reconnecting
A friend, Dana, whom I haven't seen in ages, is staying with us for a couple of days. It's so disturbing to think, "she looks exactly the same...As she did *10* years ago." holy shit. That made me feel old. We weren't ever super close, but we were in the same junior year abroad program in Sevilla, Spain and spent 4 days alone together in Morocco. We've been reminiscing about the trip and it's pretty hilarious how differently we remember things.
Our first real day in Tangier -- we got the hell out of there as fast as possible. We hopped on a train bound for Fez - about 7 hours south. We sat next to a slightly crazy looking western woman named Donna from New Zealand. She was gorgeous in a sad kind of way. Slightly too old to be girlfriend #1, she had frizzy red hair, an aging but great body and huge trapped eyes. She ate sunflower seeds obsessively. She'd been in Tangier - shopping I think with her boyfriend Abdul, and they were on their way back to Assilah, a town about an hour South. Long story short, we ended up getting off the train with them in Assilah. I remember them offering to show us around a "real" town and a "real" medina (open air market) and thinking - take a chance! - see a place you'd never otherwise see. Dana remembers that Donna offered to get us high and I leapt at the offer. Also totally possible.
We both remember the house, where poor Donna spent most of her time - cloistered. It was absolutely gorgeous - tiled floors, arched doorways and a wonderfully open plan that they certainly rarely used to entertain. They both wanted us to stay, and went out of their way to be welcoming - so much so, it was a little creepy. Abdul kept offering us the opportunity to shower...we were crazy high, which added to whatever paranoia we were entitled to be feeling under the circumstances. I think they just wanted Donna to have some company, but we clearly had nothing in common with her aside from skin color. All day we tried to be clear that we were going to have to go...must catch that train! Abdul sort of brushed us off for a while, but finally at around 4 put us in the car and dropped us at a patch of grass with no station, one track and a camel. Camel ass has never looked so good.
The train to Fez is something else we both remember. People would go to Spain and bring back goods that were otherwise unobtainable in Morocco to sell. There must have been some tarriff they were trying to avoid, because rather than bring the clothing back in bags - they would wear it. We were a little clueless at first, wondering why all of these morbidly obese people were on the train all at once, and how they seemed so spry despite being so heavy. It finally dawned on us that they were ordinary people wearing extraordinary amounts of clothing. It was unreal. We were sitting in small berths and to the sounds of police whistles and shouting, people on the train were stashing TVs over our heads and VCRs beneath our feet. As soon as someone cleared black market electronics from over our heads, smothering us with cotton flesh in the process, another would rush into the compartment with a massive suitcase. Twilight zone. A professorial type befriended us and offered to show us his village, but we demurred, having had enough excitement for one day.
Dana was saying that she remembers me getting stared at because (then) I had black hair and light eyes. I will admit to the rather dubious distinction of being irrisistable to lechers worldwide - and sadly for me, nearly exclusively to them. If guy is beating off on the subway - he's looking at me. If an old codger shuffles down the street and oogles a woman while holding his granddaughter's hand - I'm the ooglee. In Morocco I was propositioned in pidgin English, Spanglish, and French and was stared at brazenly countless other times. The truly ridiculous thing about all this is that Dana is 6 Ft tall, blond and unbelievably gorgeous. I guess I was just lucky. It's gotten better as I've gotten older. I guess that's supposed to depress me, but I really don't miss pick up lines like "fucki fucki."
Our first real day in Tangier -- we got the hell out of there as fast as possible. We hopped on a train bound for Fez - about 7 hours south. We sat next to a slightly crazy looking western woman named Donna from New Zealand. She was gorgeous in a sad kind of way. Slightly too old to be girlfriend #1, she had frizzy red hair, an aging but great body and huge trapped eyes. She ate sunflower seeds obsessively. She'd been in Tangier - shopping I think with her boyfriend Abdul, and they were on their way back to Assilah, a town about an hour South. Long story short, we ended up getting off the train with them in Assilah. I remember them offering to show us around a "real" town and a "real" medina (open air market) and thinking - take a chance! - see a place you'd never otherwise see. Dana remembers that Donna offered to get us high and I leapt at the offer. Also totally possible.
We both remember the house, where poor Donna spent most of her time - cloistered. It was absolutely gorgeous - tiled floors, arched doorways and a wonderfully open plan that they certainly rarely used to entertain. They both wanted us to stay, and went out of their way to be welcoming - so much so, it was a little creepy. Abdul kept offering us the opportunity to shower...we were crazy high, which added to whatever paranoia we were entitled to be feeling under the circumstances. I think they just wanted Donna to have some company, but we clearly had nothing in common with her aside from skin color. All day we tried to be clear that we were going to have to go...must catch that train! Abdul sort of brushed us off for a while, but finally at around 4 put us in the car and dropped us at a patch of grass with no station, one track and a camel. Camel ass has never looked so good.
The train to Fez is something else we both remember. People would go to Spain and bring back goods that were otherwise unobtainable in Morocco to sell. There must have been some tarriff they were trying to avoid, because rather than bring the clothing back in bags - they would wear it. We were a little clueless at first, wondering why all of these morbidly obese people were on the train all at once, and how they seemed so spry despite being so heavy. It finally dawned on us that they were ordinary people wearing extraordinary amounts of clothing. It was unreal. We were sitting in small berths and to the sounds of police whistles and shouting, people on the train were stashing TVs over our heads and VCRs beneath our feet. As soon as someone cleared black market electronics from over our heads, smothering us with cotton flesh in the process, another would rush into the compartment with a massive suitcase. Twilight zone. A professorial type befriended us and offered to show us his village, but we demurred, having had enough excitement for one day.
Dana was saying that she remembers me getting stared at because (then) I had black hair and light eyes. I will admit to the rather dubious distinction of being irrisistable to lechers worldwide - and sadly for me, nearly exclusively to them. If guy is beating off on the subway - he's looking at me. If an old codger shuffles down the street and oogles a woman while holding his granddaughter's hand - I'm the ooglee. In Morocco I was propositioned in pidgin English, Spanglish, and French and was stared at brazenly countless other times. The truly ridiculous thing about all this is that Dana is 6 Ft tall, blond and unbelievably gorgeous. I guess I was just lucky. It's gotten better as I've gotten older. I guess that's supposed to depress me, but I really don't miss pick up lines like "fucki fucki."
posted by the pieces @ 5:30 PM
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