Think back to my apartment in Japan.  Remember the photos?  A talking, self-heating toilet, a bed I could cook from, sparkling white floors I could eat off of, a lovely view of a brick wall and a strip club, a 40 minute commute on a packed train... now put that image down, flip it and reverse it.  There you have it, my apartment in Tetouan!  It is in virtually every way the opposite of my place in Hon Atsugi: a broken toilet seat, a living room so big it echoes, a cockroach body count that's currently up to three, a breathtaking view of the Rif mountains, and an easy three minute stroll to work.  It's a perfect example of my own personal motto: it's not better or worse, it's just different.

And generally speaking, I like different. 

So let's get to the good stuff.  Let's see the pictures:

The view from the balcony.  It's a nice sized balcony that gets plenty of sun!

The kitchen.  In several ways this place reminds me of my apartments in Spain.  For one, it has the exact same water heater I had before.  The doors with the big useless knob in the middle is also very Spanish. 

The bathroom with the broken toilet seat.  I am going to Moroccan Ikea today to buy the replacement!

The lovely living and dining room.  A family of birds live in/above the window, and I can hear them nesting at night.  It freaked me out at first, but I'm getting used to them! 
There is also satellite TV, so we have lots of channels, including one called Fox Series which has shows like CSI Miami, The Simpsons, ER and Desperate Housewives.  I also like watching the channel simply titled "Sudan" because it's unlike anything I have ever seen on TV.

My bedroom. I took this picture right after I moved it, but now I have more decorations up and it feels like home!

While sitting on the plane on my way to Morocco, I took out my little net book and did some off-line blogging.  Check it out:

Blog 9/15/09
I am somewhere above Canada right now, in a plane destined for Montreal. A short while ago the captain announced that we were passing over New York City, and all the passengers craned their necks to get an aerial view of Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey. It looked pretty much the same as the last two cities I peered down at from an airplane window: Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The scenery below has started to change significantly though, as low-rises give way to rolling hills and narrow streets to broad rivers. It's a nice, sunny day on the east coast, without a lot of cloud cover, so I have been able to enjoy the slowly changing scenery from the window of my high-speed jet.

From Montreal, I will catch a red-eye to Casablanca. I have a connecting flight to Tangier and then, after over 24 hours of travel, will continue on by cab to my new home, Tetouan. My main concern at the moment is that there will be some hold up at customs and I will miss my connecting flight. I have very little faith in customs and immigration, but maybe Canada will be different.

At any rate, I don't have much time left to worry. We are making our final decent, and I have to turn this computer off!


I am now somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, although it's so dark I can't even see the wing of the plane outside my window. The flight so far has been fine, but a little strange. Apparently the airline also runs on Moroccan time, because I was given a boarding time that was two and a half hours before the plane was to take off! Arriving punctually at the gate two and a half hours before departure, I questioned the attendant at the gate who assured me that we would be boarding “very soon, twenty minutes.” An hour past, and then another. In the end, we didn't start boarding until half an hour before take off. Once on board the plane it was announced that because of some technical difficulty that occurred after take off, there will be no in-flight movies. Six and a half hours and no terrible sitcoms! No cheesy romantic comedies! No candid camera! How did the pilgrims do it? So instead of listening to some XM radio or dubbed films, I am treated to the sounds of a million screaming babes (probably because there's no TV) Then, my order for a vegetarian meal seemingly disappeared (Luckily the second option was fish). The airline isn't turning down the lights even though dinner has been cleaned for nearly an hour now. (Wow- instant gratification. Not three minutes after writing that, they cut the lights. I wonder if a bored flight attendant wasn't reading over my shoulder. Or tapping into my brain waves...). Anyway, despite this weirdness, the flight is going fine. I made my connection in Canada without losing some of my human dignity at customs and immigration (They were actually very nice. I give the Montreal airport very high marks across the board. It felt like a really upscale shopping mall.) Flying in to Montreal was really beautiful as well. I have been to the city before but it must have been cloudy because I was really impressed by the view today. I peaked out my window after turning off my computer and the sight took my breath away. I was instantly reminded of Germany, and that first time I ever saw soil that was not North American. Just like then, I was struck by the clearly defined, bright blocks of colors that dotted the landscape and stretched off into the horizon. It looked like a quilt. It looked like art. It was breathtaking. I was shocked by the straight, geometrical lines, by the variety and vibrancy of the colors, and I was shocked by the fact that taking a new perspective on something I saw everyday could be so shocking. A tiny country road stretches off into infinity, a smattering of houses nestle tightly up beside it, and then vast expanses of thin, rectangles in colors ranging from yellow to brown to terra cotta to grey-violet and every shade on the color spectrum between green and indigo. I didn't know the earth itself could be so many different colors, especially not all in one place.

