spain

This was not my first visit. My freshman college spring break, rather than gawking at drunk and uninhibited coeds on Daytona Beach, Florida, I came out to Spain and France (with three generations of Harper women) for a short trip along the Mediterranean. Those two days in Barcelona were my first, but I didn't appreciate them nearly as much as these (this time with my own family), nine years later.

Unsurprisingly, this trip was about eating. The region is known for its food, and we discovered just why. We spent the first few days in Barcelona, then making for the Basque region along the northern coast. We spent our few nights among Zaragoza, Bilbao, and San Sebastian, and dined in a handful of picturesque small towns along the way (detailed reviews to come). Zaragoza, where we simply rested the night, was bigger and livelier than expected. Bilbao seemed a fun place to end up to study abroad—a hip town with great museums . San Sebastian is a town for a couple of simple activities: beach going, and pintxo bar-hopping. Pintxos, the local term for tapas, are the force behind the region’s food scene. A late-night visit to one such local bar ran circles around (and was a tiny fraction of the price of) the three-starred restaurant from the night before.

I reminded myself why I hate driving in big European cities: traffic is awful, and it’s just as cheap and ever more convenient to use taxis. Once out of the city, as the designated navigator, I pulled out my hair trying to figure out why the motorways couldn’t be better-labeled: just give me a direction and a clear road name. Instead, we navigated twisty mountain back roads that called themselves one thing even though our directions told us another. We got there, but not without some yelling, frustration, and confusion.

Still, if one is going to get lost avoiding the toll roads (about $75 in tolls for the six-hour drive from Bacelona to San Sebastian!), the mountainous region between Bilbao and San Sebastian is breathtaking. All is lush and green, and when it gets warm, the coast offers secluded cliff-backed beaches. Stopping to peer down to the rocky beach, I imagined an ideal summer afternoon: bathing in the cool water, eating jamon and drinking ocean-chilled beer and wine. Plans were for us to get some time on the beach in San Sebastian. The weather thought nothing of our plans: it scoffed, blowing cold air and raindrops our way, in the middle of July. Bygones: our time in Spain was quickly gone, and there would be plenty of time for the beach in Israel, our next stop.

bread and cheese to come

I'm not done writing up all of my French experiences, but in the spirit of keeping this blog at least somewhat up-to-date, I'll leave this as a placeholder, and promise to come back and fill it in. In the meantime, it's time to go on to Spain and Israel...

chers francophones

Chers tous mes amis français (ou francophones). D’abord, je suis désole de prendre si beaucoup de temps à vous écrire quelques choses. J’était avec ma famille toujours—j’était leur guide et traducteur. Alors, en addition d’avoir la (bonne) stresse d’être avec eux toujours, c’était moi qui avait les responsabilités de chercher les restaurants (naturellement), naviguer tous les petits chemins (pour voir un peu plus de la campagne et pour éviter les grands péages), et trouver des hôtels agréables. Evidemment, on n’avais pas de chance à faire des petites siestes, mais on à manger (sauf un ou deux repos) très très bien.

Je suis arrivé à Barcelone en retard (chacun de mes trois trains sont devenus plus en retard), et très fatigué d’avoir trainer mes 60kg de  bagages partout les gares qui je suis visité. Il restaient quelques petits morceaux de jambon et de chèvre, de melon et des fraises du frère de Papi. Ma sœur à commenté qu’ils étaient les meilleurs fraises qu’elle a déjà gouté. Normalement, il ne restaient plus de fraises.

On a mangé en plusieurs bons restaurants, et assez des bars de tapas (pintxos, comment ils s’appellent au pays Basque). Normalement, les meilleurs repos étaient aux restaurants plus simples et moins chers, mais il y avaient quelques hauts restaurants qui étaient aussi hyper bons que chers. En tout cas, les Basques ont de la vachement bonne cuisine. De plus, il est une région super belle : des belles plages, des bois, des jolies villes isolées. Est-ce que j’ai mentionné qu’on a mangé bien ? Quand quelqu’un est prêt à voyager là-bas, je serai très content de donner des noms et adresses des restaurants, etcetera. Dans les prochaines jours et semaines, je vais écrire quelques critiques dans mon blog.

Israël est vachement chaud, 35-40°, mais même très humide, alors, je deviens moelleux immédiatement quand je vais à l’extérieur. Je me suis bien amusé, et demain une copine va me rencontrer avant qu’on départ en Jordanie à plonger sur mer et explorer un peu. Et bien sûr que je mange (et mangerai) très bien. Ma famille a gouté et a aimé les fromages et viandes de Crozefond—particulièrement la pâté de ragondin (merci Vincent !).

Bon, il y a plusieurs des photos dans mon album et je vous invite a continuer de lire mon blog en anglais (vous savez qu’il faut pratiquer !), parce qu’il serais trop difficile de traduire tout en anglais… Vous me manquez trop. J’espère à vous visiter très bientôt. Passez mes saluts à Mami et Papi, les enfants, Vicky et Spot, et tous les autres qui je manque. Pensez de moi de temps en temps, comme je pense de vous, et m’envoyer des nouvelles quand vous avez des fois.

going to market

The weekly markets are butter to Crozefond’s bread. No fewer than three weekly markets are attended during the warmer months. The markets begin at Villeneuve-sur-lot on Wednesday morning. The marathon continues Thursday morning at Bordeaux before climaxing at an evening market on the way back to the farm Thursday night. Each market has its distinct dynamics.

Thirty minutes away from the farm, at Villeneuve, Mami and Regine lend a feminine sensibility together with a couple of the granddaughters. The market (what few minutes I experienced) has an altogether laid-back feel, though it has a fair number of producers. Papi’s brother, along with several other produce stands, sell fruit and vegetables. There’s a guy who makes great chevre (goat cheese), a fishmonger (if I remember correctly), and the occasional staples-peddler (salts, vinegars, etc).

Bordeaux is a much larger town, and is three hours away (meaning  getting up at 3:45 to load up the cold goods and get the camion rolling). This market, at least when stagiares are around, has a different, more intense feel, even with fewer vendors. Bordeaux is where Vincent tends to take the stagiares, and is the market I became most familiar with. It’s full of characters. Before we’ve even arrived, groupies are gathered at our parking spot. Sweet arthritic women and flamboyant old men know the stand’s workings better than do the stagiares, and get down and dirty helping us set up. They do this for nothing tangible in return. Julie, a psychology student at Bordeaux, works weekly to earn some extra euros. She’s quick on her toes: she seems comfortable dancing around the occasional harmless chauvinistic banter.

Then there’s her occasional patient-to-be, like Chella, who announced her distaste for Americans upon meeting me. When she learned my ethnic background she tried to redeem herself, but ultimately seemed confused that I consider myself an Israeli despite Arab roots. The next week, before any greetings or pleasantries, she chastised me for improperly returning her bicycle after borrowing the previous week. It turns out I left the seat lowered (my fault, yes, though the quick-release fastener should have rendered the adjustment easy as riding a bike) and for breaking her brakes (this one an unfounded accusation). Alas, some people, one learns, are best just left alone.

At 10:30am, our halfway point, we join forces with the winemakers to our side and set up a snack table behind the scenes. Wine glasses fill up, bread sliced, cheese and ham brought out. A couple of bicycle-mounted policemen and -women are regulars, but mostly older men show up, talk trash (in French the expression literally translates to “make the mayonnaise”), and get their morning buzz on. It’s very convivial, and poles apart from anything we’ll ever see at the Union Square market. Around two o’clock, we eat again, picking at leftover pizzas and quiches, rinsing with more wine (or coffee). Then we pack up and head to the second market of the day—an evening market complete with entertainment, booze, and lots more to eat.

