figuring it out

[This blog was written in a “grand taxi” (big old diesel Mercedes Benz) on the way to Casablanca from Fez to pick up my mom and sister, Ziva and Shiri]

A sad state of affairs: I loaded my blog today to show Mo. Looking for snappy photos, I quickly scrolled through the ten posts available on the page, as he still doesn't participate very much in English. I was dismayed, and feel remiss about the state of affairs I found, though it is thanks to a natural evolution. I do have some photos that I'll shortly upload to accompany some older posts, so poke around in the coming days. Further, my impromptu visitors (they just decided last week to fly over and visit during Shiri’s spring break) bring me an old digital camera to supplant my cell phone as primary photo-taker. In short (long, at this point), I will try to be better about posting photos. That said, I wish I could get you all to interact more; a week after explicitly asking for feedback, I just received my first comment on the matter... Alas.

Evolving: I began this blog as a see-what-I’m-doing project for my friends back home, and it has progressed and changed over the months. I’ve begun to feel at home here, and the photos have diminished as a result. I now know shortcuts and I have favorite butchers. I buy milk from just one guy, and get my butter from another. I have set out to do most of what I came here to do: know a different way of life. Mo and I are practically brothers—I spend perhaps more time with him than EB does. I’m having a great time, but it’s different than the adventures of the start, and I write more about the day to day than the road trips.

[I interrupt my story to bring you a special news alert: my taxi driver, while stopped to top off the gas tank with a couple gallons of diesel, opened his hood to feed the steaming radiator some fresh water...Not a promising sign for a seven-hour round trip.]

Most recently I reached a new extreme (call it a high or a low, your choice) with my freak-out, and tonight I’m hoping to share some of the afterthoughts. I’ll be honest, though: I’m cheating. A few nights ago, while writing to an old friend from my first days as a cook, I vomited some ideas into my word processor. In retrospect, despite the obvious crudeness I was surprised to find the overall message coherent. I’ve preserved its raw nature below, cutting here and there to keep personal matters personal:

...I'm thinking I'm probably going to leave here in a few weeks. Probably second week of april. Don't have a plan for april, probably make my way through spain/france as cheaply as possible, or just find a flight straight up to NE france/Switzerland/germany area--there's you in Munich, Zoe in Geneva, and a family--friends of mine--in Lille. Maybe do some combo of the three, as they're all places I'd like to check out (and people I’d like to see). Maybe figure out what this whole hitchhiking thing is all about and see if I could do that through france...? I dunno...playing this all by ear. Probably try to find a cheap flight out of Germany to Israel where I'd visit for a couple/few weeks... then if I need to go to the US to take care of my apt in nyc, I'd do that, maybe try to rent out my place in Chicago, before returning to france area to work on a farm for a couple months... wow. That's about the most coherent I've been about this whole journey of mine--I might need to copy and paste most of this email to explain to others...:) Can't wait to check out your part of the world--hope you have some good brasseries and sausageries for us, though not the kind of sausagerie I had here at my place for st patty's day--a room full of 12 guys, and not even a single female. I mean, okay, romantic aspect totally aside, which at this point it is, it's just nice to have that break in the testosterone, you know? Hell--this could even be a fun stream of consciousness blog post--whaddya think?

Be in touch,

--j