(sorry if you were looking for the amazing SACI dance video....its a little ways down the page...I've since updated by exploiting my Morocco adventures (or also i threw it up on Vimeo with much better quality so hopefully it wont infringe copyright laws...like YouTube.)
www.vimeo.com/4857161

Morocco Adventures

So from a long unwittingly hiatus I'm back....trying to write about my time in Morocco.....though the ten days evidently moved very quickly for me......it is something I'm hopeful to look back on and remember as vividly as possible.

If you already don’t know about the couchsurfing network....you should (couchsurfing.com). because its much more then saving a few bucks to crash on somebody’s filthy, dilapidated couch.......not that I've slept on such a thing.....I usually prefer the floor.....oh the wonders of Thermarest! its also about getting to know people and a different culture through a tiny glimpse from the eyes of someone that genuinely wants you to see that culture....at least for what its worth to them.
upon my arrival to Marrakesh I was a little apprehensive because my couchsurfing host Amine.....was coming to the airport to pick me up......I mean that’s pretty nice....but shoot...after living around other human beings for so long you begin to catch on to when people do you favors they often tend to ask for something in return. I was happy to find out that this guy was just a nice person.....and went out of his way to meet me, show me around Marrakesh in this amazing canvas topped 1950's French roadster dune buggy sort of dealy (sorry I'm not good with the make and models of automobiles....actually sort of impressed with myself that I sold my old one) and offered me my own flat through the duration of my stay in the city..

The first day I was pretty tired.....given that my flight from Milan was at 6 in the morning...so this meant I had to catch a train from Florence that put into Milan at 11:30 and then take a bus to the airport.....where I would then sleep for three or four hours if lucky... the thing was that I have so many double sided pieces of paper with flight itinerary (for Milan, Marrakesh, Fez, Milan, Sicily, London, Helsinki, Tampere, Milan) that I got a little confused with the whole Milan thing. and went to the wrong airport. this wouldn’t have been such a blunder if there were other buses going to the correct airport that evening but.....the buses stopped until about 4:30 in the morning.....I tell you this though, I was actually lucky getting a bus an hour back to the train station where I would have to wait three hours for the 4:30 bus....on the same bus I came in on...I actually got the guy to wave the additional ten Euros.....sometimes I have a way with words.....even when its half broken, stumbling Italian.

so I slept for almost 1 hour and 47 minutes...I read somewhere that its too consistent to use rounded digits....like the human infatuation with 15 minute increments......so no catch to the un-rounded number....just trying to save myself the time of consistency. it felt a bit like camping and a bit like waiting to get very very far away from a place that was not anything like camping.....thankfully I had my sleeping bag, mat and rain bag.....that is camouflaged...so at least I got the good half of the whole camping deal.
all in all I made it to Morocco and the sun was brighter then any sun I had at one time remembered....Amine became a new best friend and made a good chunk of my stay very satiating as a weary outsider. The first day after zipping around the claustrophobic streets and weaving in and out like an old Atari driving simulation game, he and his girlfriend..... it was something like Angela but with out the n......took me to this refreshing lake about thirty miles from the city overlooking the atlas mountains.......this is when I realized that watermelon was in season. and I truly became totally over taken by the prospect of sitting at a lake in morocco, overlooking the atlas mountains, while after a good cool swimming, biting into a fresh local, juicy red watermelon......(which I may add, they only split one piece even though I offered as much as they wanted.....so I ate mostly the whole thing) needless to say. It was a day I hadn’t expected but thoroughly enjoyed. something that then stuck with me this day, which I was hopeful in pursuing, was the snow capped lingering image of the atlas mountains looming in the distance.



the next day I found an agency for a very reasonable price that arranged tours in a van with other tourists to go through the atlas into Berber country and eventually into the Sahara on camel-back to tents at sunset with the stars and wind and quiet quiet quiet........ok so this was one of the big highlights...a little cliché but if you ask me. its pretty amazing riding a camel in the desert while the sun is setting. sort of makes you feel this sense of vigor that has been lost from most of humanity over the last few thousand years...being nomadic.