Having spent the last twelve hours on the road and at the market earns one the privilege of relaxing a bit—walking around and sampling the fare. Mami introduced me to her cousins and various townsfolk. I chatted a fair bit with Serge, the mayor of Savignac who, along with the Pozzers, is entertaining and entertained by the possibility of me someday settling down in the area (have I mentioned I love it here?). There’s altogether too much food to go around. Working with one of the vendors has its privileges, such as grilled skewers of foie gras-studded duck breast, and pretty much all the wine one can drink. The British invasion in the area makes for a number of people with whom to practice my native tongue. And there’s the evening show—sometimes rock, sometimes rather awful folky stuff. Turnout reaches 1000 on busy weeks, creating another amazing scene that brings out my American’s jealousy. All of this is picturesquely set on the Lot river, and brings one to dream of living on its bank (Mami’s keeping her eyes out for a suitable piece of land for me).

At midnight commences a communal drunken chair-stacking, table-dragging orgy. We finally make it to sleep, a full twenty two hours after waking for the long day.

fires and booze

Since arriving, by my count (even counting sometimes gets fuzzy) I’ve attended four outings, for lack of a better term. Two were for St Jean’s day, two were festivals local to southwest France, called Bodegas.

St Jean’s day technically falls on June 24^th, but is celebrated whenever the local towns decide to celebrate it. I’m hopefully not stepping on too many Catholic toes by calling it a pretty pagan celebration. I compare it to Sweden’s similar bonfire holiday in late June. St Jean’s has the obvious religious connotation; Sweden’s is pretty outwardly-traditional/pagan. In any case, as it goes, it involves food (whether as simple as Savignac’s sausage grillade or as elaborate as St Aubin’s more intricate plate including pâté, grilled pork, veggie sides, and dessert), followed by a bonfire at nightfall (a late 23:30 at this time of year). St Aubin’s was rather tame while Savignac’s (Vincent’s) left me with a headache the next morning. Vincent corralled us up for the walk to his house, where he broke out his own pear eau-de-vie, prunes soaked in armagnac, along with a medley of beers and cognac. A cool bit of slang I learned for the post-drinking phenomenon (it sounds cooler in French than in English) literally translates into a “hair ache,” or “my hair is growing inward.”

Bodegas are an altogether different beast. The term is Spanish, but it refers to a township’s summer block party, if you will. Like the bonfires, they range from a smallish couple-hundred people dancing to bad ‘90s remixes and eating mediocre food (as we did outside of Monflanquin, to the much larger summer spectacular we at Issigeac (Bendicte’s hometown). Here, we started off with a hearty white bean soup slowly stewed with lots of pork skin, moved on to crepes stuffed with sautéed onions, crème fraiche, and ham, followed by a grilled brochette of duck breast. There’s no shortage of beer on tap and very drinkable box wine sold for less than a coke (1 euro). Throughout, we grooved to various bands playing throughout the picturesque village, from French marching band to contemporary French fare to a good blues cover band.

In any case, small or large, elaborate or simple, I can only think of one event I’ve attended (alas, I wanted to USA-bash with an honest zero) in the States that would begin to match the experience: Danny Meyer’s Madison Square Park BBQ spectacular (the queues are ridonculous (sic), but the food is outstanding). Seems it’s time for me to hit up some real southern BBQ fairs…

a bit of the bayou

We went crayfishing the other day. Armed with traps that reminded me more of hanging fruit baskets for the kitchen, we’d strategically (read: right side up, in the water) set them down in the muddy stream, wait a few minutes, and then pull them back onto land. The  traps being little more than glorified nets, it was key to get it out of the water and onto land before the big bugs would crawl through the net and back to safety. We baited with some old sardines Claudette had in the freezer along with special crayfish (écrevisse) snacks (read: not-so-slim dry blood sausage slim jims). The little buggers preferred what probably more natural to them: the sardines (or maybe it had something to do with the snackies not being organic).

We were worried at first that it’d go the way of my flopped turkey  hunt last fall (no turkeys in sight, thanks), but after a few empty nets we caught onto their game, and ended up with something like 80 of the American guys (turns out they’re not native: they’re a pest that somehow got transplanted at some point—the better, I’m told, native crustaceans of bigger rivers are only allowed to be hunted one day each year). Cleaning them meant carefully grabbing the body with one hand (careful not to lose a finger in their pinching claws), and pulling out their middle tail-fin, vein (and digestive waste) included. Cooking them was deliciously straightforward: a hard sear, ample garlic and parsley, and a flambé of Vincent’s prune (plum) eau de vie (literally: water of life, really: fire water). They yield even less than Maryland blue crabs, so you need to be prepared with a patient appetite and to make use of the guts, not just the tails. There were lots of mosquitoes and thorns about, but a hyper- (as they say around here) fun time.

life is good when...

...you wake up to birds chirping and cows mooing

...lunch has traveled less than 50 yards to make it into your stomach

...a hot day warrants an evening dip in the salt- (not chlorine-) treated pool

...drinking an ’83 Bordeaux during lunch is nothing out of the ordinary

...(surrogate or otherwise) Grandma doesn’t quit trying to force dessert upon you

Perhaps I’m showing off a bit, and I’m surely presenting the idealistically wonderful side of working on a farm, but none of the above is embellished. How about chiming in on a few of your favorite things?

prunes

Like raisin, prune refers to the fresh fruit in French, not the dried names we use in English. Crozefond is studded with 8m tall hedges. Trees really, but all in nice, straight lines, dividing their property into 3-4 hectare (7-9 acre) plots. At least a third of these trees are wild plum trees, called mirabels. Late June and into July the trees come into their prime, yielding bucketfuls of fruit. Unlike the  homogenous fruit population we’ve become used to in big cities, each and every one of these trees are different. They ripen at different times, weeks apart. Some ripen to yield a yellow fruit, others are nearly black when sweet, and of course all the fiery shades of orange and red between. Not only do the colors differ, but each tree yields fruit with a unique flavor. It is all so beautifully variable.

I made a few tarts using the fruit a couple of weeks ago, and the idea has caught on to start using them in the farm’s pastries. So, this week, Sarah and I, along with three of the grandkids who live on the farm, went hunting, along with two five gallon buckets (and a host of smaller ones), a large sheet, and a rake (the best tool we could find to use as a hook). Blanket stretched out at four corners, the rake wielder would literally shake the fruit off the trees. About half of it landed in the sheet, the rest would fertilize the surrounding soil. The fallen fruit seems of little matter considering we snagged at least 30kg of fruit within a couple of hours.

Over Sunday lunch, with Papi, we cut open about ten of the fruit to test them using his sugar refractometer to get a gauge of the percentage of sugar in the various colors and ripeness levels (In case you’re curious, it turns out the yellows (even the ripe ones) harbor the least sugar, whereas the deep reds are the sweetest). At the end, we scooped the mangled fruit into the compost heap. Now, I’ll be the first to complain about wasting perfectly good fruit, but the stuff is literally falling off the trees. I love this place.

snails snails everywhere

This year’s June has been weird. It’s been raining on and off for a while now. We haven’t gone more than a couple of days without rain, in fact, and some nights have been cold enough that I’m glad I ended up bringing a coat along for the summer. When the rain comes, so do the snails. For slow-moving creatures, they sure come out quickly. When the lawn is wet, there’s an inevitable crunch every so often. So Claudette, Sarah (the new stagiaire), and I went foraging for the little homemakers. They seem to like climbing on walls and around certain plants. We loaded up a special escargot basket (with a locking door, and mesh too small for them to crawl through) full of them and pondered our upcoming meal.

