Marrakech, or: "I like you because you are nice"

“We are in the life just to live our life as we want” – Moustafa, the best tourguide around.

Perhaps the most stressful travel of this vacation was the voyage from Palma to Marrakech.  So far all of my Ryan Air flights had ended with a little trumpet fanfare and “Welcome! You have arrived on yet another on time flight. Last year over 90% of Ryanair flights landed on time, beating every other European airline.” In order to get to Marrakech from Palma, I needed to fly through another city, so I chose Valencia. I would have about 1 hour in Valencia, no problem. But in reality – yes, problem. Of all my 6 Ryan Air flights, this was the only one that wasn’t on time. We got in about 30 minutes late, so by the time I debarked and exited security the departures board read ‘now boarding’ for my flight, and I still had to get my ticket stamped by a passport checker and get back through both security and customs, since I was leaving the country. No good. I waited in line at the wrong window and was told in Spanish that I needed to run to the other window, then once I got my stamp was told in English that I needed to run to the terminal. Thanks, guys, I wasn’t aware that I had negative minutes to get on this flight. At this point, I’m running my options through my head for when I miss the flight, which in my mind is inevitable. I don’t really speak Spanish, I have no way to get ahold of my friends who are waiting for me in Marrakech, and the next flight on this airline isn’t til 7pm the next day. I settle on trying to find a flight back to Madrid that night, staying with Dave, then catching the first flight to Marrakech in the morning. This is all running through my head as I am literally running across the airport to security. I make it through incredibly quickly, and as I’m running to customs/the gate I’m told once again that I need to run by an announcement that the flight is fixin to take off. I barely make it through in time, but I do, am told to run down the ramp and across the tarmac to the plane. And here’s the kicker – this is the exact same plane that took me from Palma to Valencia. Are you serious, Ryan Air? While I was standing in lines and running from one end of the airport to the other, my plane was being leisurely taxied across the tarmac and my flight attendants (who were giving me funny looks because they recognized me from the last flight) were collecting garbage and tidying. Miserable. BUT I made the flight, got into Marrakech where the hostel had sent a car to meet me, was driven/walked to the hostel and met up with Krista, Richard, and our roommate for the night, another British guy named William.

              

  After throwing down my stuff, we walked to the square for my first Moroccan meal. This is the main square in town which during the day is filled with spice vendors and orange juice stands, but at night transforms into a food court of sorts. Basically it’s just a canopy of white tents, who all have the exact same menu with the exact same prices, only differing slightly in spicing and whether or not there are chick peas in the couscous. So as soon as you’re in sight of the tents, there will be guys in white aprons shoving their menus in your face, promising you free tea (which is turns out they all have), and telling you “we’re all the exact time, so just eat here!” We chose the first place we were invited to and I had a delicious chicken couscous for 30 dirham – aka 3 euro. I love this country already.

free tea!

  In the morning we said bye to William and decided to search out some museums and palaces or some such cultural sites. While wandering through the souks (the insane winding streets filled with shops of anything and everything), some guys illuminated us to what should have been the obvious fact that everything was closed because it was Friday. Duh, whities – how eurocentric of us. They do tell us, however, that the tanneries are open, and point us in the direction. Alright, we think, why not. (at this point, you can skip this entire paragraph and just watch this video instead, or keep reading. Your funeral) So while we’re wandering some more a super nice guy sort of saves us from getting run over by some cars, then tells us we should go this way for the tanneries and goes on his way. A nice refresher after the kids everywhere who will take you where you want to go but only for a price. We start walking that way and are quickly told by the same guy who has reappeared, that it’s this street, not that one, then calls his friend over and says he’ll show us the way. No no, we say, we don’t want a guide, we don’t want to pay. ‘no money no honey’ he tells us, which apparently and counter intuitively means we do not have to pay him. He’s on his way home from work and he lives this way anyway, he tells us. As part of a new thing I’m trying where rather than assuming that everyone is creepy and not to be trusted I have a bit of faith in humanity, I trust the guy, and we go with him across town. He’s very friendly, and tells me all about the tanneries and Marrakech in general while Krista and Richard follow behind. We get to the tanneries and he hands us off to a Berber man, shakes our hands, and goes on his merry way. What a nice guy. The Berber guy gives us some mint leaves ‘for the smell’ and walks us through 2 different tanneries, explaining the dying and drying process  and warning us to watch our feet for all the pigeon droppings. Apparently in order to get the smell of the lime out, you attack it with an equally rank smell, so the hides are soaked in pigeon crap water. Now I don’t curse, but maybe my favorite quote of the trip was his explanation of the process – “shit contre shit – no shit.” Ah, now I see. After the tour he asks if we want to see the finished product. For future travelers, this would be a good time to say no. He takes us across the street to a shop filled with leather bags and hand us off to the owner, an incredibly jovial man who takes us into a back room lined with rugs, sits us down, and brings us tea. “We made you smell the tanneries, so now we have to give you tea” he says. While we enjoy our tea he explains the different types of rugs which his ‘young accomplice’ (as put by Richard) unfurls one after another and lays at our feet. Then the negotiations begin. It’s actually a fun process – the accomplice holds up a rug and we say either ezjma (no dice) or ralay (keep it), then once we get it down to about ten we go back through and do it again until we’ve got the one we want to purchase. Except we don’t want to purchase. After working this out the owner who is now exponentially less jovial shakes our hands, asks for some money for his helper, and sends us out, where the guy who showed us through the tanneries is waiting and also asks for money. Turns out ol such and such who saved us from the cars was actually the first in a 4 man sting operation – kudos to you guys, I don’t even mind that you took my money. It only ended up costing us about four euro a piece and an hour or so, with which I’m fine. We spent the rest of the day exploring the souks, eating, and hanging out on our rooftop terrace playing cards. Lovely.

living the dream on the rooftop

A note about the rooftop: it was here that I had my first experience with the call to prayer. As those of you that have been to Islamic nations know, this is something that happens five times a day and lasts about 10-20 minutes, starting at 5 am. A pretty integral part of my experience in Morocco, thought I should mention it, anyway.