so the trip consisted of three days. lots of driving and short pit stops for food, water, pictures, sleeping, tourist traps. the whole shebang.....I even....against my own judgment. bought a camel haired handmade rug at one of those tourist traps.....at least it was an authentic tourist trap...its just there are more of these vans/buses that are somehow pressured into making specific stops at specific villages for specific reasons...people/acquaintances/ family/friends/commissioners.....but I admit the rug is beautiful...and I wanted one for some reason deep down. I don't really know why and where this deep down place exists....maybe I was ahead of myself thinking that a family heirloom is something I better invest in before its too late! but first maybe I should be thinking about starting families rather then heirlooms for families.......or at least think of a better reason for a rug rather then its "pretty" and probably "authentic" and will somehow justify my ten days in Africa with the fear that I may never comeback so at least I have something to show for it rather then some seven hundred photographs of rugs.....well not all of rugs but you get the idea. I bought a rug and its just heavy enough to make my backpack to heavy to be comfortable carrying. I find myself constantly analyzing its presence...why me? I ask...is it something special as of now or something special sometime down the road? is color/texture/fiber something that can make an individual continually happy?
well at least for now...it reminds me of the camel ride. and I really really like camels. they are strange, grunting, slobbery mammals.....someday I want one as a pet. but until then I have a rug. that’s how I think now I am at terms with the situation.

other things happened along the trip.....I took a lot of pictures though in fear that I would forget most of it.....I really have around 800 digital/disposal camera pictures from morocco. I promised myself to edit them down and print actual physical prints of no more then 100. the first night on my trip got sick at our first hotel dinning arrangement.....the man kept saying the gravy was vegetarian. I was very hungry and didn’t believe him....and ate more than others from the group........ the gravy. my body was very angry with me. though right afterward I played drum in the restaurant with some locals and I thought it were to be an epic occasion.....not sleeping because of stomach pains is far from epic.....maybe something you want to filter out of your memory but it tends to linger at the fore front sort of epic.....maybe disastrous for lack of a better word.

but I did manage to get better by the following evening before we rode camels....it took a lot of not eating and drinking water and laying down and pretending to be asleep. oh and yes...ginger root has always been my savior! even after we got to the tents in the desert I realized that exercise is probably my best bet for curing digestion complications.....so I coned my new friend.....tour bus tourist from Vancouver....(which oddly is where I will be moving in a few months to go back to school...so I may one day work in a library again).....into climbing the closest largest sand dune all the way to the top upon our arrival to the tents where we would be sleeping.....I didn’t know that Chris had a bum knee...but we were practically best friends by this point.....while being stuck in a tour bus for hours upon hours and speaking such a similar dialect of English that no other from the tour could even begin to compete...well maybe the Australians....but just a little...they are still curious, eccentric other worldly minds too me that hides precariously behind their strange grammatical choices....
I climbed to the star filled top of the dark never ending, sand blowing all the way up in your face sand dune. I pretended most of the way to be on lake Michigan and when I was done I could just run down and jump into the water. though by the time i was nearing the top I became thoroughly aware of my fictitious imagination and persevered until I was nearly sick.....but I realized from last night getting sick puts a taste in your mouth that you think....at the time you will never, ever ever.....be able to get rid of. so I refrained and expected to have a mystical revelation at the top in all my collapsing and heavy breathing and dehydration/nutritional weakness... but I just laid there wishing I had some water to soothe my recently hacked upon lung.
the next day I wasn’t sick anymore given my full days of exercise in merely the increment of 45 minutes. it worked.

the three day trip all in all was amazing....though I was mildly aware the whole physical exertion part of sightseeing is probably a good element.....especially when trying to enjoy the great outdoors.
so upon my return to the bustling hazy aired chaos of Marrakesh....I soon after made my way to this subtly remote beach town by the name of Essaouira.......though incredibly windy, the town was much more respondent to a relaxed and peaceful lifestyle.....maybe its from being along the Atlantic....maybe its from the amount of hash that is trying to be sold to you.....especially walking around alone at night as a 26 year old man/boy (not sure how I should be referring to myself at this point, person maybe yes.......indifference is probably most valuable) that I would probably make a sure winner. though I was mostly annoyed and said easily enough no thank you and kept my pace.
I found the best hotel room that I could manage... I wanted something up high...so I could get over the claustrophobic sensations of being trapped in congested foreign menagerie of bustle like Marrakesh....what I really wanted was to be able to see the ocean.....just to look out the window of my hotel and see the vague consistency of a blue horizon...I managed to find the highest point to that of the mosques.....it was grand. maybe only one other person was staying in the towering hotel... which made me both happy for the quietness and a little weary of the quality of the facilities....but my room was the highest point of a tower (and i had my own bathroom)....it was actually the only thing on that floor. except for the door to the roof.....which then led to a higher roof which was on top of my room....it was like I had the whole city to myself! and I felt I little selfish for staying up there too long...so I went down to wander.