A couple of days later, Mami finally got around to cleaning the suckers (turns out you soak them in a water-based mixture of salt and vinegar, with some stinging nettle if you feel like going to the trouble), and boiled ‘em. I whipped up a nice aioli, and we got to eating (I eat the whole best, while Claudette likes to get rid of the guts). A couple days of this, and the idea (and the snails) grew old. Claudette made a little tomato-based stew with the rest of them, which we thankfully gave up on days later. Still, it’s nice to be up to date on my snail-handling skills.

self-conscious evolutionary introspection

I’ve written about fifty posts thus far. Enough tedious verbose prose to fill a small book. I’m psyched to have so many thoughts and ramblings on record—artifacts I’ll revisit someday, to laugh and blush. The past months are far from over and have been nothing short of amazing, even on my (mostly) shoestring budget. They've changed my life, even though I haven’t outwardly changed much.

I’m still shy about meeting new people (well, women, really), and that’s helped me keep this journey calmingly introspective, though isolated at times. In addition to the lucky few that I’ve added as valued people in my life, I’ve had time to think about those I’ve increasingly missed. And then there are those that I’ve lamentably alienated and neglected, usually without even knowing it. I wouldn’t trade or imply regret about a day of it.

This time-consuming project started with wanting to keep friends and family in the loop about my hopefully debauched exploits. Pondering aloud (it’s my blog, and I’ll ruminate if I want to), it’s both succeeded and failed. The successes can be found in those of you who continue to read and stay in touch. I’m so happy about the few I haven’t heard from in ages, with whom I now correspond. I get to keep everyone (well, anyone who cares enough to read) updated. The failure, however, is rather obvious to those of you who haven't kept up from the start: information overload. There's just too much to read in fewer than twenty sittings. Who knows, maybe there'll be a book deal?

boudin noir

My first morning on the farm, I moseyed on over to the charcuterie (the same general structure that houses some storage spaces, the patisserie, the boulangerie—really a huge wood-burning oven where they bake the bread, and the cheese cave). I was delighted to stumble upon Benedicte (married to the Pozzers’ middle-generation, Nicolas) getting ready to make what Daniel already tipped me off as the best boudin noir (blood sausage) in the region.

She had cooked (boiled) the heads, feet, lungs, and hearts, of the two pigs that had been slaughtered four days prior. Everything except the bones and the snouts got passed through the grinder. She fetched the bag of blood and added it to the mix, along with some onions, garlic, and seasoning, and mixed it all up. We sorted out the salted intestines (different pigs’) and started stuffing the casings. All this went back into the original cooking liquid for a few hours, just short of simmering. What came out was magic.

I ate the stuff for the next few days, a piece here and there for lunch—it really is the best I have had—it’s all the goodies that elevate it above the usual blood and fat mix. It’s a shame, but they stop slaughtering pigs during the summer: it gets too warm to properly handle the meat. This was sadly the last for the season, and the first of many reasons to come back.

drinking and driving

I landed in France an hour late. No worries: I still had no idea what train I’d be on. Border control and baggage claim were a breeze, my 28kg (60lbs) of baggage notwithstanding. I had cheese with me from New York. French cheese—silly to import back to France, but I knew it’d be a while til I saw some decent food. Short of decent bread, I made an attempt, and bought a few dinner rolls at one of the overpriced airport cafés. I got to the airport train station and did the obvious thing of using the automated machine to buy my ticket. Except for that machines in Europe (like the Europeans themselves) tend to hate Americans: it wouldn’t accept my cards. So I got in a long, sweaty line, waiting to talk to a real person. And thirty minutes (that could have been better spent washing up in the toilette) later, I had an expensive ticket to the middle of nowhere, SW France.

I ate my cheese, slept, and did what I could on my computer before my (and my computer’s) batteries ran out (gripe: thanks to installing Vista, my battery life was about a third of what it usually was—call me old fashioned, but I’ve gone back to XP). One transfer and seven hours later, I had arrived. There was no one awaiting me, even though I had called ahead to let them know when I’d be arriving. I did the embarrassing thing of walking up to a strange car, thinking that the lady was smiling at me, thinking that my ride had arrived. It wasn’t my ride.

Vincent Pozzer, of the middle generation (actually, I think there's a great grandchild out there), pulled up fifteen minutes later, helped me with my bags, and apologized for showing up late. We went through the usual pleasantries, and he pulled a cold, organic, Bavarian beer out of the glove box. We clinked the bottles and toasted to good health; he had already started on his own bottle. Things would be different out here in the country.

It was about 10pm when we arrived to the farm, “Crozefond,” and the sun would keep the sky lit until around 1130. I dropped off my bags in the caravane, a dusty, cobwebby old RV, where I’d be staying for the month. I met Claudette, better known as Mami (grandma), and Gilbert, aka Papi, whose name I didn’t even learn til days later. We ate dinner, together with their granddaughter Matilde, who’s one of the few not to live on the farm. I said my bonnes nuits, and headed to unpack my bags. It was only thanks to Mami’s flashlight that I was able to get anything done—there wasn’t any electricity feeding into my place until we ran the extension cord two days later. It was an inexplicably excellent evening in all, and I went to bed, unpacked, and with sweet dreams.

the big apple

A few (too many, as usual) words on New York, while the memory is still fresh stale in my mind. The week passed like a summer thunderstorm. As it approached, I was a bit apprehensive of being back in the city, perhaps nervous that I’d feel out of place, maybe just worried about how the reunions would go. I love thunderstorms, especially with empty hands and pockets, getting drenched with abandon. I got to see nearly everyone I have been close to in the city, and the mood had hardly changed. Sure, there are those who have drifted away, some seemingly for good. But I was truly thrilled with the way the whole trip went.

I got to meet my new roommates and sublettors, as I found them online while in Morocco, and never got to meet anyone beyond a few emails. Despite the fact that one’s a vegan, another a vegetarian, and a third will only go as far as fish, they’re really a great group of people, and I’m glad I have cool people taking care of the place while I’m gone. The two in my room even went to the hours-long task of scrubbing down the kitchen and getting rid of the remains of myriad poisoned mouse bodies.

I love the city. Of course, I had no real responsibilities, no work, and no hardcore deadlines (the fee to change my flight date was somehow just $50), so a good time was to be expected. My friends who cook poked me, reminding me how hard it will be to come back to civilization and settle down. Another friend gave me a too-honest opinion of my blog (boring), which will hopefully keep me on my toes, and at least start categorizing posts as boring vs. exciting, etc…

I ate (this part is important) at Spicy+Tasty (Szechuan out in Flushing), Han Bat (Korean in k-town), Trestle (Swiss guy who’s doing really fun food in Chelsea), Resto (twice—Belgian beer/resto in Murray Hill), and in an unnamed Peruvian restaurant in Elmhurst (my part of queens), among others. All of the mentioned meals were awesome, and there are pictures in my album. The best meals, of course, were home cooked between Jasper, Kat, and I, dripping with sweat all the while, since both days we cooked were ridiculously hot/humid. Highlights included a pig head/foot terrine I made, Kat's strawberry tart-turned strawberries and cream, and pig skin tacos.