  On Saturday we went on a day trip into the Atlas mountains, where we visited an old Berber home and were fed a delicious breakfast and  taught to make mint tea, visited a ‘Moroccan pharmacy’ with herbal cures for everything from snoring to herpes, took a short hike into the mountains, ate a bomb lunch at a pretty classy restaurant, and rode some camels. I’d say the best part of the whole thing was our tour guide, Mustafa. On the drive there he asked if we knew what the plan was for the day, and when a fellow excursioner said no, exclaimed “then why did you come!” Pretty shortly afterwards he serenaded us through the vans crackly sound system (which is equipped with a mic) with Enrique’s ‘Hero.’ Fantastic.  Later we rounded a corner and he yelled out ‘o my god! Camels!’ which he repeated at least 4 times throughout the day.  He’s starting his own tour company called Desert Dreams, so if you ever go to Morocco, look him up, he’s phenomenal.

                

That night we went back to the square for the 3^rd time and had a very friendly server named Antonio. He deduced that I speak a poco of Spanish, and from there on out only addressed us in español. He was the guy in charge of bringing in clientele, so he was running back and forth in front of our table, and each time he passed us he would throw out a line in our direction – my favorite of which was ‘I like you because you are nice.’ Thanks, Antonio, I like you too. We exchanged facebook info before parting, but sadly that is not a friend request which has popped up. C’est la vida. After dinner we went back to our place to relax and were serenaded by a really beautiful prayer service from across the street. Here's a clip.

                The next day, my final day in Morocco, we got ourselves psyched up for the souks. The man at our hostel had told us not to buy anything until our last day, so that we would be familiar with the prices and know what we wanted. Tell you what – terrible idea. I’ve never bartered before, and it is exhausting. At the end of the day I came out of the souks with a pair of sandals, a ton of earrings, a purse, a couple bracelets, and an avocado icecream for all my hard work. Another afternoon spent on the roof with tea and crosswords, another dinner in the square, and my Moroccan adventure drew to a close. In the morning I gave Krista my remaining dirham, got a taxi to the airport, and headed back to Madrid. Let the one day visits begin!

i don't even like orange juice and i will miss this

p.s. click here to see the rest of the photos from marrakech, and here for my pics from spain!

Palma, or: Sobrassada, Ensaimada, and the many traditions of Mallorca

After our short flight across the water, we landed in lovely Palma de Mallorca, the palm tree laden island paradise where Julia works. This was a Monday, and Julia had school neither Monday nor Tuesday, for reasons unbeknownst to her. On our shuttle from the airport to town, however, we met another language assistant named Dave who enlightened us to the reason for the vacation - Día de las Islas Baleares, Balearic Islands day. This would be Tuesday, so we put a pin in it and spent a relaxing day exploring the town. Because I was still recovering from my stupid illness, we took it pretty easy and decided to have a lazy night in, making a super delicious goat cheese and veggie pizza and watching Mamma Mia. I say we made a pizza, but really Julia did most of the work while I hung out with Charlie, the enormous sheep dog of the family that she lives with, and my new best friend. Charlie had the good fortune to be the first dog I’ve been around since I left home and my two puppies died, so we spent a lot of time together during my stay in Palma.

isn't is precious?

The next day I was fully recovered, so we headed to the Castell de Bellver, one of just a few circular castles in Europe which is conveniently located just across town from Julia’s place. We climbed the 504 stairs up the hillside to the castle where we were lucky enough to experience a break in the clouds for some wonderful views of the island. This was actually one of the only monument type things I did/saw during my whole vacation, and it was definitely a good one. After we took a good many pictures of and around the castle, we wandered back down the hill to a nice picnic area where we enjoyed some fruit, cheese, bread, and sausage. Not quite the paddle-boat picnic which is normally the only time I see Julia each year, but lovely in its own way. Later that afternoon we decided to check out some more of the town, with plans to see the cathedral and a few important boulevards. On our way to the cathedral we stumbled upon what appeared to be a little street market to celebrate the Balearic Islands, with all local and traditional foods and crafts. We decided to check this out and hit up the cathedral after, but this was no little street market. It wrapped around 3 boulevards (one of which was entirely lined with palm trees), and had more cheese, sausage, and leather goods than I’ve seen in one place. We sampled a good deal of the former two, and near the end while watching some women make traditional donut-hole like pastries and debating whether we could manage 12 of them between us, we were offered samples – lovely!

