Back to the Right Kind of Traveling

I´ll admit it. Being in Europe the last couple of weeks I´ve gone soft. I´ve been used to hot showers, drinkable tap water, expensive and non-bargainable prices, and acceptable sanitary conditions. So we went to Morocco, and all of that changed. Arriving in Morocco these differences are quite noticeable, however, the main way I knew I was back to a ¨developing¨country was that I was using squatters instead of toilets, and squatting I was doing a lot. Now, this reappearance of my old bad bathroom habits could be attributed to the fact that I ate tajin, a thick, delicious and heavily spiced Moroccan stew, every single dinner for 9 nights straight, but I´m not sure. All I know, and this is perhaps a result of the lasting amoebics and ghiardias in my stomach, is that developing countries and my stomach don´t go well together.

But I learned that a while ago, and I´m still traveling and having the time of my life! So we spent a couple days after hanging out by the beach in Malaga in Granada. Granada sucks. I had a lot of fun there, hanging out with one of my best friend´s sister, Dana, and a bunch of study abroad kids from the big ten schools. But to me, Granada is the epitomy of the thing I hate most about Europe- graffiti. And not just the usual anarchist and soccer team graffiti that you see in other places, but Granada is completely polluted with anti-semitic images. Literally, all over the city, there are stars of david drawn equaling swastikas. We walked 15 minutes uphill from the bus station to the hostel we thought we were staying at, and after winding around turn after turn, and seeing over 10 of these not inviting images, we decided to turn around (we ended up staying in the same hostel Dana and all her friends were at, which probably housed more Jews than have ever been in Granada since the Spanish inquisition). The grafitti´s presence was disturbing, yet was nothing compared to what we were about to experience. On the 2nd night we were there, a protest of 5000 people against Israel walked through the streets, protesting the same way that you´ve seen all over the world; holding signs for peace yet chanting death to Israel, accusing Bush and Olmert of being communists, and showing off their ignorance while preaching hatred. I don´t really feel like writing about my reactions to the protest (this is my travel blog), but as you can imagine, it was disturbing.

So that part of Granada sucked, but going out and partying was a lot of fun. Al Hambra was also really cool, an old muslim palace which I didn´t even know existed until my friend Molli IMed me and said "you haven´t been to Al Hambra yet?!" (to which I replied "What´s Al Hambra?" silly me. (this is the problem with not traveling with Lonely Planet)). Really though, Al Hambra was up there with Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat. Back to Granada...Sam blacked out one night, we caught some funny pictures of Matthew at the club, I was on fire, and we blew through or money quick. So, it was time to head South to catch the ferry to Morocco.

Because of what was going on in Gaza, and the warm reception we recieved in Granada, we decided to keep our nationality, and especially our religion, to ourselves. My dad asked me a couple days ago how it was being American right now, and I responded ¨I wouldn´t know, I´m Canadian.¨ We held that line for a couple days, but honestly, it sucks hiding who you are, so we decided to ditch our Vancouver story and just say we were Americans. And no one cared, probably because we had arrived to what is THE most chill city (more so than Pushkar, India) ever. This is a city where really, no one does anything all day. In Pushkar, most of the tourists sit around and smoke all day and hang out. In Chefchouen, all the tourists sit around all day and smoke, and all the locals sit around all day and smoke. I watched some guy selling bread in the main square pull out his pipe, smoke some kief, and pass out with his bread just sitting there. I was hungry, so I decided to try to wake him up and buy some bread. It sort of half worked, so I just left him his dhiram and took my bread. We spent 5 days in Chouen, drinking lots of tea, reading and playing chess, meeting lots of funny hippis, and hanging out. We then headed down a couple hours to Fez, which has a similar Moroccan hospitality feel to it, except it´s the second largest city in the country. The entire city is lined with massive and ancient castle walls, which in the summer (and sunlight, something we hardly saw because it was raining non stop) makes for a golden aura around the city. The walls are lined with Moroccan flags (the king is staying in Fez for the month) in a display of nationalism which I haven´t experienced since Vietnam. The streets are wide and clean, and it seems like a regular city. However, on the inside of the walls lie madness. Fez claims one of the largest Medinas in Morocco, and I would not be surprised if it was one of the largest in the world. It is several kilometers of windy, crowded, unnavigable market with tight streets and lots of stimulii. So in our two days in Fez, we walked through the medina, absorbing the smells of various types of spiced olives, rose waters, dates and nougats, eating our way through and stopping for mint gunpowder tea at several small, non-revealing shops. Sam bought a lot, half falling victim to the world renowned Berber bargaining skills, and half just really enjoying the items we passed; carpets, leather (we watched the leather making process from a rooftop, pretty sweet), teapots, hookahs, and jewelry. Fez used to be home to a large Jewish population, so we saw many beautiful pieces of Judaica, pieces that were probably stolen or left behind in the little time Jews had to leave.
We left Morocco yesterday for Madrid, and are heading today to the Canary Islands for the last 10 days of our trip today. I have no idea what the Canary Islands are like, but we plan on staying in Fuerteventura for the duration of our stay there. As long it has beach and cool places to explore, we´ll have fun. Talk to you from the island! Here´s a Helen Keller quote I enjoy. Surprisingly, it´s not maghbahlalaaaaah.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
-Helen Keller