Moma had some awesome stuff going on, and I’m glad I made it before the exhibits closed (Comic Abstraction closed the next day). I paid full admission for 45 minutes to run through the museum before it closed, and I found it worth every penny. The Comic exhibit was a fun surprise I wasn’t expecting—I was supposedly here to just to see Richard Serra's mind-fing-blowing sculptures. Scurrying from floor to floor, the goofy smile on my face remained.

My visit was none too short or long. I made the best of it, and after an afternoon at Moma and catching up over a beer, I was back as my sweaty self, running to make it to the airport on time for my flight to France.

work and play

It was time to begin dismantling the old bathroom. Wallpaper first, then stripping the old glue off the walls, then finally the hardware—ripping out the sink and medicine cabinet. I spent about thirty seconds pondering my building manager’s suggestion to just paint the old wooden vanity, replace the sink, and call it new. The idea properly blown off, I got into the car and visited trusty IKEA for some new cabinetry. As I was about to swipe my MasterCard at the self-pay machine, I suddenly realized that I had no card to swipe. Fearing an empty-handed 45 minute trip back to Evanston, I narrowly avoided complete hysteria. So it was a relief to find my wallet in the car, the trip successful after all.

To celebrate the recent spate of successes I headed for dinner at Lula Café, a short hop away on the expressway. I walked through the throngs of hopeful diners waiting to be matched with tables, and was seated immediately (one of many advantages to dining alone). Having consulted about the menu with Shiri during the drive, I already knew what I’d be ordering. Along with a $1.75 bottle of PBR, I gave my order, substituting for the appetizer they were no longer serving. I read and waited, and was reminded of why Lula is one of my favorite Chicago restaurants: the service is young, professional, and friendly; their products are sourced at local farms, and are organic wherever possible; and most importantly, the food on their specials menu is always on. The highlight of the meal, pictured above, was pork shoulder, roasted and sliced thinly, over a basil pesto-laced ragout of beans, artichokes, favas, ramps, and chorizo.

Back at home, more fun with the construction. Not allowing myself any downtime, I put together the new cabinets before going to sleep. These small projects have a way of snowballing when you least expect them to. I had no such bad luck this time. Sure, a few tiles came loose, and the angle of the corner for the cabinet was a little bigger than a perfect 90 degrees, but these were all easy fixes. By Friday I was putting on finishing touches and shipping 400 pounds of boxed books and other goodies back home. To complete the evening, I headed for a sushi bar where I’ve come to befriend the chef, BK, proceeding to feast on fifteen or so courses of raw and cooked fish. I had promised Shiri some photos of the bean, so I obliged after dinner, and walked off some of the meal.

The bathroom was finished in time for a quick detour to Indianapolis, to visit whom other than EB and family, all helped by the prospect of seeing a huge part of Americana for the first time: the famed Indy 500. A craigslist ad found me someone with whom to split costs, so we arranged for an early Saturday departure, with confidence that most of the work in Evanston was done.

arrivals

My visit to Chicago entailed a few simple objectives. The timing was dictated by Will’s concert, the first night upon my arrival. Aside from that, the main point of the visit was to redo the bathroom and to find someone to rent the condo in Evanston for the next year. Without anybody to help me, or to keep me company, for that matter, it was a struggle to stay on-task. I have a serious affinity for procrastination, and Chicago is full of tempting tastes and sights.

After getting situated in Evanston, I headed downtown for the concert. The tickets put us in the fourth row, the best seats I’ve ever really had for a big show. The band was absolutely amazing—I can't say enough good things about the show, so I’ll leave it at that. After spending a few minutes backstage, we were off for a drink before I headed back home. All in all, a fantastic way to start the week.

The next day I showed the apartment a couple of times, and on just the second try, found a young man who fit the bill perfectly. I celebrated with dinner at my favorite local place that prides itself on local/seasonal/sustainable/organic products. Keeping with the trend of my week, my experience at Campagnola was perfect. I sat at the bar and greeted the other customer dining beside me. After ordering three small courses, the bartender (turned out to be the manager/partner) offered me a taste of tequila somebody had dropped off that day. When I accepted with the snobby condition that it be white tequila, the evening really took off running. My de facto dining companion lit up, impressed by my ordering what he ate, and our similar taste in tequila. They asked if I was in the food business, and so I explained my involvement, and eventually got into the story of the past months. The manager arranged for an extra course and, together with the portions I ordered, my stomach nearly ruptured by the end of the meal (much to the amusement of my new buddies). The food was great, as always, but this experience was particularly special. My week in the Midwest would remain highlighted.

when bad things happen to bad people

I, probably unlike most others, check my spam mailbox every now and then. Besides the occasional message from someone I know, I usually delete them all. These spammers get email addresses from websites where one might have inadvertently left one's address for the world to see. Or from those pesky chain letters that float around every so often (if you’re going to forward those to people, have the decency to bcc them so their address isn’t ripe for the picking).

So, I wonder, if I post Tracy’s latest message to me: “Hi, i am here sitting in the internet caffe. Found your email and decided to write. I am 25 y.o.girl. I have a picture if you want. No need to reply here as this is not may email. Write me at atracey2@springmessage.info,” will Tracy start getting spam too?

faggot and chips

The physical act of travelling seems to make time tick faster. After returning from a week of diving in Eilat (with a tan unlike anything since the bygone days of marching band rehearsals in high school), I was running. To find a place to sleep the night in London. To pack. To soak in whatever I might still have time for. I took a last walk around my aunt’s lovely garden, tasting an unfamiliar herb, eating something that I’ve only had off their tree—a cherry-sized bright red fruit, tart, sweet, and with a flavor (and shape) reminiscent of a bell pepper.

I hadn’t flown on a regular British Airways flight in years. Over half the plane was dedicated to first, business, and ‘economy plus.’ That left me in plain old economy, in the back, with a window seat that required significant contortion to get into and out of. Listen to me whining: ridiculous. It was just upon landing that the flight got weird. A born-and-bred Israeli was my buffer to the British Jewish woman who had apparently moved to Israel twenty-five years earlier. Approaching 50, she looked great for her age. Earlier, when food and drinks came around, I did the naïve thing of asking how much it would be for some wine. She had no such questions—she knew the alcohol was free, and had been sucking down nips of gin since we’d taken off. Then, as we taxied, she started her drunk ramblings. About how great Israel is, and how she’s a million percent behind it, but about how it does bad things, things that we didn’t want to know about. I was thankful to get left alone: the odd American out. I sympathized with some of her story, but could only take so much of her drunken cynicism, relieved when she finally got up to deplane.

The Israeli and I shared a cynical chuckle of our own, and 90 minutes later I was walking into the Anchor & Hope gastropub in London—the objective of tonight’s mission. It had been a couple of years since my last visit, and I was itching for some down-and-dirty English cuisine. The bartenders didn’t fail me. The duck consommé, though a bit peppery, was made all the better by the slice of foie gras terrine floating in it. The seppia I ate next was some of the best I’ve had—braised and rich (likewise for the “little gem” beans served with it), topped with a healthy dollop of green aïoli. The star of the meal—the reason I came here rather than some other fancier London bistro: the faggot. Uninhibited when it comes to food, when my charming waiter told me about the meatball of pork belly, liver, heart, and lungs (oh, and some minced onions), all wrapped in caul fat and braised in a white wine-based broth, well, I knew the faggot was my match. I only had eyes for the succulent ball of offal, and recruited Louise and Simon to help get rid of the evidence. We got to chatting about food and life and adventure—they were great conversation partners. I made haste for the last train to the airport and, once arrived, pondered on how to get to the hotel. I was fortunate to run into a young American couple in the same situation, and the three of us split a cab back toward the hotels near LHR. Well, not really: I didn’t have any currency they could use, so I mooched a ride—my visit was going like clockwork.