we certainly didn't have such stylish life vests on our Palma picnic

 By this point we’d sacked the cathedral and were heading back towards Julia’s when we stumbled upon what was probably my favorite single experience of the vacation. We could hear music from a square up ahead, so we followed it and pretty soon we were on the edge of a plaza that was filled with people dancing to traditional mallorquin music (which I found to be surprisingly similar to traditional English music – think pride and prejudice). These people weren’t just dancing, though; they were doing a mesmerizing circle dance, each circle led by 3 or 4 dancers with castanets. There was a lot of spinning and jumping involved, and there were people from 4 to 84 in each circle, all seeming to at least understand the basics and taking cues from the leaders so it all flowed very smoothly. At the end of the song during which we arrived, one of the guys in the band made an announcement (in mallorquin, so we had no idea what he said), and all of the circles collapsed into one big group near the stage with a sizable open space in the middle. Everyone seemed pretty excited about whatever was going to happen as two dancers took their places in the middle of the clearing. As the music began, the couple started circling one another, slowly at first, then speeding up with the music until they were at a pace quick enough to begin the twirling and jumping of the previous dances. After a minute or two, a woman came out from the crowd and twirled into the place of the first woman, who twirled away into the crowd. After a bit another man came to replace the first man, and the cycle began. Whenever anyone felt like it, they would spin into the place of one of the dancers, and stay until they were replaced. Sometimes a man would spin in and shortly after his wife would spin in and jokingly push the first woman back into the crowd, and the dance would become closer and more romantic until the next person came in. Young and old alike were dancing, including a boy of about 16 who stayed in and held his own for a surprisingly long time (the men always had to dance a little longer than the women, who were more eager to join in). The music was continually growing faster and faster until the original two dancers found their way back to the middle and finished off in an impressive and dizzying jump and twirl. I am absolutely in love with Mallorquin dance, and I can’t express how joyful it felt to be in that square and feel the community of the dance. That one dance could have strangers dancing together with huge grins spread across their faces as well as couples, bringing the spins closer and keeping their eyes on each other – it was absolutely spectacular. This was the last dance, and as we left the square with the dissipating crowd, I felt a general happiness around me.

another bit of traditional dancing we came across earlier that day, but this time with traditional garb to boot

That evening was the Ruta Martiana, a weekly festival of sorts, where all the bars in a neighborhood of Palma have ‘rutas,’ or 2euro caña-pincho combos. Pinchos are tiny toasts to go with the tiny beers, with a variety of toppings, from anchovies and cheese to curried potato salad. In an evening reminiscent of our night out in Madrid, we went to three different bars, having 4 or 5 rutas before heading in for the night. The next day Julia had to work, so I spent the morning doing laundry and hanging out with Charlie, and the afternoon exploring the town (this time the cathedral made the cut). That night we made some chicken curry and hung out with the kids of the family, Sergio, a 13 year old boy, and Monica, a 16 year old girl (as well as Monica’s friend whose name I don’t recall). My entire venture in Spain surprised me with how much Spanish I actually learned during my 3 semesters at Willamette, and I found that I could understand nearly everything that was said to me, but had the inability to respond. I did understand that the girls were going to Madrid to see Bieber, and managed to form a sentence (with Julia’s help) – “soy muy celosa.” The next morning Julia made some delicious apple scones and we enjoyed a leisurely brunch on the patio, and before I left we made some traditional Morrocan avocado milkshakes to prepare me for my journey south. I said goodbye and got my shuttle to the airport where the next chapter of my vacation commenced. 

"soursop"

Nantes àParis à Madrid à Palma à Valencia à Marrakech à Madrid à Paris à Dijon à Champagnole à Mouchard à Paris à Nantes

This is how I spent my 2 week vacation, traveling for 16 days nonstop. I actually spent time in only 6 of these places (Madrid twice!), but that’s still pretty ridiculous. This being the first time that I’ve actually travelled in Europe, I thought I ought to take advantage of it. It turns out that the most expensive leg of the journey was getting from Nantes to Beauvais airport in Paris, but once you’re there, the world is your oyster, with flights all over Europe (and a bit of Africa!) for as little as 12 euro. Like I said, thought I should take advantage of it. I don’t think I can do this voyage justice here, if only because the beginning seems like much more than a month ago, but here goes.

Madrid, or: I like to sit on the floor where I don't have to worry about falling down, like with chairs

My trip started with a train to paris, a metro across town, and a shuttle bus to Beauvais airport. One of the most stressful parts of my trip was the fact that all 6 of my flights were with Ryanair, the Dublin based budget airline that I’ve heard countless horror stories about. I was told that my backpack might be to big (yes, one normal school sized backpack for 2 weeks of traveling, in climates as varied as northern African and the Jura mountains of France), that the planes were unreliable at best, and to expect to have flights arriving late if not cancelled completely. Arriving at Beauvais I was pretty nervous about these three warnings, however, I made it through security with my backpack no problem, and on finding my seat onboard, I looked up at the security card (pasted to the back of the seat in front of me) and read ‘Boeing 737.’ I fly Frontier Airlines, people – where the aircraft literally creaks – give me a 737 anyday; when I see the name Boeing, I relax. I arrive in Madrid on time, no problem, and on entering the baggage area see my best friend from when I was a tiny little kid walk into the restroom. I wait outside for her and after a brief reunion we exit security to meet my good friend and host for the next 4 nights David Davidson (of my most recent post fame). We catch the shuttle back to his place and crash (my flight arrived around 11pm).