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on...

Hey folks! Last time we communicated I was in Barcelona and sober, and although I stayed in Barcelona, I didn't stay sober. What ensued in the three following days of my last blog post were three consecutive nights of going out until 7 am. 7 AM is insane, but what's really insane is that's what people in Spain do EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Well, probably not every single night, but I've heard in the summer that's how it is. People grab dinner around 10 or 11, go out for drinks around 12 or 1, and then start heading to clubs around 2. They then wake up the next morning, probably pretty late, head to work for a little, take a LONG siesta in the afternoon, and then maybe go back to work in the afternoon. And still, people wonder why Spain's unemployment rate is one of the highest in Europe-people are so damn lazy! (compared to Vietnam at least). But back to our nights out. The first night we went on a pub crawl with some American girls whom we met at our ritual meusli breakfast joint who had just arrived on a study abroad program. For 15 euros at a pubcrawl, you get lead around by young expats living in Barcelona from pub to pub, and eventually to club, and get handed free shots at various times. I realized the monetary benefits were clearly not in our favor, as we only received several watered down half shots of jungle juice. I also didn't like feeling like a stupid tourist being lead around the streets of Barcelona while someone yelled constantly reminding us of pickpocketers and excessive noise. However, it was so much fun being with American college kids for a change, so the night was awesome. The next night, our Brussels friend Pierre took us to some nice bars and clubs, and we enjoyed the less touristy side of Barcelona (there were actually a lot of Italians and Germans, it was just that there weren't any Americans there). During this three day stint, we hardly slept at all and were pretty much non-functional the entire day. We did make it out and about in Barcelona though, and we spent a day at the Olympic stadium and the area around it. They had one of the coolest museums I've ever been to, a high tech and highly interactive display of the history of the Olympics and sport. One of the main things I took away from the day was that it is absolutely essential, and we all must do everything in our power, to make sure that the Olympics come to Chicago in 2016. Seriously. The most worldly event, a collaboration of sport and competition and culture, an event that represents everything humanity strives for in a global community, in our hometown! Chicago 2016. Come on!
We took a flight down to Malaga the day after, a smaller city located on the southern coast of Spain. We were expecting a little warmer weather than the excessively cold and non stop rain we had received in Barcelona, but our expectations weren't exactly met. It's a little warmer here, and when it's sunny it's beautiful, but it's not Malaga in the summer- which I can only imagine would be paradise. I recently found out that a guy called Effy whom I used to play soccer with lives in Malaga, and had a game the night we were arriving. So as soon as we landed, Matt and I scrambled to find a bus that would take us to his game (Sam opted out and chose to find us a place to sleep for the night). It was a little difficult finding a way to his game, especially since it was a Saturday evening and so few people speak English here. In favor of catching at least part of the game, we decided to splurge on a taxi, and made it with 35 minutes left in the 2nd half. I missed both of Effy's goals, but it was still cool to see two higher level Spanish teams with players of my age. My reactions- their individual skills were exceptional, much better than anything you see in the US. The speed of play was also much quicker than games in the US, and I think if one of the best teams in Illinois came to play this team, us Yanks would get smoked. However, their play is much less physical. They go hard to the ball, but not like Americans do. If you were to take the majority of the players on the field, and place them in a college level game with only Americans, I don't think they'd be able to fit in with the American style and they probably wouldn't be that successful. So there's my soccer analysis, sorry if you think soccer's lame.
Effy's parents invited us over to their house for dinner, and we enjoyed some nice home cooked Spanish food. It was Saturday night, so Effy took us out to the city where I saw something that every American high schooler dreams about. Every Saturday night in Malaga, they close down a main street by the beach, and people of all ages head to the street to listen to music, talk with friends, drink Sangria, pound shots, and get inhebriated. At around 32 degrees, it was one of the coldest nights of the year, and still, there were over 1000 people there. This being the 4th consecutive night of what I described earlier, we opted into taking it a little easier than we had been. But just being around such a festive and laid back environment made it an incredible night, and it was one of the coolest places I've been so far.
We've been hanging out in Malaga the last couple days. Yesterday, we were graced by great weather, and we headed to a small village to the East and checked out some caves that hold the Guiness World Record for the largest chamber in the world, pretty neat. We then went and hung out by the beach for several hours, overlooking the beautiful sea and coastline.
Our plans have changed for the next couple of weeks. We plan to go to Morocco tomorrow, for somewhere between a week or two, and then head back to Spain to catch a flight from Madrid to the Canary Islands. We have no idea what the Canary Islands are like- they're supposed to be one of the most amazing places on earth, but they're supposed to be very touristy and filled with only 5 star resorts, something that won't fit into our budget. So we'll have to figure some other accomadations out, but we're going for it anyways.
Talk soon, be well, and of course...