I slept four hours and got up to several different alarms, not wanting to miss my flight. After showering I got on the $8 shuttle that would take me the 2 miles to the airport. Not only did I have to wait for the shuttle, but then we made stops at several adjacent hotels, and stopped at terminals 1 and 2 before arriving at my destination. At that point, my plane was about 30 minutes short of taking off. As my bags were checked through already, I ran for the border, stripped of my ancient bottle of water along the way. The line looked long and slow, and I begged to be taken to the front—the guy told me I wouldn’t be long in line, that I should just wait. Fine. Five minutes later, and maybe three passengers had gone through my metal detector (I think I chose the wrong line). I asked another guy, and this time I got the royal treatment—a free cut to the front of line. Through customs, and even before my departure stamp was dry, I was running for the gate (a sign told me it was 20 minutes away). Entitled punk that I am, I found an electric cart parked on the way to the gate, and gave its driver my short of breath sob story. Sirens blaring (okay, more of a beeping than a siren), we raced (okay, it was more the speed of a good jog) to the gate, where I promptly hopped onto a moving plane (okay, it wasn’t moving just yet) [inhale], put my goofy eyeshades on, and went to sleep, engines blazing.

on flying

Lucid dreaming has been a recurring topic for me in years past. For those in need of a definition, imagine suddenly snapping to and realizing you are in the middle of a dream—not waking up, just becoming cognizant of the dream state. Worlds of possibilities arise. Safely rehearse pickup lines on imaginary bar goers, fearless of real rejection. The Porsche you’ve been coveting is in your garage, and it’s time for its afternoon drive. With the mere thought, pick up and fly, superman-style. There are websites dedicated to helping people dream lucidly. In years past, I’ve tried to go down that road. First step is to train yourself to wake up post dream state and take notes. I got that far, but have not yet followed through—google the topic to learn more for yourself.

See, a lot of what attracted me to dreaming lucidly was the notion of being able to fly, fearlessly, naked if that’s on my agenda. The website teaches a few techniques, among them flapping your arms like a chicken or taking a deep breath and simply lifting off the ground. Irrespective of dreaming, I’ve been flying recently. Well, sort of. Done properly (which the past week of awesome classes and practice has allowed me), scuba diving is flying, underwater. And so  here I am, in this underwater world, floating higher on inhalation (not that kind of high, and not that kind of inhalation, though the nitrogen in your air will get you high if you dive deep enough), descending a bit on empty lungs. I still hope to start flying in my dreams.

home away from home

Ah: the feeling of being back in a familiar place after months away. While hardly my home away from home (I’ve probably spent less than 6 months out here in my entire 28 years of existence), I have my aunts and uncles and cousins—people I do feel at home with. Continuing the trend as I’ve moved eastward through the past month, I’ve been getting more vegetables in my diet, beginning most mornings with the local traditional salad (small-chopped tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, peppers, lemon juice, olive oil) and avocadoes from my uncle’s tree. As of late my breath has taken on raunchy notes despite my diligent oral hygiene—due in large to a daily diet of garlicky “salads” such as hummus and various plays on eggplant themes. Still, I press forward in my never-ending quest for perfect dishes. Such as the hummus by “Gingi” (“redhead,” in this  case used as a nickname), a kibbutz-dwelling religious man making a daily batch of hummus and falafel, selling it by the plateful to hungry lunchers, closing up shop as his mise-en-place is 86ed. Dr. Shakshuka's shakshuka (a fresh tomatoey ragout on which eggs are poached) wasn't bad either.

An early heat wave has been gripping most of the country, making for a sticky and drippy visit, though only to the betterment of the fruit. I’ve made the best of the local strawberries, eating them as nature intended—by the bowlful. The kumquats we sought and paid so dearly for at Craigie Street Bistrot drop to the ground by the treeful, their trees unable to convince my aunt and uncle to make use of their amazing fruit. A tropical orange fruit here called Shesek has  followed me from Morocco, except for that instead of paying for them here, I get to liberate them from friends’ trees, as they head in a similar direction as the doomed kumquats (down). Anat’s dog, between being tortured by the neighbor’s puppy wolf dog, wolfed down (yeah: heh heh) the few fruit we didn’t see fit for our own consumption.

And then there’s that which universally makes family family. The bickering. The shouting. Arguing with my uncle about the near and dear topic of global warming—him adamantly taking Michael Crighton’s fictional preposterous stance we humans had nothing to do with this latest cycle.

Warm spring afternoons and evenings spent dining in the garden...in the end feeling oddly at home.

obnoxious europeans?

Okay, another preachy rant.

I’ll be the first to bitch and moan about annoying locals while traveling. Sure, while travelling one is sure to run into scam artists and sleazebags, but the overarching generalizations I hear while travelling continue to amaze, dumbfound, and annoy me. I tell people I was in Germany, and they respond with whatever generalization they’ve decided applies to all its people. Some seem to assume I’ve had an awful time based on where I was. My experiences have been nothing short of amazing, though. In France, the supposed French snobs were nothing short of friendly. In Switzerland, the supposed stiff-necked Swiss at times almost smothered me with help and literally took me into their homes. In Germany, the supposed loud-mouthed fascists afforded me an absolutely amazing week of adventure and good times.

These generalizations should stay in the press and in off-color jokes. They shouldn’t make or break a vacation, and I just want to go on record to preach say that I certainly won’t let them dictate my travels.

a bum in munich

Most of my time in Munich was spent wandering around, opting again to live the local unemployed life rather than the usual guidebook recommendations. Outfitted with Andy’s bike (too big even for him, a few inches taller than me), I made use of the city’s myriad bicycle lanes. I must have been a sight, peddling furiously and coasting in thirty-second intervals, unable to peddle while seated. In fact, coming to a stop meant either finding a lamppost to lean on or hopping off the seat while maneuvering the bike to an angle so that I didn’t damage that fun area where my legs come together. Still, it beat walking.

The English Garden (a park bigger than New York’s Central Park) was great: full of sunbathers even on a weekday afternoon, dotted with biergartens where, besides a pint of hefeweizen, the smallest pour you could get is a liter (the 17 year-olds at an adjacent table were outdrinking me with theirs). There’s even a section of river running where with an artificial wave for surfing practice. Then there are all of the community gardens throughout Germany—I love them. Not only are they much larger than the dinky plots I’m familiar with on the east coast of the US, but most are accessorized with glorified shacks, a grill, and beers kept cold in a fridge. In case you opt out of the fridge option, there’s usually a biergarten within a few hundred meters. My favorite more-or-less natural beauty site, though, was that of the Nymphenburg castle (more of a palace, really). The surrounding hundreds of acres of gardens were nothing short of enchanting. I was only able to peer through the locked fence of the botanical garden; actually visiting it may have made me cry. As if mocking our highly urbanized way of life in the big cities back home, there were a few apartments just beside the botanical garden—of course they had their personal ‘secret’ garden plots hidden behind a wooden fence. I strolled about the area, cursing to myself in awe, asking out loud whom I’d have to kill to live out here.

