Paris to Marrakech (and back)

So I'm back in Paris, chilling the in relative comfort of the guest room at my place (the only place I can find "Jenny WiFi" - the only unencrpyted WiFi around). This morning, I woke up at 6:30 at the Hotel Islane in Marrakech, which is a 2 minute walk to the Djemaa el Fnaa ("Square of the Dead" - where they used hold public beheadings) in Marrakech. Steven and I got out the door by 7:00 and luckily my slightly expanded Moroccan Arabic vocabulary helped us get a decent price from a petit taxi to the Marrakech-Menara airport for a flight back up to Paris.

Anyways, from that point, there probably needs to be a fair bit of rewinding. I need to write about Aix-en-Province, Barcelona, Algeciras/Gibraltar, Tangiers, Rabat, and Marrakech... I'll see what I can do. For now, I'll just post a few highlights:

- Unfortunately only Steven got to see me geek out at this, but I flipped out when we got to see Gibraltar. The rock is basically impregnable and still remains a British military base. Eisenhower was there during World War Two, and... yeah. I'll stop there. Trust me, it's cool.

- Seeing my buddies in Rabat was great and surreal. When you associate a place so closely with a particular period of time in your life, it's weird to go back, even though this summer isn't that far in the past, I've been in Minnesota, Washington, and Paris since, so I'd reallly built up distance. Get this: I taught the Moroccans how to bowl at the Mega Mall in Rabat, and I also taught them how to play Beer Pong with some Casablanca Beer. American culture 101. It also helped I was there with Steven.

- When I got into Marrakech yesterday, I headed straight for Restaurant Chegrouni, which has the best Tajines I've ever found in a restaurant in Morocco. The time before that I was in Marrakech, I ate there twice. Get the poule citron tajine with almonds. Eat it with bread and order some Jus d'Avocat (avocado juice with milk) to wash it down.

- The Fundacion Miro in Barcelona has an exceptional temporary expo on an artist I first discovered at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Douglas Gordon. He uses video a lot as a medium but also does some installation work. I especially liked the title of one of his works there which was called "What Have I Done" and was around 26 TVs playing all of his work. I liked the whole lack of a "?" wordplay.

- I actually stayed outside of Algeciras for the one night I was there in town of La Linea, which is minutes away along the coast and right next to Gibraltar. Steven and I got a hotel there at the AC La Linea for half price, aka 62 Euros. This was after 5 rooms in two hostels over 6 nights in booked-solid Barcelona and a night train down to the south of spain. There was TV. There was a shower. There was a free minibar. There was quite decent mexican food close by. I was happy.

I'll get some pictures posted when I get them.