Chicago 2016!

It´s been so long! Ahh!

I guess my lack of blogging recently is just a manifestation of a bigger trend in my lifestyle of the last couple weeks- me being really lazy. I am in no way intending to imply that traveling through India is such "hard work," but honestly, when I arrived in Prague, and had the luxuries of my brother´s apartment and Western fast food such as McDonalds and KFC, I just became really, really lazy. We stayed a couple days in Prague before my parents and sister arrived, sleeping late (something we had never done before being with Matt), drinking A LOT, and sitting in front of the tv watching MTV dance. So that was laziness level 1, but then when my parents arrived, laziness level 2 hit. There´s something about having two people who really love you and care about you that just makes you want to let them do everything for you- and that´s what we did. We woke up when we were told to, went touring when we were told to, ate when we were told to, even showered when we were told to (which was quite frequently due to our recent month long stay in India); the lack of decision-making we needed to do was awesome. But now mom and dad are gone, and it´s Matt, Sam and I in Barcelona. So since I´ve got a lot to catch up on, here´s a brief summary of where we´ve been and what we did.
We spent a couple days with the parents in Prague, doing Jewish touring and eating really amazing food. Prague in late December is freezing, but also beautiful- the several christmas markets spread throughout town are a center for Czech and tourist life, they sell fresh and delicious sugary doughy things and crepes, hot wine and mead, and grill massive pork legs and sausages. And there´s lights, and music, and jollyness...and if I wasn´t Jewish this would be enough to turn me Christian. So Prague was great.
We moved on to Budapest where we had 2 days of non stop touring. One day was spent doing the Jewish tour, and the other day spent doing the Budapest tour. We did manage to squeeze in a few hours to go to what is a Budapest institution, the hot baths. There, we bathed in a massive complex of various types of mineral baths and hot pools. We had a great time at the baths, however, I was a little turned off by the amount of fat and old Hungarians I was swimming with. I remembered that less than a week before I stood on a hot train in Mumbai, with no room to put my arms or left foot, being constantly groped and fondled by a wide variety of individuals, and decided that I´d take the Budapest baths any day.
After a day and a half in Budapest we moved on to Krakow. Krakow is really depressing, especially in the winter, especially when you spend your only day there visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau. I don´t really think that this rushed and not very thoughtful blog post is the appropriate place for my reflections on that, so I´ll leave it there. The one thing I will say is that if you don´t remember much about the Holocaust, or if you´re not very compassionate to what went on, then fuck you.
After our day at Auschwitz, our mute and useless tourguide drove us to what is today the Czech-Polish border, to the town where my grandmother grew up. Using pictures and small bits of information that have somehow survived the last 70 years, we managed to locate the exact apartment where my grandmother grew up, and the electronics store that my great-grandfather had owned before he left Czechslovakia. I felt very proud standing outside of these two locations and taking photographs of two generations of family that have survived since the Holocaust, not as much proud of me or my parents, but of my grandmother and other ancestors who survived the Holocaust. And, I felt a big (pardon my french again) fuck you to anyone in the world let everything that happend happen. I promise I have more sophisticated and reflective thoughts than these brief and explitive filled sentences on this subject, but as I said, not the place.