Beer and food were obvious priorities—Andy and I went through lots of pints at his place (I didn’t take notes, but it was hard to go wrong with anything). I made it a point to cook at least a couple of times. Germans love white asparagus (spargel), and it’s reflected in their spring markets. One night we just grilled (salad on the side, thank you), and another night I went a little further, with four different salads, a roasted organic chicken (€10/kg!?!), and fresh hollandaise to accompany a pile of white asparagus I prepared. All in Yanni and _GermanAndi’s beautiful house, in a great kitchen, on the patio of their fragrant garden.

I managed to squeeze in a daytrip to Salzburg, where I finally let loose the tourist in me—visiting museums, riding funiculars, and even snapping a picture of baby Mozart in a cradle in his mummified house (it was too cheesy to skip). The views from the old fortress were amazing. Here, on a fortune based on salt (a basis, in turn, for the town’s name), an empire would withstand Roman conquest in large part due to its strategic perch on a steep hill overlooking town. I even managed to enjoy a great meal at an otherwise touristy-looking restaurant by the funicular. On my way back to the station, I bought a beer to drink on the train ride back to Munich (more for the novelty of it than anything else), but was really just too stuffed from lunch—so much for novelties.

My last act in Munich was to be a fancy meal out. I asked my newly acquired German friends, and after much deliberation, the conclusion was that I should head for Tantris. So I peddled coasted peddled coasted my way to the restaurant, anticipating my first truly fancy meal since I was in Morocco (at ten times the price, of course). I don’t even have to admit (those who know me probably know this regardless) that I was very afraid of a letdown. I ate a brilliant seven course lunch, forcing myself to think in dollars rather than euros so as not to jolt the food back out of my belly. I subsequently beached myself on a grassy patch amongst the hordes at the English Garden. There I pondered the meaning of life before heading home to pack and mentally prepare for the transition to speaking yet another (not so) foreign language.

München

I hit the ground running in Munich. First things first, Andy and I split a couple of sausages upon my arrival at the train station. With my eight hour meat-fast finally over, we went on to bigger and better things, tasting through several of Germany’s finest brews back at Andy’s flat. Not to underdo the evening, we met up later with a few of Andy’s friends and colleagues at a smoky, crowded bar, complete with attitude-ridden servers. _EnglishAndy showed up just in time for the second round and, living up to my English stereotypes, made it his mission to keep each of our pints optimistically half-full. It wouldn’t have been so bad had we called it a night at a reasonable hour, but of course we crawled from pub to pub, prioritizing morning headaches over good night’s sleeps.

We had a huge day ahead of us, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that we overslept, waking only as _GermanAndi was waiting at our door. It was the classic late-for-school moment, and we played the parts, fumbling in our respective hazes, packing painkillers for the excursion. We piled into Andi’s beautifully-restored 1971 Alfa Romeo coupe, and met with his girlfriend for a typical Bavarian breakfast, complete with spongy floating sausages and pretzels. Breakfast was good. The rest, however, was a picturesque dream of a day.

We took the Alfa to an old-timers’ rally and spent some time gawking at the remarkable rides—some weird, some cute, and some downright sexy. Andy and I ventured into the fairgrounds, taking a look at a rather typical Bavarian carnival—rides that make you puke, food that makes you balloon. We stepped into a mini-me version of the huge beer tents that line the grounds for Oktoberfest. Fish on a stick (not that processed thing we call a fish stick back home—a real trout grilled on a stick), ham hocks, and crispy pork roulades—the foodstuffs of Atkins dieters. And of course their antitheses: liter-sized mugs of beer. Still full from breakfast, I still had to try some of the local spaetzle-and-cheese (beats the Kraft version), and another version prepared with ham and kraut (needed a little more ‘stuff’ mixed in).

After finding Andi, we were on the road, doing a grand tour of Munich’s surroundings. He showed us some of his favorite (for their fun-to-drive windy country road feel) shortcuts that he’s been known to push to the limit (his dad works for BMW and he has a friend who tests their prototypes). Part of me is disappointed I didn’t take notes as to the names of the places we visited, but the rest of me does/didn’t feel it necessary in the least. Regardless, we motored by just-blooming trees and fields aglow with yellow rapeseed flowers (their harvested oil is used as a sustainable energy source). Everything about the day was wonderful, down to the perfect weather.

It was great to see some of the things you just don’t see anywhere else. On the lakeshore, by a grassy patch brimming with sunbathers, we visited a biergarten alive with clientele who obviously know how to relish a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Not to be taken as a culture of beer-drinking idiots, there are lots of popular alternatives to straight beer—you can drink a thirst-quenching mix of sparkling water and apple juice (any juice, really), or, if you still want a lighter bit of EtOH, that can be had as a sweet mix of hefeweizen (an unfiltered wheat beer) and lemonade.

As it was Sunday, Andi and Andy thought it would be nice to visit a beautiful old Monastery with a beautiful baroquely (my spell-checker says that’s a word) decked-out church. The main draw of this hilltop Monastery, at least on this afternoon, is its (drum roll) biergarten. We sampled the beers and gorged ourselves on cured meat and cheese products (stemming from another cultural tradition here that’s best translated as bread time). The monks also make schnapps, of which we sampled four, in the form of nips that Andy (Andi was driving) and I took turns emptying. Full and buzzing, we finally headed home.

blood sausage and hot chocolate

Getting to Lyon took a long time. I left Fes at 9am, and after the train rides to Casa, the flight to Lyon, and the bus rides into town, I didn’t arrive to Karoline’s place until 10:30pm. It was still an action-packed day. Among its highlights was a verbal tiff between two girls upon disembarking the plane, made more interesting by the fact it played out over my lap. Lows included the discovery that my SIM card (so that I could use my phone in France to call my host) was nowhere to be found, and my profuse sweating in the heat of the terminal while trying to finagle my luggage to appear (through magic) as though it wasn’t indeed 5kg over the limit.

I had arranged to couchsurf in Lyon with a wonderful Norwegian student, Karoline, as it didn’t make sense to take the train straight to Geneva so late at night. I was greeted with hospitality becoming that of a Moroccan: as I was too late for a proper dinner at a bouchon, she and her roommate had stayed up, and pizzas were going into the oven as I finally walked in the door. We stayed up chatting and drinking some decent local wine. The next day I hiked up to the big farmers’ market and bought enough cheese and cured meats to feed eight as a main course. I left some for my hosts, but happily dragged the rest through Europe.

Karoline accompanied me to lunch at Café des Federations, a bouchon (a Lyonnais bistrot, for lack of a better term) I had thoroughly enjoyed during my last visit to town. It was as good as I remembered it—the pigs’ cheeks were outstanding, as was the boudin noir (blood sausage). The cheeses were everything I had been craving during my visit in Morocco. Everything was so good that I missed my train to Geneva—easy enough to fix thanks to Europe’s fast and frequent trains.

First order in Geneva, after finding my friend Zoe, was to find a place to sleep and park my 70lbs worth of bags (my couchsurfing efforts had gone without success in Geneva). It was getting late, and the hostel had a complet (no vacancy) sign on the door. I borrowed a trick from The Secret (a super-cheesy self-help book/video) that EB and Whitney had taught me, and walked in the door anyway, believing there would be a bed for me. There was; I have decided that for my next trick, I’m going to have a Tahitian island to call my own.

Armed with my cheese and Zoe’s wine and bread, we headed for the lakefront, where we’d meet another friend of hers and feast on the awe-inspiring bounty. It was a delightful evening, despite the wind, the unique piece of fresh brebis that sadly landed in the lake, and the nesting duck that snapped at me on my way to a makeshift toilet. A fantastic hot shower awaited me at the hostel, but so did an amazingly stinky, stuffy room (the leftover cheese went with Zoe to her fridge).

