 too many!
MARCH 31, JACA
~To all those readers who actually made it this far…you either have way too much time on your hands, or perhaps, you’re sincerely interested in my take on the world! You have no idea how much more I could have written…but didn’t! You’re welcome!
~My kitchen now smells like a Moroccan Medina stuffed with fresh aromatic Moroccan spices. Spain eat your heart out!
~Ahhhhhhhhhh…home! Things I missed most:
~salad
~clean glasses (both kinds)
~guaranteed toilet paper
~happy and healthy cats
~privacy
~pork
~freedom of rights and religion
~browsing
Well, 12 pages is an ample idea of what I’ve been up to lately, for those of you who have been asking or even just wondering, I bet you’re sorry now! April’s update is going to seem a tad dull after my month of March. But I’ll see what I can muster up to keep things interesting! Till then,
Dana xoxoxo
Carb and Gas, who incidentally, are alive and kind of happy to have me home!