sweet, Seattle-built safety

Dave’s mom and aunt are supposed to be in town, so I’m not expecting to get to spend much time with him, but their flight was delayed so to my happy, happy surprise we got to spend all of Friday with him (toma!), an excellent guide around the city. Based almost entirely on this one day, Madrid was my favorite part of the vacation. Maybe it’s because I got to spend it with two of my very close friends, maybe it’s because it was probably about 80 degrees after months of rain and winter in Nantes, or maybe it’s because the city itself is marvelous. We explored a bit then ran into a few of Dave’s friends in a huge park who invited us to join them for a picnic. It being a splendid day, we obliged. While Julia and I are chatting with some American girls who are in Madrid to play volleyball professionally, Dave turns to me and says, “Mary Ochs, we know her, right?” In fact we do – she’s in my sorority, I tell him. “Oh!” says his friend, “she’s on her way here right now!” I knew Mary was working in or around Madrid, but jeez. This was the first of many experiences this vacation to remind me just how small of a world it is that we live in. After the quick DG reunion we meet up with another of Dave’s friends for an afternoon “caña,” which I’m pretty sure is Spanish for “tiny beer,” then head back to the homestead for a sit down.

this guy really wanted a pic with me. obviously the feeling was mutual

Around 9:30 we meet up with yet more of Dave’s friends, this time mostly Spanish, and head out for “the real Madrid experience.” Rodrigo, a teacher at the school Dave works at, is our guide for the evening. What a man. He is incredibly welcoming and friendly, and spends the night teaching us “useful” and “colloquial” phrases, as well as humoring my attempts at Spanish. I use quotations because I honestly don’t know if anyone besides Rodrigo uses these phrases, but they’re entertaining, none the less. So at about ten pm we start our dinner at a little bar where we order more cañas, a plate of fried mashed potato like things, and a plate of fried fish. Once we’ve finished these we head to another bar where we order more cañas, some fried pigs ears, fried peppers, and fried potatoes with hot sauce. I’m noticing a trend. I’m surprisingly full after this melee of a meal, and we head to a final bar where the men order purple lavender flavored frozen cocktails, the women order smoothies, and I order a beer. While contemplating which smoothie flavor to get, Julia asks our 3 Spanish companions what a guanábana is. “It’s red. And it’s red on the inside.” Ooook. We ask the server. He tries to explain but after beginning to form a few words he tells us he’ll look it up. He comes back with a small piece of receipt paper on which is scrawled one word, in quotations: “soursop.” There is no way this is correct. There cannot possibly be a fruit called a soursop. We spend the next half hour coming up with new definitions for soursop, settling on ‘the waiter who neglects to bring you the beer that you ordered,’ because at this point, the purple drinks are halfway gone and I’m still parched. Someone signals the soursop and he apologizes profusely, brings me my beer, and doesn’t charge me for it in the end. Excellent. About 2am we head home through the incredibly alive streets. I’ve heard about how late everything goes in Spain, but I was still a little surprised to see even restaurants open in the middle of the night. What a night, what a day, what a city. I even wrote a horrible poem about it – in Spanish. The books coming soon, keep your eyes out.

Rewind to “based almost entirely on this one day.” Sometime during said great day, I started feeling the symptoms of whatever miserable disease sees fit to attack my body once or twice every month. By day 2, it was in full swing – fever, aches, chills, general misery. Julia and I headed to Toledo for the day, and it was a lovely place, but my usual ‘pump Tylenol all day to keep the fever at bay’ tactic wasn’t working, and even when increased to 2 every 2 hours, I just wasn’t able to properly enjoy the city. Kudos to Julia for humoring me and my ill-temper (get it?). That evening we were very kindly invited to dine with Dave’s family at their rented apartment, which was a perfect way to spend a sick evening abroad. Great food and great company, and a comfy couch to sit on. The next day we were slated to go to the rastro, the huge open air market, for which I was totally pumped. I got up later than I meant to, ate some toast, unate said toast, and went back to bed until 4pm. Julia picked me up some sunnies at the market and that evening we had another excellent dinner with the fam. In the morning Jules and I headed back to the airport and caught our plane to Palma, chapter 2 of my adventure. 

turns out it's real, but in no way is it red

y2k11

Christmas, Dave and Emily’s visit, New Year’s in Paris, Foosball world cup, masquerade ball! So much has happened since I last updated – hand it to me to drop the ball… again. Let me try to recap in the least boring way possible.

Christmas day was spent at Keri Ann’s house with four American girls and one British boy. We got there around 3 pm, at which point we popped the champagne and started our day with mimosas. Basically the entire day was spent drinking, cooking, eating, dancing, singing, and playing silly card games. What better way to forget that you’re 4300 miles from your family on the day you most want to be home? Around 1am I took my computer outside into the freezing, dark night to skype my family chez Helgeland (Keri Ann’s internet was only working outside). Illuminated by a streetlamp I got to spend a good 15 minutes on speaker phone with the entire Helgeland clan (minus my immediate relations). The fact that all I could see of myself in the video window was my face on a black background was made slightly creepier by the fact that Torger doesn’t have a webcam, so I couldn’t see any of the 11 or so people addressing questions to my floating head. Regardless, it was definitely the highlight of my Christmas, making me perhaps equally happy and sad (not to be there). Another highlight came just before, when in the last ten minutes of Christmas I declared that we should all sing our favorite carols. We went around the circle and as a group sang each person’s favorite song. After maybe 3 classic Christmas favorites, we arrive at Misty, an assistant from Idaho. When asked her favorite Christmas carol, Misty, without hesitation, launches into a song which begins “America, America, how can I tell you how I love you.” No, Misty, CHRISTMAS songs. She starts again. We skip her, finish up the circle and at 11.59 sing Silent Night in at least 2 languages (at this point my French neighbor has joined us). Then we learn Misty’s Christmas favorite:  America, America, how can I tell you how I love you? You have given us your riches. We love you so. Sung to the tune of Rose, Rose (alternately, Hey-ho Nobody Home, or the Delta Gamma Round, for the anchor inclined). After learning this song, Misty and I proceeded to improvise several new classics, mostly revolving around the theme of washing our hair, feet, hands, and various other body parts, in snow. Apparently white Christmas is the most hilarious thing, ever. Fortunately most of these songs made it into videos, so we can publish them and send them to all the major Christmas labels.

boxing day morning - the graveyard.