my essential purpose of wandering was in a bit of a fluster because I wanted to relax but would feel un-relaxed in the hotel if I didn’t explore....so I set out for the beach....like I would then explore my way somewhere to relax...the view of the south beach seemed boring with its lack of jagged outcrops and torrential waves bombarding the delicate sand filled shore.....not to mention the giant apartment complexes lining as a gaudy industrial backdrop......the north beach seemed to be encased within a labyrinth of ancient city...maze after maze of dark alleyways and lost hungry dogs, barefoot poets and old tattered French hats......the entrance to the shore looked abandoned itself...not to mention the whole long winding pristine shoreline masked from the city by an ancient towering wall that looked as though it could run all the way to tangier....(that of course if I didn’t already spoil the image by my little own personal viewing platform in the sky) the entrance actually smelled of urine and the debris was a little overwhelming.....I then had trouble fighting all the protruding questions...why was this beach so neglected? are people not allowed to be on it? are there sea monsters that will battle within minutes after my arrival? or worse yet will they try and eat me out of hunger?
while weary of standing inside the ancient pee filled entryway....I saw a foreigner coming up from the shore with a very large camera and it put my anxieties to a rest....I mean all those tourists can make you a little uneasy after a while..... the whole.....if I have a camera then I'm traveling the correct way.....what is to travel if you cant remember your experiences instantaneously? don’t get me wrong though I'm also guilty of this perverse communication strategy...its just after sometime you come to terms with what the actual purpose of the camera may be....there is really no just answer. but I see people investing way more experience into their camera rather then their memory....yeah you can look at two dimensional images at some point that may trigger a fond episode or story or feeling....but it has to be somehow different then remembering an experience while trying to engage most fully...... smell, touch, hearing et cetera....essentially trying to feel something during the experience....rather then waiting for a moment sometime down the road... in fact yesterday I was on this secluded beautiful beach in Sicily and this couple came down as soon as I was leaving......they were taking photos upon photos...posing for one another...taking turns smiling at their predicament through each others "different" lenses....and after the photo taking they sat down and looked at the amazing view they found themselves in...through the digital screen on the backs of their cameras! we are all probably guilty of this....but it puts it into perspective at moments when you feel the image capturing device can be a bit useless when trying to capture such complex or integrated feeling. like taking something emotional and turning it into a ball of yarn.....or better yet a painting....at least in a painting a passage of time is still compelling some sort of ingenuity (well maybe not always) when trying to capture a memory. I hate to say it though the technology and the mechanics of the camera apparatus is making it easier and easier to push a button....

but the man with the camera! somehow this mans image...with his phallic touristic implement put me on ease and I thought it deemed necessary that I may venture further on my journey because my comrade here has just validated my competence with moving forward. it was strange feeling as though I was the only one on this entire landscape...and just literally seconds away just on the other side of these towering walls was a whole city of tens of thousands of people somehow oblivious of such a peaceful place.
not too long after my arrival I got to exploring again and just when the sun was fading into the horizon a came across some old ruins which looked liked an old gate to the city and to my surprise there was a door.... from the tranquil surrounding where water meets earth and the blustery wind carrying air smashing into ancient rounded stone....there was a door to the inside...the place I came from....and to my curiosity i tried to poke my head back in. the door was locked from my side with a few large rocks and a plank of wood acting like a chair in the handle of a door. I managed to work my way through and to my surprise. there was nothing that interesting....just a slightly more rundown and impoverished side of the city....where wearily I accepted myself at this point as the only man with a camera. so just as I broke through I managed to put the door back together not trying to attract attention.....to the portal I invented into the natural isolation of mother earth.....I was both afraid and excited that I may have opened something unnoticeable something that would follow me out onto the beach and let the whole entire city reform around such a vast beauty that may have brought travelers there hundred of years prior. to my surprise nobody followed. I made my way with quickened pace back to the sand.....though upon my arrival a heard a voice yelling from the distance....from further along the ruins where I hadn’t set foot as of yet....this voice from a figure about one hundred yards off whom began running in my direction with a continuation of loud guttural nonsensical jargon....I mean it was probably either French or Arabic... though for a split second.....conceiving that I was solely adrift upon this desolate shore, the sun was almost about to touch the horizon and a stranger was yelling in my direction while running....I thought should I let him join me on this wonderful beach of solitude? and then I thought maybe it would be best that I also imitate such a phenomenal scene....I began running. away from him. it was both comic and incredibly peaceful. I knew I should have been at least slightly fearful. and I was a little. but I was running too! and my god what a beautiful sunset to be running in......I thought I may have been in Florida for a lazy stroll down the coast....but every time I looked behind me instead of some tranquil fisherman passing the time.....or a neat row of lawn chairs with friendly beachgoers drinking margaritas....there was some vague outline of a Moroccan man still running haphazardly in my direction. maybe he wanted to sell me hash? ask for a light???? give me an indistinguishable high-five saying to himself....yep this beach is pretty amazing huh? but I kept running and each time I looked back I imagined just the split second before seeing him that he was about to grab me and pull me headfirst into the sand only to then pin me down and demand an explanation for being upon this beach...perhaps his beach....and then take everything I owned given the toll for such a misunderstanding. though when I saw him he seemed even farther away....luckily I was in the upper hand....usually when another person is chasing you it is easy to run faster given the more gradual accompaniment of fear.......

