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.