c'est la vie

demain, insha'allah

Fès, Morocco

This afternoon I felt heavy more than I have in a long long while. I imagined living again in New York, trying to imagine my life life that again. I wanted to step away from the Ferris wheel of constant travel. It is often magical but certainly not always easy.

In Nouvelle Fès the atmosphere was thick, dense with the Moroccan sun. My insides felt dull, my mind oppressed. It took the energy out of my day, the entirety of the afternoon feeling groundless and indecisive. I didn't want to eat another tagine.

Last night I ate a camel stew with a Berber family. A man called Mouhammed brought us home through the winding souks of Fès and introduced us to his mother as Ali Baba and Fatima.

But indecisive. Wanting to move on and not sure where to go or how to get there. Wandering through the mellah, the Jewish quarter, Adam photographing me next to the mikvah. Feeling empty.

Some wind in the sails after a dinner of Morocca, white beans and vegetable cous cous and Adam and I walked over to the Ramadan carnival through the blue mosaic gate. Three nights ago, when we arrived in Fès, we discovered the carnival and immediatelt rode the giant Ferris wheel. It went wonderfully fast and one gets a wonderful view of the city under the stars, the carnival lights aglow and loud music blaring below and men selling mille feuille and macaroons and cigarettes from little wooden boxes with a string around their necks.

Tonight we went back for another ride, one that has little sings that fly around in circles higher and higher. We took videos of ourselves and the revolving Fès skyline on Adam's camera, and when we were done we went again on the Ferris wheel, which I love the most.

And this is traveling, being on the road. Hot dusty days questioning myself and longing for a flat in Park Slope and autumn in New York. And evenings at the Ramadan carnival in Fès reminding me to take risks, to continue to explore. We were the only foreigners at the carnival.

The Blue City

But oh the endless streets and houses painted blue. Not quite blue but tchelet - the sky blue of the flag of Israel - and whitewash, and sand coloured exposed brick, and deeply terracotta roof tiles. Several things add to the beauty of Chefchaoeun: the narrow cobblestone streets, the absence of cars and motorbikes within the city walls, the excessive use of vowels, the Rif Mountain panorama, the spice markets, the gentle October sun.

Three more days until the conclusion of Ramadan. The energy here during this time is quite unique, I imagine. The fasts ends each evening at six, and the hour before that a tremendous rush and vibrancy and urgency sweeps the city, people running at full speed to get their cous cous on. You being to smell the onions simmering, bread baking, eggs boiling, harira stewing - people on the streets filling their bags with Ramadan sweets; baklava, shebekiah, date cookies, dusted with sesame seeds and drenched in Berber honey. Until six, until the call of the muezzin reverberates and silences the city, no one eats or drinks. All is subdued; men sit in cafés.

People continue to serve food to the travelers although we don't feel comfortable with this. So we secret away to the roof for private breakfasts of the that we managed to gather the night before - roasted pistachios and noisettes, fresh chevre, marinated olives, figs and Medjool dates that taste like honey, Moroccan brown bread, pomegranates and bananas.

Moroccan culture I find sensuous, rich, gentle; warm. People are kind. More than once we have been stopped in the street when the muezzin wails the six o'clock break fast as people usher us into their homes to eat fried fish and milk and shebekiah. We had such an invitation the other evening in Chaoeun. Anwar, who runs the Pension Castellana, invited us to eat cous cous with him. A few days ago, we offered him some shebekiah, a Ramadan sweet like Indian djellabi, and he jumped out of his seat and ran off, returning with cornbread and an apple banana milkshake to offer in return. We sat and ate together. The next night, he came onto the roof and asked us if we wanted to drink mint tea. We went down into the courtyard, and he poured hot water over fresh mint leaves and offered us a sugar mixture of cocoa and crushed nuts. Next morning as we left for walk, he timidly asked if we would like to join him for cous cous for dinner. His sister makes it, he added.

The cous cous arrived, a huge plate of it which four of us ate off of communally, as in Moroccan homes. The cous cous is handmade, and it is served with a piece of slow cooked meat in the center, usually lamb or chicken; and it is surrounded by vegetables - carrots, potatoes, green beans. On top are chickpeas and raisins covered in heaps of sweet onions, sauteed in sugar and cinnamon and saffron.