I made it back to the entrance just in time to see an elderly man peeing in the shadows...actually facing me as if saying "why the hell would anyone go onto that godforsaken beach! don’t they know there are sea monsters waiting to attack?" I watched the figure still meandering in my direction and the sun just touched the horizon and I felt that if I watched it sink all the way I would forget that whole exciting episode was somehow resolved by the sun setting (whatever that means) so just before it went down I blended back into the busy, jam packed street of the market thinking to myself that I had just torn my self between two completely different walks of life.... with the anxiety pulsing through my chest I felt like I could walk a thousand miles. but I mainly just walked back to my hotel and watched the city lights blink slowly from my very own personal pigeon coop......

the next day I went back to the beach for a swim.....it was earlier in the day...and there were a few more witnesses so I felt more comfortable. I don’t know what I was expecting. maybe to see a similar scenario like I was in? as if this is just some reoccurring game the locals confer to weary tourists?

my time in Essaoura was far too short and I then made my way back to Marrakesh to get ready and climb the mountain. after the long non-physically-exertive van ride into the mountains I decided that to get a good feel of the place I should actually climb one. not just anyone though. the second largest in Africa....mount Toubkal at 13764 feet. the next morning I took a 4 dollar cab one hour and a half to the village of Imlil split with five other locals....yes it was really that cheap! Morocco's economy...as you may have probably already guessed is a great deal different the U.S. and Europe.......the worst part is coming back to Europe and paying five to ten times more for a taxi ride......or five times more for a salad that wouldn’t even begin to compare to the freshness and quality of the Moroccan salad.
but Imlil was a village not to forget.....as the base village before the 17 mile hike into the high atlas.....it was almost cliché on how authentic the way of life had felt......the donkeys with hand made saddles and small curious mountains boys riding side saddle. the incredible structure of an ancient civilization built right into the side of a cliff still passing daily life undeterred by the modern technologies sweeping away larger more predominant cities. for a second i thought i was on a hollywood set.........
with a four dollar back pack that I bought in Essaoura just for this climb and a sewing needle and thread to mend the backpack when needed. I brought my sleeping bag (for my nights stay at the refuge 12 miles in) and a few meager supplies like a long sleeve shirt, headlamp, mint leaf, water, and notebook, shoot I managed to not even bring enough money for my taxi home! excluding the funds I wasn’t prepared to fork over to the refuge...like twenty dollars.....but when your dealing with Moroccan Durham you may think that three hundred of these bills may be more then it really is.

the plan was then to make my way to the refuge by nightfall and climb early on in the morning and make it back to Marrakesh by the following evening to wake up and go to Fez and then fly out of Fez the following day to Sicily..... my plan went well. its funny the anxieties in trying to grasp how all of these distances will spiral together. until eventually it actually worked and you think...it was a long ways from here to there...but maybe only as a mental image.
as you may have suspected the mountain was amazing. the towering whitecap peaks were menacing but conquerable. the donkeys wanted to be petted...the village folks had big curious eyes...the sky was more blue then I had ever imagined. the river was cold and I went swimming in it....several times (with snow surrounding!). the trail was rocky and hot....mountain people sold fresh squeezed orange juice miles inward. there was a huge pack of German tourists. this guy had a genius refrigeration system set up from the river sprinkling bottles of water with freshly melted snow. and so it goes.
the refuge was brick and old timey feeling....set right in the center of the valley where the snow hadn’t melted yet and the river was constantly beginning. I heard a rumor that I would need jagged pieces of metal to tie to my under efficient shoes to make it up the rest of the way. I choose not to believe them though... at the refuge they rented me a pair. I was lucky.....there would have been no way to have made the remainder of the "climb" yes it was definitely a climb....I actually realized what was so useful about all of those avid hikers burdening themselves with carrying useless ski poles....well this is where you would actually want to use them! I didn’t have any and it made all of my weight stay on my legs...but that was ok. I was trying to be more resourceful then the rest....not only because they had huge packs of professional gear (useless weight burdens in my mind) but they also were sticking together.....I don’t like waiting for people......or having to accommodate several different hiking paces given the slowest....or talking to people when I'm physically tiring over my next step....I mean you may think the distraction may be rewarding but for me it just makes everything a little more overbearing.......not to say its bad to trek in groups....its much safer and you have an experience to share with another person.......at least for me...ill admit it was nice to have them there...so I could walk past more quickly and feel that my pace was surpassing the whole of them...but also I admit as a safety net. its not the best thing to travel into a foreign mountain range totally detached from civilization.....armed with a sad broken useless backpack...... but shoot I knew there would be others given the mountains fame...I knew it would be both a challenge and a pleasure to pack to the bare minimum...and I guess that was ultimately satisfying...that I wouldn’t know how to express such freedoms.

