Commercial

London has a lot of funny/odd commericals. This is the one that plays in the movie theater that reminds you to turn off your cell.

Marrakech Express

Just got back from four days in Morocco. Absolutely beautiful and amazing. We stayed at the Riad Badra (a converted house) and loved nearly every minute of it.
Plane ride was totally fine, no probalems at all. Once at the airport, we were greeted by the driver for our riad (we had arranged for him to pick us up so that we wouldn't have to think once we got there). After establishing that we spoke very little French, we drove the entire trip in silence. The whole ride was very quiet (until we got into the city) minus what I'm calling Arabic chanting on the radio--might not be that at all, but I enjoyed it. Got to the riad, met Mona the English speaking front desk girl and had some Moroccan mint tea. Discovered that we were ravenous and tried to find a place nearby to eat. Unfortunaltly, the only places near us were super expensive and super booked. We found a bakery where Joe bough bread and I tried to buy oranges but ended up with fresh squeezed orange juice. We found a nut vendor on the way back and bought some cashews and pistachios. ate our strange dinner on our bed and went to sleep.
We were awakened at 5AM to the call to prayer. Joe thought it sounded like an elephant, but I liked it. Woke up a few hours later and went off to find the djemaa el-fna (the big open air market that trasnlates to "assembly of the dead"). We were tourists for all we were worth. No henna tatoos, but we did everything else. We bargained with the souks (the guys who work in the stalls and harass you to buy things) and Joe even got over his fear of snakes long enough to take a picture of me with a snake charmer.
The next was less stressful. No walking through the market for us. Today we headed off to do some high culture things. We visited the museum and several old architectuaral sights that I had no idea existed. We even stopped at a cafe to have mint tea. How classy. We sinned a little and abandoned our vegetarian diet for the evening, dining on chicken tajine (slow cooke chicken and veggies) and a wonderful little Morccan restaurant. We're calling it a 'cultural experinece' and is therefor not as bad. Not sure if it was just the atmosphere, bu the artist Jose Maracha struck me as being very good. Have to research him.
The last day was the one with the most problems. Everything started off fine, we went to the Bab Aganou (the old gate for when the city was a fortress) and saw the tombs in the kasbah. Then we got impossibly lost and it all went downhill from there. Gettting lost in the kasbah is much different from getting lost in London. For one, everyone knows that you're lost. For another, all of the street signs were in Arabic so we didn';t even have that to help us. Some guy approached us and offered what we thought were directions for what we wanted (he spoke French and none of it made sense to us) and we followed his directions until he started following us down a dead end. At that point, we turned around and tried our own thing. It turned out that he was just a nice guy and his directions were correct, but we paniced. Another guy appointed himself as our guide (he had only one tooth). He led us through the Mellah (the old Jewish quarters) which is the current ghetto. We were very nervous but he, too, turned out to be a nice guy with good directions. We paid him a little and then we were alone. Unfortunatley, right as we got to our destination, they closed for lunch. Our bladders were full and we were starving so we called it a day and followed the white tourist group out of the crazy streets and had lunch. We went back to the riad to read in the sun for a few hours and then headed off for dinner. As we were laving the riad, we were confronted by a cat in the alley who was wiggling around, obviously dying. There was a group of boys standing by the cat, and laughing at it. Since we both lacked the stomach to pick the cat up by the tail and smack it against the pavement untit it died (the only solution we could think of) we continued walking. Not two minutes after seeing that, I was nearly hit by a motorbike. At this point we were in foul moods and hating Moroccans, but we were still hungry. That evening, despite our moods, we ended up having the best meal of our trip. We celebrated the end of the trip with some mint tea at a cafe and then went home to pack.
I was amazed at the lack of religion in the city. I had always assumed that when teh prayer call sounded, everyone would drop and pray to Mecca. Totally wrong. People don't even quiet down. I didn't see a single person pray. most of the women wear the head scarves and some wear the face cover. Many of the girls my age wear normal clothes and 95% of the men wear normal clothes. The men were rather disgusting, though. My theory is that the only way they've ever seen a white woman is eitehr as a tourist or in porn because that's how they look at you. Male attention is one thing, but that was demeaning. I finished rereading The Royal Road to Romance on the trip and it was the perfect book for our adventures. That was the book that my grandpa read that inspired him to quit his job at a newspaper and take the Queen Mary to Europe.
Wonderful trip.

Happy Birthday to me

I am now 23.
I few days ago, Joe took me out for Thai food with Frank, Anna, Joe's brother, and his brother's friend (they were visiting from home). We went to the National Gallery for a bit and saw some more paintings that we have to see 'before we die' and then called it a night. On the 11th, Frank and I got up early and went to Trafalgar Square to watch the 8 year old British and Russian grandmasters play chess on a huge board with enormous ice sculpture pieces. Very surreal. I went to work and then out for drinks with the people that I work with. They gave me a £20 gift card to a clothing store. Made me happy to know that they like me. The next morning I had to open and was in a foul mood because of lack of sleep for the past few days. I had a series of rude customers who got me in such a bad mood that I couldn't even sleep once I got home. In an effort to show Joe's brother a good time, we were going to meet with Anna and her boyfriend's friends (they go to school here) at a pub. The pub ended up being more of a club that needed a password. Anna got the password backwards (for the record, it was blue computer, not computer blue) and we were turned away. Went to a pub around the corner and were greeted by a rude bartender who threatened to get us kicked out because he misheard our drink order and made drinks we didn't want. I was so ticked off that I knew I should just go home, so I headed off on my own. Made my first transfer without problem, but as I was sitting on the Jubilee on my way home (totally crowded train), some middle aged guy wearing acid washed jeans and a leather jacket approached me and said"£10 for a migraine?" At least I think that's what he said. I declined, but the guy next to me was interested, offered his £5 and got the privilege of seeing all of the powders and pills the guy had hidden in his jacket. Went to sleep and forgot that day ever happened.

Not necessarily a bang, but certainly a loud noise...

That's what I'll say about my New Year's. After spending £15 on a ticket for a New Year's Eve party and then £6 for drinks, I was officially feeling out of money for the evening. Frank, Joe, and I felt a little old for the place, and weren't having much success at having fun, but we kept trying. The London School of Economics were doing much better (possibly because they were drinking substantially more). Frank left shortly after midnight, and Joe and I followed at 1:30 or so.

While the club wasn't so great as we wanted it to be, I'm glad we went out. It was amazing seeing all of the people in Trafalgar Square. They closed the streets to cars and there were herds of people. I felt like I was in a song. The club was impossibly loud and played what they described as "oldies and classics" but was mostly weird British pop mixed with the theme from Greece and the Spicegirls. I was amazed that people (girls, especially) weren't more dressed up. I thought I might look a little slobby in my jeans and nice tank top (vest, in British terminology) but that was what everyone was wearing. On our way home, we had to walk past a few closed tube stops to get to an open one and then took a LONG way home. Opps.

Made it home, safe and sound, and then went to work the next day.