Morocco - Tangier

Spain's slow drizzle evolved into a downpour as I boarded the boat for Morocco. I was pleased to find myself once again aboard a ferry, having commuted to San Francisco that way one summer several years ago. For some reason, I thought the weather would improve once I got to Morocco and, while the sun was shining on my arrival, it was a brief dry moment in what would be a particularly wet trip.

I hadn't made any arrangements for a hotel, so once I was safely aground in Tangier, I caved in and hired one of the several guides shilling at the ferry terminal, selecting mine more for his festive hat and cowboy boots than anything else. I'd corresponded with our Moroccan friend Omar via email prior to the trip, and he'd warned me that there would be touts everywhere, and that they could be both aggressive and annoying. Omar also explained that official tour guides would be able to produce a badge identifying their official status, and that it might be worth asking for, even if it could be fake.

After seeing his badge, I hired Rashid to be my guide and, after I withdrew local currency from an ATM, he led me to an overpriced taxi and we zipped off to an internet cafe. If you find yourself under-scheduled and accosted by dubious helpers in a foreign land, the internet cafe is a great refuge. For one thing, I was able to begin work on my Audi article, as the deadline would fall during the trip. I had mostly written off my time in Tangier as a travel day anyway, and wanted to free up time for Fez. Additionally, I was able to read several less than enthusiastic reviews of the hotel that Rashid was pushing, and book a place of my own selection. Working on my article was also part of my strategy for dumping Rashid, I would simply wait him out. Eventually it worked, I explained to him that I'd made a hotel reservation, and that I planned to work for a few more hours, and he went away quietly enough after naming his price. Rashid was the first of many Moroccans to reject my Euros in coin form, for some reason they're not accepted in Morocco, which I found annoying since the bills are welcomed.

After roughing in my Audi review, I walked to a cafe for a decent but unremarkable dinner, and then caught a taxi to my hotel. Fares are double at night in morocco, at least in the usually more affordable petite taxis, and I was a little taken aback when the driver pointed at the meter and asked for twice as much. Still, the prices weren't as high as Rashid's Mercedes driving cohort had commanded, and I was too tired to care. The driver didn't know quite where the hotel was, and at one point we drove down a narrow street in the medina, only to back out in lurching, clutch smoldering fashion, when it became clear that we were headed the wrong way.

The hotel had a crumbling charm that was inversely proportionate to its lack of insulation. The common areas were both shabby and ornate, making the even shabbier, but not at all ornate guest rooms a bit underwhelming. Still, I was safe and dry, and drifted off to sleep with german coverage of the winter olympics murmuring in the background. In the absence of travel partners, the winter olympics would become my constant companion throughout the trip, biathlon its chief personality defect.

Happy New Year

When my sister was a little girl she used to sing along to the Disney theme each weekend at the start of Disney's family hour on ABC. Our Grandmother Ann, a working actress in Los Angeles, loathed Disney and their three quarter scale fascism, yet such things are lost on children. This was in an age when the world hadn't yet learned to despise CEOs, and Michael Eiesner's puffy visage was a regular feature at the show's opening, offering bland moralism straight from the offices of what might be the most litigious company on earth. Anyway, we used to watch the show from time to time and Kate would sing along to the theme (wait for the hook, maybe 6 seconds in), except she had the lyrics wrong and would sing "everything your heart desires will be set on fire." My Dad thought this was especially terrific and used to sing it with her until it eventually became a standard tune around the house.

This new year's eve Vanessa presented two Hindu prayer sticks as our main form of entertainment, as we'd opted to spend the evening on our own, as is our tradition. Actually, anyone seeking a mob of like minded party people was no doubt disappointed to hear that Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, and official mouthful had cancelled all of Dubai's NYE celebrations in a show of solidarity with Palestine. With our own plans unaffected by that sad, interminable conflict, we set about writing our wishes for the new year on the prayer sticks, which are sort of like slightly ornate, oversized bookmarks. The basic concept is that you write out a wish and then set it ablaze, which I've come to see as a form of letting go. It's interesting that we chose the new year to make resolutions, when the passing of each year actually marks the slight narrowing of possibility. Perhaps that is the point though, the march of time means selecting your commitments more carefully, and since they might include things like actually going to the gym, or rejecting bacon as a food group, your resolve could have the effect of widening the spectrum of possibility ever so slightly.