I should get some sleep. I am enjoying the soft glow of my computer screen in the dark cabin, but I think for now at least I need to be disciplined and get some rest. I still have a ways to go in my journey.


The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

Since I haven't been able to get onto a computer lately, I have been writing mostly in my journal.  So I decided to type my latest journal entry in to share with you all.  It's from yesterday afternoon.

Martil, Morocco  24 Sept 2009

I had a lazy morning this morning.  I stayed in bed until 11 or so, my head filled with crazy, heavily populated dreams.  I once read in a popular Psychology magazine that dreams act as an emotional stabalizer.  In our dreams we work through emotions we may be having - or struggling with - during the day.   So much so that if we don't finish the dream and resolve the emotional issue, the feelings of frustration or anger or whatever will linger throughout the day.  How kind are dreams, who know exactly just what we lack and aim to give it to us with their powerful images and imaginative powers.  I have found that my own dreams go as far as to seek a linguistic balance as well, speaking to me in the language that I have been speaking the least.  So it is no surprise that last night, my dreams had an all-star cast of real and imaginary people, clamouring at me, wanting my attention.  I woke up this morning content with the quiet solitude of my empty apartment.

I made myself a nice breakfast and even prepared some coffee for lunch.  Since I did not have a coffee maker, I made one using a strainer and some paper towels.  The coffee turned out ok, definitely palitable, although a little weak and with an aftertaste of paper towel.  I do like living this way though: simply, creatively.  And afternoons, like this one, at the beach.  After my paper towel coffee, I made a quick call to Koichi before heading out to Martil, the beach about 10 minutes away from Tetouan.  So here I am now, drinking a "Hawai" (NOT "Toilet" as the waiter first thought I said) watching the Mediterranean waves crash on a litter-filled beach surrounded by canoodling couples.  The weather is nice.  Barely any clouds, but there is a nice, warm breeze.  The beach is prettier than Ceuta's - bigger and with silker sand- but the litter makes everything look cheaper from close up.  There are big mountains that jut out into the sea at either end of the beach, making it feel like you are in the embrace of some giant sea monster.  Small cafes, pizarrias and ice cream shops run parrallel along the beach, in medium-sized buildings whose alternating jutting and recessed balconies give the unbalanced look of a losing game of jenga or tetris.

Enough descriptions for now.  I need to enjoy the last remaining rays of sunlight before heading home for the night.

If you have been keeping up with me  - and not yet got dizzy- then you know I am writing from my new outpost in Morocco.  I only have  few minutes left at this Internet cafe, but I wanted to update you all and let you know that i made it safe and sound.  Stay tuned... I will be writing  all about my arrival later this week, and i have even composed a short poem describing my most recent border-crossing adventure!!!! 

xoxo
Alaina

Happy belated birthday to me.  I'm now 25, and have been so for a month and a day.  You could argue that  its rather pretentious to title a blog "A Quarter of a Century of Excellence" for your own 25th birthday.  And to those people I would say, yes, I suppose it is.  But it was my birthday a month and a day ago.  And on your birthday you can be pretentious.  Alternatively you can also have traveler's diarreah on your birthday.  And that's exactly what happened to me one month and one day ago today.