Between Christmas and the New Year, my good, nay, great friend David Davidson came up from Spain with his girlfriend (and also my friend/physics lab partner extraordinaire) to check out France and visit one Lindsey Arrington. We passed a leisurely few days exploring Nantes and living the French dream. Sadly for Emily the weather was very ‘Nantaise,’ aka exactly the same as Salem, Oregon. Grey, drizzling, and cold. Sorry, Em. New Year ’s Eve we got up bright and early to catch a 5am train to Paris, where we spent the day checking out the tourist sights and snacking. After seeing far too many people posing as if to hold the pyramid at the Louvre in their hands, I decided that from now on every time I’m in a picture in front of a famous monument, I’m messing these poses up.

why didn't you guys tell me it doesn't look like i'm holding it?

A probable cause of the huge amounts of kitschy photos was the huge amount of foreigners. Due to all these foreigners, I called the UK, Emily called America, and Dave called Italy, Russia, and I think Germany, so that every time one of these accents/languages was heard, a point was gained. By the end of two major holidays in the city of lights, Emily was far ahead of both Dave and I, although slightly surprisingly, Dave was well ahead of me. Who knew the Russians loved Paris so much? We checked into our hotel, which I had booked for one person, around 5pm and decided to have a nap before heading out for dinner and the big celebration at the Eiffel Tower. On our way out to dinner, around 8pm, the doorman actually chased me out of the building when I didn’t realize he was addressing me to confirm that it was just me staying in the room. “Just one, not three – right? Just you.” I assured him I would be staying alone and we went on our way. This was going to be a problem. I was hoping that rules were as lax here as they seem to be stateside (even Canada side, where Dave theverysame Davidson and I once fit 5 into a room reserved for 2). During our meal we worked through several plans to trick the doorman, who we deduced was going to be working all night long, but finally ended up settling on the fact that he would already be t’d from having to work new year’s eve and trying to trick him would only further annoy him, thus leaving us to wander the streets of Paris all night. Around 9:30 we get on the metro, 2 bottles of horribly fruity champagne in tow, and head to the Eiffel tower. We’re scheduled to meet Annika and her family at 10, and because of the absurd amount of people at the tower, we’ve set a location, assuming cell service will be shoddy at best. I, being a genius, don’t realize that Trocadero bridge is NOT, in fact, the quaint small bridge we had crossed earlier in the day, but in fact an enormous plaza that I have never actually been too, so the meeting place is a joke. But first, we have to get out of the metro. We arrive at our stop and squeeze out of the doors into the tightest packed space I have ever encountered. Wall to wall people in every direction, moving no faster than a meter a minute towards who knows what exit. Dave and Emily and I do our best to stay next to each other, which mostly works out. Emily has latched onto a tall man in front of her, I’ve been latched onto by a not-so-tall man behind me who seems to think this is a good opportunity to pick up women, and Dave is being pushed along with the flow of people sans problème. At one point I actually fear that I will be crushed and trampled against a wall, but after maybe 30 minutes of surprisingly jovial shuffling towards the universal destination (the location of which I am entirely unaware), we make it to the street and follow the general crowd, hoping they are headed to this mysterious bridge.

not, as it turns out, a small bridge

 I try to call Annika but there is absolutely no connection with tens of thousands of people trying to meet up and one big, famous cell tower to bounce the calls off of. We decide to give up on that and settle in with a great view of the tower, eerily illuminated in the thickening fog. Surprised that no one around us is popping champagne and wary of the large groups of French Military Police milling about, we decide to save the champagne for … later. I decide to give finding Annika one last go and wander down the hill to the actual bridge, which is blocked off by yet more military police. After nearly giving up hope for maybe the 5^th time, I sight a beret, and knowing from facebook that Annika’s dad often wears such a beret (creepy), head in that direction. This is not, as it turns out, Annika’s dad, but lo and behold, Annika is right behind him. There are less police here, and the Geilens have definitely taken advantage of that fact, now into their third(?) bottle of REAL champagne, plastic flutes and everything. I embarrassedly get out our 2 euro strawberry drink and pour up 3 plastic dentist cups for my crew, and we wait for midnight. I have to say, after all the hype, 12 am rolled around and I was a bit let down. The tower sparkled. It sparkles on the top of every hour, all year round. Where are the fireworks?! Where is the singing!! Where is something special to ring in y2k11!!?!?! The Minnesotans in front of us that we’ve befriended are pretty sure that something happens at 1am. Don’t ask me why we believed a coupla northerners about the Parisian new year’s tradition, especially with something as far-fetched as a 1am celebration – that doesn’t even make sense. None at all. But we stay – why not? We still have a bottle of peach drink, after all, and nowhere to stay. 1am rolls around, and whaddya know – they turn off all the lights and the tower sparkles. I mean really sparkles. It was beautiful. It was magical. It was worth it. Out of the light mistiness of a big city night, the sparkling outline of this country’s most well-known symbol. After 10 minutes it stopped, but the lights didn’t come back on, and this was almost better than the sparkling. The Eiffel Tower is ALWAYS lit up. The city lights were diffused enough by the fog that you could still see the silhouette, and without modern lights it felt like the Paris I never imagined – the one you see in movies and postcards – old and crackling but magnificent.

magical!

