Rabat deux

So it turns out Rabat is the capital of Morocco. Embarassing. For me, not Morocco. Rabat is a really cool city. Yesterday I went to the medina, which I understand to be Arabic for the old walled city, usually containing the souks, which are the open air markets full of snake charmers and monkey wranglers, among other less savory characters.

Ross and I went to the beach, which had 2 lonely surfers and a horde of kids playing soccer on the beach, with the requisite old Moroccan gentlemen drinking coffee on the shore. Ross and I joined the old Moroccan gentlemen for a bit of coffee and gossip, then went down to the beach and inexplicably began collecting very small seashells. Time well spent.

I still don't know if they are policing tourists or policing for tourists.

Rabat

I'm in Rabat right now, which is a town on the coast of Morocco. We are staying with a French girl named Sophia and her German roommate. Sophia works for an NGO which does microfinance, although she said her major was in history, which made me happy.

Ross and I spent most of the morning having coffee at a beach side cafe, which is apparently something that all Moroccan men tend to do. I have yet to see a woman drinking coffee in a coffee shop. I am half inclined to think this would be a good tradition in America as well, although eavesdropping would become a lot less humorous.

Men in coffee shops are invariably seated facing towards the street. Only once did I see a guy sitting with his back towards the street, and I couldn't help but think of wolf packs, and that he was definitely the mangy wolf in the back with last dibs on sweet caribou meat.

Planes, Planes and Automobiles

It has been awhile since I wrote anything in this blog, but I'm finally traveling again, although this time I'm going to the White Continent, which is a brand new experience for me.

I woke up at 5:00 this morning. Rather, I was woken up at 5:00 this morning, after getting home at 1 and packing until 3:30. Now, I don’t usually need or get a lot of sleep, but this is pushing it, even for someone as Circadian rhythmically-challenged as I. I want to say that despite arriving at the airport an hour and a half early, my family still almost missed our flight, but that really isn’t true. My dad just has a tendency to freak out when airline employees are criminally slow in their baggage checking. After berating a few Delta employees and smuggling toothpaste through security, we made it to our flight with time to spare for the McDonald’s breakfast that I have come to associate with San Diego departures.

My grandparents were apparently lost in JFK, which, in previous years, wouldn’t have been so frightening, but my grandpa has recently become extremely mobile, thanks to his new scooter, and I was forced to imagine him riding through the terminals pinching the asses of any flight attendants who can’t recognize a mischievous grin. But I guess that turned out alright. There aren’t any lawsuits that I’m aware of, anyhow. I was busy catching up with Evan, who is at school in New York and decided to swing by JFK for a drink, no big deal.

Finally, after a 6 hour layover, we got on the plane to Budapest, where I sat next to two overfriendly Romanians name Ilena and Arpi. I’m not sure about the spelling on either of those, particularly “Arpi,” but I am hoping that “Arpi” is not actually RP, some strange Romanian equivalent to JR or LT. Anyway, they were very nice, despite being from Transylvania.

Now I am sitting in the Budapest Marriot on Sunday morning, although it feels like Friday night, and “this morning” actually occurred 40 hours ago. I feel spastic in time.

The drive into Budapest from the airport was kind of boring. I saw 3 McDonalds, two KFCs and a Burger King. There were also some gas stations, but the prices seemed like San Diego’s from 4 months ago. That is probably because of the wacky Hungarian money, called a Forint, which exchanges at 200 FT to 1 dollar, unless you are me and trade with gypsies, in which case the exchange rate drops to around 170 to 1.