I was in the Philippines with Koichi, completely exhausted, first from an acute case of culture shock and then from an acute case of... well, you know by now.  We had planned to take a ferry on my birthday to a beach about five hours away from where we were staying in Manila.  The day before, two typhoons swept into the area... one off the coast of Manila, the other inside my large intestine.  Needless to say, the hour and a half "ferry" ride (really it was a dingy) the next day was a true delight.  I think the only reason I didn't puke was because I hadn't eaten anything on account of already being sick.  But we made it to dry land, and once we regained our sea legs (and stomachs), we had a rather pleasant day and night at the beach.  It was truely a nice break from the craziness of Manila.  Only one thing loomed in our minds as my birthday came to an end that night (and it sure came early... I feel asleep at 9 p.m.!) ... we still had to survive another boat ride back to Manila in the morning.

The next morning, Koichi and I woke up to stare in horror at the sea.  Giant waves crashed violently onto the shore and collided with the break walls, water gushing onto the street... the only tiny, crumbling street that connected our hotel to the marina.  We watched in horror as the locals timed their crossing with the thrashing waves, running frantically to safety before the next wave came crashing down.  Koichi made it across.  I was not so lucky.  In hindsite, I was fortunate I only got soaked.  The wave could have knocked me down, or worse yet, dragged me into the sea.  But at the time, I was sick and about to be tortured for an hour and a half, so my dripping pants and soggy sneakers made me feel anything but fortunate. 

But something fortunate was about to happen... fortunately. Althought the waves continued to rattle the boats and our nerves, our trip would prove to be a bit smoother than the last.  Our boat arrived and this time it much closer to deserving it's title of "ferry".  In fact, for the sake of this blog I will call it a ferry, without quotation marks.  So the boat was bigger, Koichi and I got better seats, the crew was nicer, and quite honestly, after the experience we had the day before, this boat felt like a cruise ship.  A cruise ship where everyone had drunk too much the night before.  At one point, a Korean tourist who had had his head between his knees since before the boat even left the bay got soaked by a wave that splashed into the boat.  He had held it in for nearly an hour, but that was it.  From that point on, if you needed him, he was hanging over the edge of the boat.  I thought they were going to have to carry the poor guy off once we arrived at the marina! 

When we finally did make it to the marina, I was actually feeling much better, and even a little triumphant.  I never want to get into any vessel that calls itself a ferry every again (and that's a good thing to remember since I am going to be in northern Morocco), but I made it, and with a stomach bug to boot.  I should add, however, that while neither Koichi nor I are in a huge hurry to go back, the nice coulpe who sat next to us on the ferry back to Manila did say that in all their year living in the area, they had never ever had such a terrible boat ride.  So please, don't let my experience prevent you from hopping into a "ferry" in the Philippines during a typhoon... should the opportunity ever arise. 

So, that's typhoon number one.  Typhoon number two took place in Japan while leaving to return to the US.  While much less eventful than the first typhoon ( I think everyone says their first typhoon is the most memorable, and they just stop taking pictures after that), there is one oddity I would like to point out.  So while my flight was not canceled, my train was.   To be honest, I don't know what was more surprising - that a little rain could cause a train to be canceled, or that a train was canceled -for any reason- in Japan.  Luckily I had the help of some friends who did know such things were possible, and so I made it to the airport on time and in one slighlty frazzled piece.   

And that leaves me with a natural disaster (earthquake) and an unnatural disaster (customs), which I will save for another day.  I'm in Pittsburgh now, getting ready to go to Morocco, and I have a ton of things to do.   After all, I am 25 years, one month and one day old today, and I'm not getting any younger.

Koichi at Puerto Galera.  I don't think the boat in background was our boat, but it was very similar.  Note that the weather was actually nice most of the time, despite the typhoon.  Tropical weather is a mystery to me.

Our hotel, The Oriental (MOM!!).  It was really beautiful.

Me "eating" my birthday dinner.  I got asparagus soup, but Koichi ate most of it since I still wasn't feeling great.   The people at the restaurant were really nice.  When they found out it was my birthday, they put on the "Birthday CD", which played the birthday song in a couple different genres.  Koichi and I also spilt some yummy fried bananas for desert!

A picture taken from our boat as we headed back to Manila.  Note the giant wave crashing onto the shore.