 Annika’s parents graciously offered us a place to stay in their rented apartment, so we accompanied them back to the Champs-Elysees, ate some gouda and soup, and went to bed earlier than I ever have on new year’s eve. In the morning we went back to the hotel to check out, and by the look the doorman (now dubbed, ‘the falcon’) gave us, I’m fairly certain he was trying to figure out how we snuck past him, not once but twice, to stay the night but come in from outside in the morning. We spent the day goofing around Paris, just wandering the streets and relaxing, before I sent Dave and Emily on their train to the airport. Needless to say, this was an excellent visit, a much needed taste of home, and a shame to see end.  

This is already far too long, so if I update in the next month I’ll get to those other things. Probably.

Even more pictures!

I'm 23 now, but will I live to see 24?

I’ve been in a choir since 4^th grade. I have never not been in a choir at Christmas time – until now. I’ve been craving Christmas carols, and I recently realized that I normally am singing them not only in my school choirs, but in church choirs. So last Sunday I decided to go to church with Jenna, in hopes of singing some good ol' Christmas songs (but in French).  Jenna somehow found a Baptist church in Nantes, a feat which amazes me. I figured since they’re Baptist, they ought to love singing. Well, they do love singing. I recognized at least 3 of the praise songs from home (but in French). We asked someone beforehand if they would sing Christmas songs, and he told us, “They’re singing one, but the kids think they’re too old fashioned, so just one.” WHAT? Christmas songs never go out of style. So I sat through this service and only got to sing one Christmas carol, and I didn’t even recognize it. I see why they don’t like carols, though – this song was hard. It was way too high and had way too many words in too short a space. So I was pretty bummed out after the service. Jenna was talking to another woman about how we always do Christmas songs in American churches, and the woman said, “Oh, well there’s a carol service tonight at some such church.” Some such church is a ten minute walk from Jenna’s house. “Oh, and it’s in English.” WHAT? So around 4pm I came back to Jenna’s and after a bit we headed out to find this some such church. It really is just down the street. We walk in and run into some girls Jenna’s met who are on a mission from Bethany College, as well as a few people from church that morning. So the service gets going and the Pastor of the church, who is Scottish, tells us all about how it’s a tradition in GB to gather before Christmas and sing, and they’ve been doing it here for the past 4 years. The whole service is bilingual, but all the songs are English. And when I say English, I mean British. Fortunately Jenna and I have an advantage over the Bethany girls – we already know the weird hymn tunes to Away in a Manger and Little Town of Bethlehem. We are surprised by Angels We Have Heard on High, however. We don’t even realize what it is until the chorus – not “glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oria,” but “co-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ome and worship” England is so weird. I also wanna shout out to Dr. Long and the Willamette Chamber Choir – without you all, I wouldn’t have known Once in Royal David’s City or Lo How a Rose Ere Blooming. Cool. Basically, this was the coolest and best part of the holiday season so far, if not only for how fortunate we were to completely stumble upon it. Thank you, GB, for getting homesick and thus making my homesickness a bit more tolerable.

Tuesday, as you may know, was my birthday. Not just any birthday, but my 23^rd birthday. 23 of Blink 182 and Coolio fame, as I’ve beaten into the ground over the past week on Facebook. I’ve not been looking forward to this day ever since my best friend’s birthday in October, when I really started to pay attention to Blink 182’s words of wisdom – “Nobody like you when you’re 23.” Also, spending yet another birthday away from family and friends is never something to look forward to. But my few remaining friends in town outdid themselves once again, and I actually had a very lovely day. First good birthday in 3 years, I’d say. I started if off at midnight with a mug of Cointreau cocoa, the remaining Russian Tea cakes, and Love Actually. Fairly lonely. After a few hours of sleep I got up to see the lunar eclipse (on the solstice, none the less, I’m sure there were people dancing naked and burning things somewhere). However, weather prevented me from seeing anything, so I went back to sleep until 11am. I ate a whole bunch of chocolate and then went into town to meet Richard for lunch. We had pizza (this was my second artichoke pepper and goat cheese pizza in 24 hours, I had the very same with Annika’s parents the night before), and it was delicious. After we went to the Jardin des Plantes, which I’d never been to, and found some goats to feed. I’m fairly certain that I’m a goat whisperer, because these were the 3^rd set of goats I’ve hung out with since August. I mean really, this is getting weird.

