Trip in Fez (Fes)

Every person occupies some time and some space. This unique area identifies each one of us. It's our mark in the time-space continuum. Maybe it is insignificant and finite, but it's your time and your space and nobody can take it from you. Of course there is an exception: when you travel by train, you have to give up some space and a lot of time.

We spent up to 33 hours in various trains and about 5 or 6 more in train stations waiting for other trains to arrive. Sometimes, when you tell the story to your friends back home, the whole train station situation sounds adventurous, but in fact it is very annoying and dull. That's how people learn to play boring games like scramble. You have to play a game while waiting at a train station. We carefully considered many board and card games to finally choose an oral word game, in order to fit with the oral tradition of Morocco (and also because we didn't carry any boards or cards with us). I don't know the name of this game, but the rules are easy: one person chooses a letter, another person chooses a category, and then everyone takes a turn. While we are in a “turn”, the player has to find one unique (a.k.a. not said by anyone else earlier) word that starts with that letter and belongs to that category. For example “Food starting with a K” might include “Kamel” or “Kous kous”, as we soon discovered (K and C sound very similar, as has been noted before).

Marrakech: Dirty but colorful

Europe is like an old, big, beautiful house with a garden, old furniture, family portraits, books and precious objects. Each object, each corner, each square cm of dust is related to an old story of glory and family pride. Sometimes the past has been modified to look better, but there always is an interesting past. You need more than a whole life to explore the old house and you have been born there, you 've lived your whole life in this building (and the garden).

One day you decide to open the front door, just to have a look. You push your head out, in the (not so clean) air and you stare at the amazing sight: this is the outside wall, just a tiny part of what is outside your Europe. It feels so different and alive. It's not about the stories you 've heard, it's about what you are seeing right here and now. What are you going to do next?

We decided to push our head out of the European front door, just to have a glance. Europe has many front doors, e.g. We could go to Turkey through Greece, or we could travel to Rusia. We chose Morocco, a country that is really close to Spain and Portugal, at least geographically. Morocco and its neighboring countries share a lot of cultural and historical elements, and since most of us had seen parts of Spain and/or Portugal, we thought it wouldn't be a huge shock. We just needed somebody to push as out.

Nisyros, The Monkey Island of Aegean Sea

Mandraki is the gateway to Nisyros island (and Volcano)

Long long ago I promised to my happy few readers a couple of posts about the Netherlands and London. You need to know that I usually keep my promises, but for me the word “usually” is roughly evaluated to 60%. And I 'm usually right on these calculations, ergo 60% of 60%, you do the math. The truth is I have all the photos and the memories, but I never took the time to write them down. These trips are stacked at the bottom of the list of my past trips I promised to publish here but haven't yet. Because this time I'm going to tell you about Monkey Island (aka Nisyros, Greece).

Amsterdam unmediated

If you follow my posts, you already know that I am the type of person who likes to experiment with recreational substances. It's the kind of substances you can legally purchase and use in Amsterdam and only in Amsterdam. I'm not into any addictive type of stuff, I just like to get stoned now and then, that's all. I would do it more often if it wasn't illegal in the place I live. Imagine how hard it was for me to walk around Amsterdam and still resisting the temptation of a good joint!

This is not the first time I visit the Capital city of Netherlands which is built on the delta of Amstel river. Amsterdam is a big port, although it is not built  on the Atlantic coast, but at the inside of a well protected bay. It is built in chronological layers of building, that create an amphitheatric shape, with the Dam square being at the center. The Dam is not just the central square, it is also the oldest part of the city. As a rule of the thump, the longer a buildings distance from the Dam, the older it is. Of course, there might be exceptions to this rule, but I don't care enough to find out.

A taste of eternity: Rome

Here I am, in a jet plane, touring the cradles of western civilization: from Athens to Rome. Athens is too strange and mysterious to cover, maybe another time. So l decide to spent my flight time watching a Hollywood blockbuster. "The Expendables" keep me company during the flight, but they affect me in a strange way, so when I'm trying to find my way from the airplane seat to the airport bus, I literally cut through them with my knife. The annoying japanese kid that was constantly crying next to me is now speechless (his head is cut off) and his mother pleads me to release her too, which I do with a fast cut that divides her head in two. The Greek couple on the front seat, who were fighting during the whole flight have now their heads stuffed to each others private parts. I cut and kill, I dismember peoples bodies. Most are dead, the others will be soon. There is blood everywhere. The sounds of the arriving police cars become noticable. They are not going to get me alive.

Corinth: a place you'd rather miss

Unconventional is what I'm trying to become during the last few posts. I must stop that, it doesn't work.  I started the whole "being unconventional" thing because I was after true experiences of traveling, knowing new things and meeting exciting people, changing my self in the process and all that crapy stuff you expect from a 100% teenager. Since I'm not a teen anymore, I though "hey, what was conventional back then, could be unconventional now". So, I started being unconventional by planing some unconventional trips. And now that I have had the first, I regret it.

What to expect (introducing the concept of appetizer trip)

The people who pay me to keep this blog alive (some major international corporations are among them) require that I show some professionalism. I have explained them a thousand times that for this blog, professionalism is a drawback! Meticulousness is my enemy! Schedule always sounds as an insult to me! But I'm still human and I have needs (=sex, money), so I have to write down a few notes about what I'm going to post next.

First of all, I have some extra memories from various Greek Islands in the form of digital pictures and, well, memories. But I'm also planning a trip to a place in Peloponese, Greece. I don't know which, but I have a method to find out: I will choose the roads that give me the vibes and see where I will be led. Then, I'm fleeing!

Rome, Amsterdam and London are in my schedule (what? My mother is a saint!). Actually, Rome and London will be visited by my highness (in that sense) for only a few hours. That is because I will only use them for the airports. One might say that it's a pity to visit Rome and London for only 3 or 4 hours each, but I'm not worried about that, because I have just made a small theory to argue that this is a good thing.