Morocco Booty

Here are the goods. My scores from Morocco.

The blue plate was cracked in my luggage, in spite of all the bubble wrap I was dragging around. Kraiger thinks I can fix it with Krazy Glue but I haven't tried yet.

The green painting has gone to Lisa W in Seattle. The little wooden boxes have snakes that pop out. Those went to the sons of Steve B and Denise. The beads were for Ursula. And the tagine cooker? That's mine. I haven't tried it yet. I haven't even looked up how to use it. But I did wash it, dry it, and put it in the cupboard.

Which is half the battle, right?

Special Meal in Marrakesh

This sign, just off the main square in Marrakesh, made me laugh. What exactly are they selling here? Snipes couscous?

Contemplating Mischief

What kind of fun can I have with this?

Independence Day

Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July.

That's a song. By X. It's the only song I know that is about this particular holiday, and I was a fan of X, so it runs through my head on Independence Day.

I go to ridiculous lengths to avoid holidays, traditional family-and-friends days. My life has been amazing for many years... I've been on and off the road since 2001 and have only been seriously trying to reintegrate for a year. The downside of living that way is that you lose your community, become a self-contained independent unit, and disconnect from the reality most people know. The distressing self-worth blow of rejection mixes it up a bit too. Things would be much easier if triumphant returns didn't come with metaphorical hangovers.

Or I could just keep going indefinitely. But I've tried that. It's doesn't work either. No way out but through it.

This July 4th, I caught a bus from my Paris hotel to the Gare du Nord. I'd spotted the bus last night, right in front of my hotel, and thought "Ah, a way to avoid the long walks underground on the metro."

The bus took me right through the courtyard in front of the Louvre and up to the train station.

I was feeling pretty smug until I got to the ticket machines and discovered they were all mysteriously broken. I waited in line to learn that there was some kind of unexpected strike.

"Should have taken the airport bus," I groused.

I stood on the hot platform with hundreds of other would-be passengers. The trains were not air-conditioned and today was a scorcher. About ten percent of the crowd was en route to an anime convention, decked out in cutesy skirts and bear or bunny ears.

Eventually, I got to the airport. I'd carefully wrapped my Moroccan souvenirs in bubble wrap and watched as my bag went off on the conveyer belt.

Fingers crossed.

Later that night, I disembarked at Washington's Dulles Airport. The deal with my frequent flyer ticket had been that I had to fly back to Washington DC. I watched, wincing as the baggage transfer guy bounced my bag on the floor. Ouch, there goes a plate.

Normally, I'd have caught the $20 bus home from Washington DC. But not on July 4th. Me+luggage+Metro+cops+a hundred thousand revelers=not real comfy. I boarded an $89 shuttle plane for JFK. I'd arrive late enough to miss the fireworks, the fun, and even the crowds as they cheered and partied on the A train.

And that's all right with me.

Solo in Paris

When I unzipped my pack, a mound of dirty clothes, ornate plates, and bubble wrap erupted onto the hotel room bed. There, down at the bottom of the bag, was a black, sleeveless shirt that I'd been culturally unable to wear in Morocco. My only clean shirt. Perfect for Paris.

I showered and then scraped off deodorant onto my only clean shirt. Oops. Okay, back to second-cleanest.

I studied the map on the Chez Paul website—that's where I wanted to go for dinner as it had been recommended separately by Ed Ward and Paula Siry—and then got on the metro. Chez Paul wasn't a tourist hotspot, but it is reasonably well-known. As a single diner going early, maybe I'd get in with no problem.

I needn't have worried. I was out for dinner at 7, which is pretty early for a Friday night. There was plenty of room in the small bistro. A heavyset woman in a low-slung black tank-top, purple bra straps, and shiny red shoes motioned me to a table in the back. I seemed to be the only customer she did not personally know, but that didn't stop her from treating me with humor and charm. She greeted others with kisses on both cheeks, then would head over to saw away at the bread. Sometimes, she'd do a little jiggly dance of happiness.

A set of hybrid English-American grandparents came in with their grandson and sat next to me. The grandmother, in French, informed me that they would be speaking English and hoped not to disturb me. We all had a good laugh at my reply, not French in the least, and had a fine chat about the Chez Paul food, which was delicious bistro fare.

I headed down a pedestrian street to the metro, then over to the Eiffel Tower for a few photos. I walked off my Chez Paul steak as I clumsily navigated the traffic circles and diagonal streets of Paris on my way back to the Novotel.

Paris Overnight

I asked around. A lot. But I never did find the secret, nice, cheap place in Paris.

Every time I did the math, the room that looked so cheap in euros ended up being more than a hundred bucks in dollars.

The exchange rate is a killer.

So in the end, I'd thrown up my hands and used my tried-and-true method.No secret here... mix up Priceline with BiddingforTravel.com and you get something reasonable enough. There are hidden methods on BiddingforTravel when you are looking at New York (bid J.C.) or London (try Heathrow), but nothing turned up for Paris.

And sometimes, when I ask around if anyone knows any great secrets for Paris—besides Priceline—I'd get "Try Priceline!" Uh, okay. More than once, I could swear someone is parroting my own advice back to me, given years ago to a mutual friend. But these aren't state secrets. You can read about them in mainstream travel mags, the kind that crow about "bargains" that are so obscene that I laugh aloud while reading on the PATH train.