my new friends

 After the goats, I headed to what Carly had dubbed the Peter Paul and Mary church (Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul), where I met Carly for ice-skating. French people love ice-skating. I think I’ve ice-skated more in the last 2 months than in the 4 years before that. This was an outdoor rink, special for the Christmas season, and it only cost 1euro for skate rental. Cool. So we ice-skated for a bit, then headed to the Christmas markets to get some praline peanuts (bringing back memories of airlines of old) and a carton of scalloped potatoes with ham bits. Delicious. We then headed to the theater to see Nowhere Boy, that movie about John Lennon. It was pretty enjoyable, especially because it was freezing outside and we still had some peanuts to enjoy. A good way to spend 2 hours. After we headed to pasta box and ate boxes of pasta, then over to Carly’s, where we drank Cointreau cocoa and wine. Keri Ann showed up followed shortly by Jenna, and I enjoyed the last few hours of my birthday lying around with my friends in our pajama tuxedos. A good birthday, all around. I believe I will make it to 24, no matter what Blink 182 says. As it turns out, the song ends with “No one should take themselves so seriously with many years ahead to fall in line. Why would you wish that on me? I never want to act my age.” Agreed.

maroon tuxedo - keeping me warm since 2009

dix

“I don’t have arms, but I have friends”

                -speech bubble from an armless stick figure on a poster about discrimination in one of my schools.

I apologize for my absence of over a month, I have absolutely no excuse, besides that so much has happened that once I missed a week, it just seemed too daunting to catch up. So rather than try to recap the entire fall season, I’m just going to tell you about my friends – I’m lucky enough to have both arms and friends.

Last night those of us who are still around gathered at Carly’s place for a white elephant exchange. The east-coasters (both the residents of the house) call this a “Yankee swap,” which was appreciated by our british friends. I spent the day going to various groceries to find ingredients for Russian tea cakes, my holiday classic (snickerdoodles have far too many non-french ingredients, so I didn’t even try). Powdered sugar is sold in a plastic jar here, and costs nearly 4 euro for no more than a cup. Don’t even get me started on Pecans. I finally gathered everything that I needed and whipped up some teacakes in the foyer’s kitchen, then headed over to Carly’s. We ate treats and enjoyed the Christmas spirit, and I introduced the gang to Cointreau-cocoa, which if you haven’t tried, you should. It’s much like a chocolate orange, in a glass. Delicious. So we’re all sitting around in Carly’s room, sippin on our cocoa, and then the lights dim, and I look up to see Carly walk in carrying a cake, candles and all. All my friends are singing me happy birthday and I’m left speechless, caught entirely off guard. I’ve never been surprised for my birthday before, and I can’t even begin to express how happy this made me. I was planning on a pretty terrible birthday, basically all alone in France, but my friends went above and beyond to make sure that didn’t happen. I blew out the candles (or tried to, as it turns out French trick-candles are impossible to put out, even after pinching with wet fingers they light back up), and then was showered with presents, each one a new surprise. I can’t believe how many people got me gifts, when I was only expecting to walk away with a candy bar or plastic trinket from the white elephant. As it turns out, one of my gifts was a tiny elephant that when blown into makes the sound you would expect a 2 inch elephant to make. I cannot say thank you enough to these people who have made my time here bearable, and my birthday wonderful. You guys are the best, you’ve completely outdone yourselves.

Another gift was broccoli to go with the Ranch dressing that Misty brought. They don't have Ranch here, and I  had told Misty that I liked cooked broccoli with Ranch. Now everyone else does, too.

After the birthday festivities were through, the white elephant began, and having drawn number 1, I picked my package and got some chocolate eggs filled with toys. This was one of the more polite white elephants I’ve been to, with very little stealing, and even less crappy gifts (aside from the package of screws, everything was pretty excellent). In the end I came away with a chocolate santa, which I promptly ate the head of, and because whoever had the eggs forgot to take them home, I got those too. A few people went home at this point and the rest of us started singing Christmas carols. When ‘Away in a Manger’ came along, we all started singing, but soon realized we were singing two different tunes. Apparently in England, they use the traditional hymnal tune. Same for Little Town of Bethleham, I think. This led us to ‘God save the Queen’ vs. ‘My country tis of thee,’ which of course resulted in the Americans trying to remember all the words to the latter. Once we hammered that out, we all headed home. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday surprise, thanks again, team.

Things that have happened since I last updated, which I can tell you about if you’re interested:

A trip to the LC club, the biggest dance club in Nantes. Power week – ten straight days of going out. My neighbor letting us into a church at midnight to listen to him play the third biggest organ in Nantes. Karaoke, twice. A trip to Ancenis. Iceskating. Hosting Thanksgiving for 35 of my friends. Thanksgiving in Angers. KeriAnn's gangsta birthday, durag and all. Last weekend in Angers before the kids leave.

I may write about some of these things anyway, but let me know if you want an update on anything specifically.

neuf

It’s not dad, it’s dadcula.

This is just one of the gems to come from the age old Halloween favorite, Hocus Pocus (featuring SJP and Bette Midler). Today in France everything is closed, because it is the Toussaint, or all saints day. That makes yesterday Halloween, which isn’t celebrated over here. Yet somehow I managed to spend 24 straight hours fete-ing the day, and let me say, it was excellent. But let’s go back a bit.

I stayed in Angers until Wednesday afternoon, during which time I basically just drank a ton of wine. I mean a huge amount of wine. Just tons of it. After the goats we got back to Annika’s and searched out more wine, then ended up seeing ‘the social network,’ which is one of the better films I’ve ever seen. I highly recommend it. Monday and Tuesday nights were pretty standard – wine, pasta boxes, wine, couscous, wine.