We sat together speaking in French, the lingua franca of Morocco. It is nice not always to default to English. Adam doesn't speak French, so I did my best to translate between the two. We began to ask questions the history of Jews in Morocco, present here for at least ten centuries until they were all expelled in 1967 after the Six Day War. We asked about the old Jewish quarter, the mellah, in Chaoeun; about the relationship between the Muslims and the Jews. Anwar explained that he had no feelings of animosity toward the Jewish people.

"We are all brothers," Anwar said. "With the Jews, I have no problem. We honor all of the prophets. But the Spanish, now they are really a bunch of fuckers."

Chefchaoen, Morocco

Ramadan in Morocco. I'm fucking starving.

Màlaga, and the Costa del Sol

The bus from Madrid about 7 1/2 hours south into the city of Màlaga, the birthplace of Picasso and also the cultural capital of Europe in the near future of 2017. Ten more years to go and already the scaffolding is out, renovating an already beautiful city. The Costa del Sol. Dark grainy sands but perfect Mediterranean breezes. We arrived in the evening and locked up our packs at the station, walked out to find a hostel.

For my taste Spanish cuisine leaves much to be desired - however it is the joyful quality of the endless tapas bars that satisfy me completely. The food and wine cheap and delicious, all served on wooden barrels in the street. Cold rosé and calamari, jamon de serrano, potato and egg tortes, roasted green peppers and stew like pista with white bread. Costs you less than 10E and you sit at the little barrels late into the night, admiring the shrimp pancakes the fellow next to you just ordered and asking sweetly for a light.

The port city of Màlaga is lined with the obvious harbour and a tropical park at the mouth of the harbour. Hibiscus flowers and date palms. I tasted my first fresh date, yellow and hard and strangely sweet. Adam put a flower in my hair.

Walking through the marbled pedestrian area a gypsy sang and played the accordion. We found our way to the Picasso museum, our second, a collection of his earliest work. The museum was built atop an old archaeological site which had been excavated and which lay preserved with mysteriously modern stairwells wrapping around it. Fourth century cisterns and city walls. What amazed me is how many layers of old cities we build on top of - the old Màlaga lay at least ten meters below street level.

A bus ride in the afternoon down the Costa del Sol, past the drudgery of Marbella and the soulless developed coastline, long past its prime, obscuring the sea. The Rock of Gibraltar stands high and proud, jutting out along the southern edge. Adam fumbled for his camera.

And finally to the port of Algeciras, with ferries pointed toward Morocco.

Xocolate y Xurros

Lurking round the winding passageways in the city of Barcelona is Picasso's ghost. Here, setting up an easel at the Cathedral de St Someone. Here, painting the turreted rooftops, or the view from the window of his lover. At the playa in Barceloneta.

I have only visited the Basque country, and this is my first visit to Catalunya. Spanish energy is for me completely new, young, fresh; vital - unexpected. Alive. Casual, extraordinary. Absolutely nothing like Paris. The gentleness of a Mediterranean city and the style of thousands of young people. Roman ruins. Gaudi architecture, xocolate and xurros. It feels very old and very young at the same time.

It is a city for living, but so crowded with the internationals that often there is little room to breathe. There is a distinct pulse coming from the underbelly, the Roman aqueducts I imagine underneath the cobblestone streets. It draws me in - the joy of old cities without urban planning - getting lost as I choose a winding alley to wander, to look in the windows of antique shops and xocolaterias and medieval bars.

Espying fisherman's sandals in a size 35, chasing them through the alleys. Searching for Picasso, for the ancient Cataluynian heartbeat. The old stones which built Barcelona, trod on by Roman warriors, kings and princes, that witnessed revolutions, Franco, women in espadrillos and stilettos, the wetness of the sea and the giant puppets of the Festa de Mercé - all is reflected back at me, bouncing off the stained glass, the mirrored façades, the smiles of the buskers and in the street performers maquillage, the musicians and the municipal workers, the gleams of metal as the tiendas close at midday and the Spanish retreat for the afternoon.