Charles Bridge after Midnight
About the only time the bridge isn’t packed with people and souvenir sellers is right before they shut off the lights for the night — 2 AM.
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Escaping the Pull
Trapped. Even before heading to the port, I realized the Aegean Sea was choppy. Things aren’t helped by the enclosed decks and assigned seats of the high-speed ferries. But over the span of four hours, that rough ride would mean the people in the seats in front, to my right and behind me all needed multiple uses of their seasickness bags.
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The Cookie Monster
As I settled in for the four hour bus trip from the Mediterranean coastal city of Sfax eastward to Tozeur, I couldn’t help but notice I was being watched from across the isle. While I tore into my massive roasted chicken sandwich, a boy of about seven wouldn’t stop staring at me.
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Tunisian Idol
In my first few days in this country, I am perplexed by what appears to be a vast one-dimensionality to contemporary Tunisian music: the people all watch and listen to the same stuff. I’m not new to Arabic music. But with eerie similarity, it’s like The Big Game is on every channel, all day, all night, every day, every night. I don’t get it. I must be missing something.
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Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!
The speaker blares to life and startles me back to consciousness. It has been just under a year since traveling in a Muslim country and being woken by one of the five daily calls to prayer.
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A Numbers Game
I was due, I suppose. All these miles, all these countries, all these flights to all these airports over all these years and my luggage had always managed to travel with me.
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You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em…
Things have been, surprisingly, rather free from catastrophe as of late. But there will be much less to say after this email — I’m packing it in and heading home early. Plans for the Czech Republic and Italy have been abandoned and Poland had to be curtailed.
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Arbeit Macht Frei
There are no smiles here. There are no families with strollers and balloons and ice cream for the kids. There is nobody selling ornamental models of monuments. No souvenir key chains or fold-out postcard sets or coffee mugs or t-shirts. There are no smiles here. There is horror. There is anguish. There is silence. And death.
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The Man Who Stopped the Sun
The massive, grey odes to Communist architecture are everywhere. The central train station, dark, depressing and dirty, is gargantuan, like its own underground Gotham City. It’s a labrynth of snack shops, clothing stores, internet cafes. While the blocky buildings give Warsaw a distinct historical style, modernity is moving quickly to catch up.
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My big, fat Polish dinner
It was a good introduction. I arrived in Poznan, Poland, by train from Berlin and after a day of travel originating at 3 am in Istanbul, Turkey, I needed food. Polish “milk bars” define no-frills eating, as if your high school cafeteria was redesigned without all that fancy decor.
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Not Istanbul, It’s Constantinople
With apologies to They Might Be Giants, I’ve been spoiled by Morocco. Again. In Istanbul, I was hoping for, and indeed expecting, a city teetering on the edge of two worlds. Straddling Europe and Asia, on the edge of the Middle East (Turkey’s neighbor to the east is Iraq), I expected crazy.
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Getting Lucky(‘s)
Santorini was meant to be a one-night stand: a quick reunion with an island I loved my last time in Greece, while en route to the uncharted territory of Crete and Rhodes. My first visit to Santorini sold me on a place with fabulous volcanic beaches (take your pick of red, black or white sand).
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You’re Toxic, I’m Slipping Under
Winning the prize for Most Stunningly Modern and Attractive Metro System is Athens, an achievement that would normally be fabulous. Except in Athens, it is a subway system designed to deliver passengers around a disgustingly rancid hellholeish cesspool of a city.
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Buda, Pest and The Cure
Death was imminent. I was sure of it. It was so humid that the word “air” could be used only sparingly. And it was so hot that there may as well have been an onion on my head and a tomato in my mouth: I was being roasted alive. The thermometer pegged the temperature at 72oC (162oF).
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The Dictator Next Door
The first bombs fell about 10 pm. Their arrival was no surprise — journalists left the city two days prior. Residents gathered in Cold War-era shelters as the air raid sirens wailed and radio reports warned of the need for gas masks. The state-run television station blinked out. Explosions erupted around the city and the lights went black.
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What, I have to eat again?
From Barcelona, Samy and I head to Perpignan, France, to stay with his aunt and their family. It is an exciting three nights of cultural immersion, culminating in the highly enriching experience of an elegant night of fine French cinema at its intellectual best: The Punisher (in French).
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Magic Carpet Ride
The temperature has risen considerably in the past few days, both across the country as a whole and especially as we have moved northward, leaving us to regret not having taken the time for a trip to Merzouga for a camel trek across the sand dunes of the Sahara.
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Big city, my friend. You need guide.
From our base in Meknes, a comfortable hostel with a walled compound and apricot trees in an affluent part of town, a day trip to Fes has only one target: the leather tanneries. Leather goods are ubiquitous in Morocco, with bags and clothes and shoes in a vast spectrum of colours. And most of them are crafted with leather produced in Fes.
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Riding the Marrakech Express
Sir, please, come! It’s the best of the best! Please! Sir! Come and sit! Sir!” Having just finished a massive meal, I’m in no mood to eat. But I’m surrounded by tables piled high with tiers of fresh kabobs of spiced lamb and beef and fish and chicken.
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One Last Thing
Plans coalesced on the beach in Lagos. Ready for a larger leap between cultures, I intended to cross the Strait of Gibraltar to spend about one week in Morocco. My guidebook had a seven day itinerary that sounded, like most other week-long guidebook itineraries of places I’ve never visited, to be a reasonable balance of perspective and breadth.
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