So we returned to Prague for the last several days of our time with the whole family (and Sam). We continued to eat really amazing food, and then brought in the new year with great spirits and lots of drunkeness. It was great to spend some time with the family in an environment where alcohol consumption for young people is not only permitted but encouraged, and thanks to the new digital video camera my parents bought, there are some new Rubin family home videos to hit the archives (if you ever want to watch, don´t forget to ask about the chugging contest!). So Prague was great, and we left Jan 1 for Brussels.
Brussels is a cool place. The waffles are nothing like what you may have heard. They are 100 times better. These things, wow, they just melt in your mouth, and leave you saying (or at least left me saying, much to the annoyance of Matt and Sam) wow for several minutes, until you get another one. Belgian chocolate is also obviously tasty, but very expensive. And then...there´s Belgian fries eaten with mayonaise. When 9/11 happened and we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and temporarily hated the French and changed the name of "french" fries to "freedom" fries, we as a society made a huge mistake. We should have taken that golden opportunity to pay tribute to the real creators of these fried goodness, the Belgians. There are no fries in France, it´s just that France is so much more famous then Belgium. But the fries in Belgium...also a wow inducer. Even with the mayonaise. There´s a great scene in Pulp fiction, and if you´ve seen it, that´s how I felt about eating french fries with mayo until I ate it in Brussels. Its great! (but I still won´t do it back home). After a few days in Brussels, it was time to catch a flight to Barcelona to see an FC Barcelona match at the Camp Nou, something I´ve been looking forward to doing for the last year. Seriously, I think the only reason I was going to Barcelona was to see this game. But we bought tickets on the worst airlines in the world, Ryan Air (really the worst airlines in the world), and the weather was bad, so our flight was cancelled.
This was sub-seriously depressing for about 10 minutes. I really was upset. And the scene at the airport was absolute pandomonium, which didn´t help, but then again, shit happens when you travel.
And I guess it worked out for the best, because if that flight hadn´t been cancelled, we wouldn´t have met this dude named Pierre, who let us stay at his house for the next three days while we waited for a flight. And during those three days, Pierre´s family, the Silverbergs, introduced me to a new type of kindness and hospitableness which was truly inspirational. The Silverbergs have four boys and a girl, all between the ages of 19 and 27. Their four oldest have all moved out of the house, and so they took us in and treated us like their children. They cooked amazing meals for us, took us around wherever we needed to go, turned their living room into a makeshift movie theatre to watch the Big Lebowski; it was a way different experience from the waffles and fries, but something that will leave me with an even better taste of Brussels. Meeting people like that is one of the most special things about traveling, and it was a few short days I will never forget.
And now we´re in Barcelona, in the nicest hostel I have ever stayed in, right in the heart of Las Ramblas. It´s a bit chilly here, and rainy, but Spain is great and the next and last 6 weeks of my travels are going to be amazing. Cheers everyone, I promise it won´t be as long as it was for a new post! Happy new years