I spent my next day calmly wandering and sightseeing (in that order). I sampled raclette (cheese toasted by a fire, served with boiled potatoes) and some of the local (hot) chocolat. We attended a slightly pompous, but nonetheless interesting, lecture on one man’s proposed solution for the conflict between Israel and the Arabs. And then for some more local color, a birthday (I think) picnic on the lakefront, with some more wine and my cheese (no, still not sick of it). The evening took an interesting turn when I embarked barhopping on a three hour tour with Arnaud (a chap who was looking to end up spending time with one of the girls at the picnic, but somehow ended up with me instead) and his hotelier friends.

I shopped at the market and cooked Friday lunch for Zoe and her 10 year-old host sister, treasuring the mushrooms, artichokes, and asparagus. I have to say, though, that the highlight of my time in Geneva was easily the housewarming-come-dance party that Jere took us to on Friday night. There we were, minding our beer and sausages, when out came the fiddle (okay, violin) and accordion. What ensued was quite a bit of floor shaking and an all-around great time (click on the picture and check out the videos). As it turns out, they just play for fun (and occasional cash): the two young ladies making the music are botanical biologists by day. Though I breeze over this evening, it really made the trip that much more memorable.

Before running to barely catch the train the next morning, Zoe and I detoured to visit Les Schtroumphs, an old housing development named after The Smurfs for the Gaudiesque design—a worthless diversion. While I did sing the theme song for a bit, the real musical kicker came to me on the ride to Munich—lush green fields and a hum that went something like, the fields are alive / with the sound of music.

sidebar: levels of Moroccan hospitality

More ways to laugh and cringe at hospitality:

Level 1 Hospitality (code green): The most common form, found in Berber rug shops and given by complete strangers. This usually involves tea and/or pastries. It includes the phenomenon of food and drink sharing on public transportation. This is the most basic form of hospitality known to Moroccans, as basic and reflexive as a midwestern American's habit of smiling to and greeting strangers.

Level 2 Hospitality (code blue): Like marijuana, the "gateway drug," this pecking behavior can wear down a receiver's defenses and open the door to higher, more extreme levels of hospitality. It specifically involves the paying for of things such as meals, drinks, and taxi rides. It is difficult to control without a firm grasp of  Arabic, and with the male-dominated society, a woman is helplessly overruled by a man's insistence on paying. The best method for countering this level of hospitality is to slyly beat the host to the check, most easily on a supposed trip to the bathroom.

Level 3 Hospitality (code yellow): Exhibited between even cursory acquaintances, this usually involves lunch at a family's house. This includes the full mint tea ceremony upon completion of the meal. Helping the hostess with the cleanup is difficult to impossible.

Level 4 Hospitality (code orange): Dinner or lunch followed by dinner. It usually goes on late into the night, includes traditional music on the television, and is often accompanied by a polite offer to sleep over (usually turned down).

Level 5 Hospitality (code red): A true hostage-taking experience, this is hospitality gone cancerous. The host (notice an intimate relationship between "host" and "hostage") usually means well, desiring to drown immerse the recipient in his/her hospitality. Sadly, the affection is poorly placed, and the recipient is put on the defensive, overdosing on the hospitality. Meals don't taste as good because of the emotional charge, and ease and comfort is replaced by great anxiety. The only way out is a firm, almost rude insistence on an end to the proceedings.

parting days

I'm having second thoughts about this. As you may have figured out, I am nearly two weeks behind in posting. In Morocco, that was not usually such a big deal. Now, however, I am in Germany, writing  about my last days in Morocco, and it's not going so well. Maybe it’s because I’m in a lush Central Park-like setting, sitting in a biergarten by a lake, sipping a hefeweizen. Either way, I have been trying to write this post for days now, and I just haven’t been able to focus on it, so I'm over it (as we used to say back in college, at apartment M2).

My last week in Fes was a highly accelerated one. Writing this post from Europe certainly can’t do it justice. Beginning before our trip to Taza, with Will leaving, it seemed like a chain reaction had formed: EB’s mom left three days later, I finally settled on a ticket to France, and Whitney was talking about leaving in two weeks. Reality had at least begun to make itself known, though even now I flagrantly continue to blow it off. Still, the plan was set: visit Zoe in Geneva for a couple of days after a night in Lyon, then off to Munich to visit Andy, and then to Israel for a bit to tool around with, among others, my cousin Shai.

EB and Whit were planning an excursion to Sefrou, a town I had visited while being hijacked by my wannabe father, Youssef_b. Given that I didn’t really see much the first time around, I opted to join in on the fun. A bit of wrangling was required, but it wasn’t too much trouble for Mo to find us a taxi. We had an entirely enjoyable day, visiting the waterfall again, laughing intensely to inside jokes, and singing Lionel Richie and Disney tunes (I’ve been warned not to publicly admit to or talk about having watched the specific movie(s)).

We had one last calm shindig at our place with a bunch of students from the American school. The goal was to drink the last of the alcohol left from St. Patty’s day. The results were lame rather meager—at the end of the night there were still plenty of beers left, and close to a liter of hard alcohol. Still, it was probably all for the best to have a tame get-together—there was plenty of packing to do.

On my last full day, I was charged with preparing dinner, which would have been fine, save for all the last-minute errands remaining for the day. I made a last purchase of honey and packed up the home-made orange flower water Mo had acquired for me. I packed a box and shipped what I could to the States, and am still hoping the honey and water will not end up in some customs officer’s pantry. Were I offered a special Moroccan price I would have easily shipped more, especially since I wound up with even more heavy items to lug back with me (Argan oil, Mehia, honey).

Meanwhile, back at home, there was dinner to make. The Bolognese-like sauce had been cooking for the better part of the day, but I still needed to break in the pasta machine I had purchased, not wanting to think of it as a completely pointless purchase. And so dinner was a success, my bags were packed, I had the train schedule, and most of the tears had dried.

hijacked, Passover

Youssef­_b was getting insistent on my visiting him. He kept asking about my fiancée (Shiri, my sister, I kept reminding him) and my mom who, as I had told him several times, were already out of town. He is a sweet man and refers to me as a son, though, so I definitely had to take him up on some hospitality.

I recruited Gabe for the effort—planning (erroneously) to make a quick two-hour visit with Youssef­_b before dinner with EB and her family, who were all in town now. First we waited for him, and then we were dragged to the Synagogue for evening prayers, which were over by the time we arrived. He took us to Elie’s house around the corner, where we enjoyed shots of mehia (a Jewish spirit made of fig alcohol and anise—very much like pastis) while the two old men performed the Passover ritual of searching for leavened bread through the house.

It was time for dinner, and I was trying to get us to the restaurant (Gabe and I had previously discussed his poor fit for the job of planning an escape) on time. Youssef­_b was adamant that we come to his house, first. I said no about ten times, playing the subtle Moroccan game of polite yet firm refusal, but my subtlety was lost on Youssef­_b. Okay, so we’ll see your place, but then we’re turning right around and going to meet my friend for dinner! He offered beer and snacks, I declined, but Gabe (he was in on it with Youssef­_b, I’m sure) accepted, and before we knew it, Youssef­_b had left to let in a friend. We waited, finishing our beers, and got up to leave, but Youssef­_b had locked the door from the outside. My laughter at the situation turned to anger—it was all I could do to remain cool, knowing that EB and her family (some of whom I haven’t seen in years) were halfway through dinner. Youssef­_b finally let us out, but not before we had guzzled another beer. On the way back home, Gabe (a true brother from another mother—I love him) did his Gabe thing and was caught by our favorite Rasta café owner. Did I want to grab a coffee, to which I snapped at him (sorry) no! I’ll see you back at home.