I ended up with a $90 Novotel in a non-touristy neighborhood right by a metro stop. It was fine. More than fine. I am happy to stay in a decent place for less than the price of a rundown place.

The only problem, then, was the public transportation in Paris. It's terribly similar to New York's. What that means is that what looks like a simple transfer on the map can turn out to involve long underground hikes.

No big deal, right? I assure you, less nice with a backpack and an armful of souvenirs purchased at the last minute in the airport.

By the time I had to transfer trains, I was fried and too tired to pay attention. Had I gone through turnstiles? Had I not? Where was the token booth? Did I care? (No.)

Nowhere to buy a ticket. I wanted to get off the airport train and get on the metro. I could either keep walking and find the purchase point... or I could go through that open door that the woman with a stroller was holding open.

Guess which one I picked? And then sweated nervously—worrying about ticket checks—through another transfer, all the way to my stop.

Leaving Morocco

On my last morning in Morocco, I steeled myself for the inevitable battle of taxi wills. I had to get a lift from the Medina gate to the airport.

"Ask the driver to use the meter," chirped the guidebook. Easier said than done.

I hauled my bag out of the Medina, on my back—how the hell had I gone around the world like this for a year?—and stumbled over a parked taxi just inside the gate. The driver was sipping tea and just preparing for his shift.

"Airport?" I couldn't believe my luck.

He nodded and motioned me into the taxi. He turned on the meter without my asking. He put my backpack in the trunk. He tried to communicate for a bit, and we both blabbered in our respective languages.

Upon arrival at the airport, he became excited. He motioned to an old building, then to a sparkling new building of shapely concrete and space-age windows.

"New!" The driver was visibly proud of the new terminal.

We said our good-byes as if we were old friends.

I found the Easyjet counter and dropped off my luggage, went through security, found those elusive souvenirs I'd been craving, and boarded a plane to Paris.

Winding Through the Medina

I walked up to a store where artisans carve out unique designs on tiles. One of them showed me how it's done, deftly chopping out a little heart from a tile. He presented it to me with a grin.

I'd sought this store out on purpose. I intend to renovate the bathroom in my (Yancey's) apartment sooner or later, and I thought it would be cool to have small handmade tile accents. Maybe a rhino in the corner. Yancey likes rhinos.

"How much are they?"

I don't remember the artisan's response, but the price was ridiculous. Something like $10 a tile.

"Oh, they are very beautiful, but I really do not have this kind of money. I am on dollars, you see, and the euro is very strong right now, and I really cannot pay... blah blah blah... do you have anything cheaper?"

My bargaining technique works wonderfully when someone is genuinely messing around about the price. At this point they start to negotiate.

He didn't do that. He shrugged. He showed me a few cheap tiles that were pretty basic.

"Er, maybe I'll come back."

I had similar experiences around the Medina. What the hell? Don't people want to sell?

The intervening years between the last time I was seriously on the road (2005) and now, I realized, have not been kind to the dollar. The euro is worth $1.40. That's a huge difference.

Maybe it's karmic payback for me getting annoyed when Turbo would not want to spend his Aussie dollars when we traveled together. Now I knew what it meant to spent rate-and-a-half for everything.

I asked the man by the fountain, the one I greeted when I walked to and from my guesthouse, where I could get a ceramic tagine pot. He found one and I ended up paying him about $20 for it, way more than I knew it would have cost if I'd picked one up in Fez. And only $5 cheaper than at the Moroccan store near my old apartment on Avenue B.

I traipsed up to an open-air market outside the bus station, right outside the Medina in the new(ish) city. The vendors seemed to have all gone home, so I walked through the new city to the fixed price shop. There, a carpet similar to the one I'd bought for $70 in Marrakesh in the early 90s was $150. I'd seen it in Chelsea for $950, and in the souks for hundreds of dollars. But this was its real value—$150. Fifteen years ago, I'd paid about exactly what it was worth.

I tried to walk back to the Medina, passed the Kasbah, got hopelessly lost, and finally ended up on the busy streets leading up to the main square. A restaurant tout offered me a menu, and I followed him up some stairs to a rooftop restaurant.

Exhausted, I sunk into a cushioned chair. I sipped tea and munched pastilla, mulling over my shopping failures. I'd wanted an entire set of ceramics, which would replace my 1992-era IKEA plates. I had a lot of unused bubble wrap in my bag and was heading to Paris in the morning.

Oh well, failure means less to carry home.

Djemaa el Fna

Marrakesh's main square is called Djemaa el Fna. It really hops at night.

Shopping in Marrakesh

I had a book about shopping in Marrakesh, so I followed some of the routes outlined in its chapters.

I first passed by the "library." Which is not really the library but was a tiny book stall.



And then I continued on to see shops full of trinkets and tiles and beads. Some lovely stuff but it all seemed kind of outrageously priced. Actually, not that lovely. I regretted not doing my shopping in Fez. Here's a gallery of some things you can buy in Marrakesh.

During the three days I spent in Marrakesh, I followed each route in the shopping book. And then finally, found the one place I'd been saving for last because it looked so interesting.

Down by the Kasbah, out of the tourist zone, there's a shop where a folk artists sells his traditional paintings. I purchased three. I wish I'd bought more.