And so, at around 23:55 Dubai time, we took our wishes out into the yard and set them ablaze. There was an eery fog hanging over us that seemed to steal the breath from the flame, but with time and patience we were able to reduce our aspirational popsicle sticks to a satisfying ash. While my wish was singular, and related to our extended family, Vanessa chose a scattershot approach, including what I suspect were references to the Kyoto Protocol, and a nod to good shoes among many other important subjects.

And so, with 2009 seizing us in it's infantile grip, we find ourselves wondering what the year will hold. Dubai has seen it's share of economic slow down, with layoffs throughout its mitochondrial property development industry. Like anywhere else, Dubai is populated by a range of optimists and  alarmists, with some developers and consultants proclaiming the end of green in Dubai, even though it's principles are currently being set into law. I hear this from the panic stricken mostly, one German architectural consultant that I met at a party was plotting layoffs and a potential move to Saudi Arabia based on one project cancellation, and generally preaching despair to anyone who would listen. These types always assume green will be the first casualty because the initial costs are higher. As our friend Ben (a self described "evil developer") pointed out a few months back, developers don't realize the benefits of sustainability because so few of them are owner operators, so any energy and subsequent cost savings will be realized by the buyers and therefore requires legislation, subsidy, or serious marketing clout in order to have real teeth. 

Dubai, because it's ruled by one person, has the ability to make these sort of radical reforms into law overnight, but it's certainly true that we are heading into a period of greater economic conservatism, at least in the apolitical sense. Naturally, we can't help but wonder what our own fortune may be in Dubai over the coming year. Thus far, the signs are fairly positive for us personally, but having weathered nearly four years of continual corporate layoffs myself, I know first hand that you can simply never know for sure. In fact, seeing your co-workers let go is difficult for those who are spared, there's a sort of survivors guilt that comes with empty desks and overabundant sticky notes.

Breadsauce and Christmas Pudding

Now that I've finally had Christmas pudding, I can see why the British despise Bill Cosby, whose saccharine Jello ads promote a product that is completely unrecognizable to our powdered wig sporting friends. Christmas pudding is like a cross between a good fruitcake (let's postulate for the moment that such a thing actually exists) and a really good bran muffin, served broken up in a bowl and still relatively moist from the oven. We also had something called breadsauce, which to my surprise was not a type of beer. Breadsauce looks a lot like oatmeal, but tastes like wheat bread in sauce form, making it's name rather practical. This is perhaps the opposite of welsh rarebit, which is cheese on toast according to one welshman present at our feast.

English Chistmas seems to be fairly similar to our own, except there's a good deal more drinking and you have to wear a waistcoat. While many American's seem to retain some microbial amount of puritan shame, Brits are happy to drink to excess alongside their parents, grandparents, and religious officials-- in fact it seems to be encouraged and makes Christmas more exciting. In this state of ecstatic truthfulness, not one of the poms expressed even a hint of animosity toward us colonials for going are own way, isn't that nice? Even better, David Beckham's name never came up at all, although I did find out that Bay Watch is an infinitely more potent cultural export than I had imagined, fairly trouncing any other book, movie or television show as an instantly recognizable charades topic. Phil merely puffed out his chest and jogged a few slow motion steps to elicit an almost instant chorus of correct answers. This was, sadly, quite the opposite of "On The Road," which was identified phonetically although no one seemed to know the book. I'm sure ol' Jack was too drunk to care, wherever he is.

Other festivity highlights include Vanessa's conception of, sole entry into, and victory in the ugly christmas sweater contest. Secretly, her sweater is actually a Christmas tree stand cozy, but she wore it as a sort of serape and scored a box of chocolates as her prize. We also had a Christmas quiz, courtesy of our hosts Mark and Caroline, and played an impromptu version of pictionary, that was really just charades on paper, and a lot of fun. We also exchanged gifts in secret santa fashion, with everyone taking a wobbly turn on our gregarious Seeth Ifrican Santa's lap. I somehow managed to draw my own gift, The Godfather, at random, which was fine with me since they were mostly gag gifts anyway. Vanessa did OK as well, drawing a bottle of champagne and managing to avoid the Mrs. Claus costume and steering wheel cozy that others were saddled with. Since we couldn't be at home, this was a very good place to spend the holiday and we lavished a fair amount of attention on our little pal Harvey, as we were missing our new niece Sonia. We did get to coo at her later that night via Skype, which was great. Some people are embarrassed by the way that babies reduce grown men and women to gurgling imbeciles, but for me it's just status quo.