I was pretty upset when the wine was gone

Wednesday I said farewell to Sue and the gang and caught the train back to Nantes. I had to stand in the aisle because the train was so packed, not one of my favorite train rides. I decided to leave on Wednesday because Thursday was announced as a huge strike day, and at least half of all the trains were cancelled (in France, they announce their strikes beforehand so you can be prepared). So on Thursday I went into town with some friends to shop around. Around 3 or so Carly and I went into H&M, and everything was normal. Twenty minutes later we were headed for the door and we noticed no one was going out of it. We approached and got through the people to see the street filled with smoke. We went outside and saw a good thousand people marching through the street, wall to wall, with signs, loud speakers, and drinks. The French word for protest is ‘manifestation,’ which I found entirely appropriate – twenty minutes ago this street was empty, they all just appeared out of nowhere. So we followed the march back into town and Carly headed home. I decided to search out a fabric store for my Halloween costume, and I somehow stumbled into the center of the protest. The marchers were coming down this hill and convening in a park next to the tram line. I’m worse than anyone at estimation, but I’d say there were upwards of 5000 people milling about.

Now let me say a word about protests. If I had been in America, I might have been nervous for my safety in a crowd like this, especially a crowd that’s there to flip the bird at government. But in France it’s entirely different. It felt more like a tailgate than a protest. I felt like I was at the end of a marathon, the marchers coming down the hill were arriving at the finish line and being rewarded with a cold drink and a hotdog, and the celebration could commence (seriously, there were people cooking hotdogs). There was even a van driving along in the middle of the march selling wine for 50 cents and beer for a euro. On top of all this, it was a family friendly event, with children all about carrying their own protest signs. One baby carriage had a sign attached to it that read something to the effect of “protect the future for me.”

At one point some kids got out smoke flares and stood in the street with them. No big deal, I guess, the police standing near didn’t seem concerned. This all continued for about an hour, but around 6pm the crowd began to disperse. By 6:30 there were less than 100 people left. They want their early retirement, but nothing will get between the French and their supper. The remaining protesters piled up the cardboard and paper that was lying around and lit it on fire in the middle of the road  - again, no concern from the police. Kate brought her camera, so hopefully I can procure some of those photos.

Friday Celeste, Carly and I decided to take a day trip to the lovely town of Clisson. Unfortunately the early train was cancelled (thank you, grève) so we milled about Nantes for a few hours before catching the noon train. During this milling we found a great fabric store where I got my Halloween costume for a mere 8 euro, not bad! Upon arrival in Clisson, we realized it was a ghost town. There was no one in sight. There were tumbleweeds. Someone was whistling the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (these last two statements are false, but really, it was deserted). We wandered into the center and saw the remains of a morning market being packed into trucks. We asked someone where the tourist office was, and we were told it was closed. Awesome, Clisson, see you later. We found the office and discovered it was closed til 2.30. Of course, why didn’t we realize, this is not a ghost town, it’s just lunch time. The entire country closed from 12-2. It’s ridiculous. So we found the castle (also closed), looked at a church (not closed), and then decided to wait out the lunch break with some wine. At 2.30 we found the tourist office and were told of all the wonderful things to do in Clisson, including the Castle, which as it turns out, opens for the day at 2pm.

It was bomb. Seriously, this castle was awesome. Half ruins, half slightly more recent, and mostly filled with grass, it was lovely. After the castle we crossed the river and visited a gorgeous park before returning to the gare to catch our train home. I can’t really explain how lovely it all was,but here are some pictures.

This brings us all the way back to Halloween. Saturday some kids from Angers came to stay at my place, so once they were settled in and after dinner I headed over to Kate’s place with Carly, around 7.30. We set the place up a bit and got into costume, and around 9 or 10 the people began arriving. I was telling someone about how French people are terrible at dressing up, how they don’t really do a costume, but rather put together a bunch of goofy things or parts of costumes in a totally nonsensical way. At home we dress up in a costume, here they just dress up. So Kate’s French friends arrive, and one is dressed as a pirate, in a totally comprehensive costume. I’m surprised. Except for some reason he has blood all over his neck. The other one is a different story. He’s dressed in scrubs, cap and all, and has a syringe full of cherry wine. This is great. He also has a knife through his neck with blood running down, and light up antlers that are actually skeleton hands. Good try anyway, French guy. We played upside down bobbing for apples (apple from a string on the ceiling) for which the prize was an 85 cent bottle of hard cider. There were four apples but I only brought two bottles, fortunately the first winner wasn’t too keen on the 85 cent part, so I was able to regift it to the third winner. I’m pretty sure 5 or six people got the last one, by the time I took it down it was mostly just a core. We had a grand ol time, and by 3 am there were 6 of us left to stay the night in Kate’s livingroom/bedroom.

Sunday around 9 Carly sat up and announced that she was done sleeping, thus commencing the laziest day of my life. We sat/layed around for a good three hours, watching youtube videos and listening to music, before finally getting out of bed to clean up a bit, and then getting back into bed for another hour or two to listen to yet more music, only this time some of it live (turns out Kate’s a pro on the ukulele). It seems that the only thing that could possibly prompt us to move about was our stomachs, and around 4 we made a brief exodus to find some kebabs. We were back within 40 minutes, at which point Kate put on Hocus Pocus (which explains the beginning of this post). Finally around 6:30 we got up the strength to leave, thus ending our literal 24 hour stay chez Kate (daylight savings).

Woody Allen, Artemis, Cowgirl, Shadow, Robot, Devil, Cat, Dunno, French ER guy, Cruella DeVille

Best Halloween abroad I could ever ask for. Good work, team.