Gabe, Mo, and I went to the hammam that night with EB’s brother and father, David and Warren, and friend Will. Mo arranged for the boys to get “massages,” chiropractic nightmares of getting bent in ways the body does not bend. It’s something that’s probably just as enjoyable to watch as it is to experience: ouch.

Ben, Gabe, and I were invited to the Passover Seder the next night at Elie’s house along with Youssef­_b. I was late getting back from my outing to Volubulis and Meknes with EB and family, so we missed services and went straight to meeting the men outside the synagogue. Youssef­_b was bordering on angry thanks to our missing services—he had mentioned them as an afterthought the night before, and besides, I have never been that religiously inclined. Still, I felt bad. Next thing I knew, we were around the table and Youssef­_b had disappeared in a hail of harsh words from Elie—he ditched us to join another friend for dinner. I was in awe when, a week later, I received a call from Youssef­_b, reminding me that I hadn’t paid him anything for his services as tour guide with my family. What a bad taste to leave in a person’s mouth.

The Seder was hardly traditional—four different languages spoken around the table of six, and without Youssef­_b’s eyes, Elie was at a loss for leading the Seder. Ben was in charge of leading us, but ten minutes into the proceedings, Elie grew frustrated and called for dinner to be served. Dinner was good, but not the highlight of the evening. We joked into the night, sipping Elie’s homemade mehia, talking about the women in Elie’s photos of the past (now she was a good kisser!), and matchmaking me with the sweet (and apparently rich, I was told) elderly woman to my side (I am remiss for not remembering her name past the initial introductions). We had an excellent time despite Youssef_b’s misstep. It was a Passover I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren about.

crabs

Let's gloss over the touristy crust (the casbah in Tangiers is gorgeous, especially its views of the sea) and cut to the juice--let's face it, you can read about most of this stuff elsewhere. Lonely Planet, however, still won't talk about my fantastical tales of nefarious taxi drivers and dark alleys, so you’ll have to read them here.

Nacer was to spend the first part of the day with us, then report to work at five sharp. He was already yesterday evening, so we didn’t want to put him out again. As a kind, loving, most generous local, he was not familiar with our style of traveling: always the adventure, never knowing what’s around the next corner.

Being the helpless white people that we look like, Nacer helped us find a grand taxi to Asilah (a town known for the artwork on the walls within the medina) after our huge lunch—no big deal, there’s a veritable parking lot full of million-mile Mercedes’, right? Seems that this time of year people want to go to Asilah, but they don’t want to come back to Tangiers, so the taxis just don’t drive to Asilah. We sat around and waited. And waited. Nacer kept us company. We finally gave in and called over one of Nacer’s many friends, Mohammed, and hired him to drive us. We took the scenic coastal route, and would you believe it? Yes, Nacer remained with us for the journey. We drove past jaw-dropping estates of rich emissaries, bankers, and drug dealers. We peered at the Atlantic  through the eye of Hercules’ caves. We drove past an area dotted with flashing red lights atop tall towers. Nacer explained it was once a French base, but is now an American base for “espionage.” I asked him what exactly he meant—I mean, if they’re spying, should it be public? He shrugged his shoulders, said he didn’t know what they do there. I guess not.

5:30pm, and we were in Asilah. Nacer shrugged off his tardiness: it was, after all, only 4pm Moroccan standard time… He (or rather, a guy he bumped into on the street) helped us look for an apartment (it’s all the rage these days to restore flats in the picturesque medina and rent them out to rich foreigners) for the night. After looking at three, I was content, and paid our “guide” for his services. Not so fast. Mohammed had called from the car: he ran into a friend, Zuber, and Zuber offered to put us up for free in a friend’s flat. Wow. I really didn’t know what to say to this complete stranger. Moreover, he was in charge of the fish consortium, and having noticed me eyeing the sizeable live crabs at a fishmonger’s stand, offered to arrange dinner.

Alas, the flat was not complete in its renovations. Myself, I could have stayed the night, but we wanted a real toilet seat (western toilet, but no seat) and hot water (not hooked up yet). I was mortified with the prospect of refusing Zuber’s most generous offer, but they all took it in great stride, with an air of understanding. Half an hour later we had moved into the first flat I liked. Even though it was nearly 8pm and his prospects for working that night were shot, Nacer wouldn’t agree to stay the night with us; he had class early the next morning. Goodbyes went around, complete with hugs and kisses.

Zuber would drive us to dinner, but not before some shopping. Mom spotted a couple of beautiful silver Chamsot (the Hebrew word for Hand of Fatima), they were solid silver and accordingly pricey for small gifts. Shiri upgraded to a new pair of shoes. Zuber went off to get the car, and minutes later, my phone rang. It was Nacer. The cryptic conversation went something like this: “Jonie, I forgot to tell you, don’t say you’re Jewish. I didn’t mention it, but it’s just not something to bring up in Asilah. Zuber called Mohammed and he asked about your religion after he saw what you were shopping for. Don’t worry about it, he was just being curious, it’s nothing to worry about. If he asks, tell him what I told him, that you’re just Americans.”

Needless to say, the drive to the restaurant was a bit awkward and definitely longer than we had expected. The redeeming moment was when Zuber unloaded our two crabs from the back of the van. We’d be eating well. Inside, we chose a couple of fish to supplement the crustaceans, and promptly got to work. Zuber force-fed us half of the lamb he ordered (he stays away from seafood whenever possible). The crabs were great, and we enjoyed the amazingly fresh fish in spite of their being overcooked. I can’t say I was surprised when he refused payment for the crabs, a preposterous gesture.

Tonight was Shiri and Ziva’s last night in Morocco, their return flights began in Casablanca, and it was time to settle on their transportation to the airport, 4-6 hours away. No sweat: take the train or find a grand taxi as a last resort. Mo helped me out, texting me the train schedules. Never simple when you’re short on time, there was a Mushkill: the only possible train was at 6:40am. The train was vetoed in favor of savoring a bit of the morning. I asked Zuber where to go the following morning to find a grand taxi. “Why didn’t you ask sooner!? We have to take care of it right away—they need to get permission from the police to go to Casablanca.” Oops. We drove around, to the pier to find his friend, back to his house to get a phone number, then to ‘a guy’s’ house. It was late. Too late—‘the guy’ was asleep and dead to the world. So we resorted to the grand taxi stand itself, and found a driver willing to make the trip—direct, no stops (I smiled and nodded, knowing I could more easily spring the stops on him during the trip). Signed, sealed, delivered. I felt terrible—Zuber was obviously exhausted. Despite being a complete stranger and weird about Jews, he had gone above and beyond for us.

Back at the flat, we finally got the chance to shower. I stepped out to get more minutes on my phone, and finding all the nearby shops closed, was at a loss. No worries, a big guy with a club in his hand was coming my way, and he looked like he might be able to help. No, really, I’m serious. He dawned a reflective fluorescent orange vest—uniform for the guardians charged with keeping the medina crime-free. Mohammed, as he was called, walked me out of the medina to a booth selling recharges, and all the way back to my place, meanwhile trying to make polite banter in FrAraSpish. This country never ceases to amaze.