the refuge actually had hot water! and came with a mostly nonvegetarian dinner and bread and jam for breakfast....and awkward French/German stares that suggested an incredible fear for loners....luckily for me there was another loner from Cali Forn I A by the name of Alex whom was no more then two months older then I...he even had the same traveling book with him....catcher in the rye..... I thought that to be insanely peculiar......our beards were even the same length.
as you may have expected he became my new best friend and ill probably go hangout with him in San Francisco before too long.....he actually made my whole hike after that point manageable.
I woke up early...like 5:30 and wanted to watch the sun rise while trekking.....though I had the burden of not possessing the knowledge to adhere jagged spikes to the bottom of my feet. I decided to improvise since I'm pretty good at doing this in general. I was outside and my hands were freezing and I was tying haphazard loops resisting to understand the need for a systematic approach for such things. when I finally got one on and said to my self .....va bene...Chris strolled out of the warm indoors and said "no way...take those off...let me help you" I was totally in debt to such a simple but important gesture...he tied those suckers correctly and snuggly around my cracked sad looking walking shoes....even though his hands were probably just as cold as mine......the next two hours would have thoroughly sucked while after twenty minutes my jagged spikes fell off and I was left sitting in the snow on a step ledge divulging myself to the need for a systematic approach while groups of hikers pass me by with impending grins plastered over their faces......sure I bet somebody would have eventually helped me out.....but Alex really made things easy...

needless to say the climb was momentous as my first high altitude and the light reflecting off the snow was beyond words at sunrise.....and I managed to be the third person to the summit and this 16 year old Berber mountain guide gave me dates and peanuts because I was starving and I have this silly picture of me pretending to be on top of the world and there are these little black birds up top that I figured came from the village in less then five minutes.....and I peed off one of the really high cliffs to feel like I’ve defied gravity for the time it took my pee to splash the rocks bellow.....and I did some yoga to breathe in the air and almost fell asleep after i sat back down and pretended to try and not wake up from some wonderful adventurous dream......and then eventually got bored with the view like everyone probably does after enough time....and left when all those Germans made it up there.....or were they Slovakian. yes once all the Slovakians made it up and practically ran down the mountain...and when I got back to the snow the sun warmed it to slush and jagged spikes that I didn’t know how to tie would have been boring so I actually made my bottom like a well insulated sled and got wet in the process but I knew it would dry because going down meant the temperature would dry whatever it must and I made some friends while sledding....one was named Ivan from Slovakia and he gave me pajamas that he didn’t want for my wet bum and I tried to refuse but he refused then it was awkward silence and I accepted...they are sky blue and I still have them like some long lost relic to an adventure that ill take all I can get outside of merely digital photographs to jog my memory.....

the walk down was long and I was confused given the new muscle strain going downward and I finally arrived to Imlil just before dusk (but sure plenty of other things happened.....but i think ive already written too much so.....trying to make this as short as possible) and split a cab after waiting an hour to avoid paying 20 dollars instead of 4......but I ended up paying ten though was happy to make it back to my hotel off the central market of Marrakesh where I was sleeping at this point on the roof for a mere 4 dollars a night.....

then got up and took the 7 hour train to Fez and loved Fez.....because I got to know the people.....they were friendly.....the community was much closer together....and while wandering during the eve....(so I admit I have this sticky sensation that I need to try and get lost at night in the darkest of alleyways in a third world country....because gosh darnit! that’s where the real adventure is) while doing so I saw a whole in the infrastructure of a web of buildings upon buildings....practically I felt indoors while in the old center.....a man saw me peaking around the corner while he was walking behind and offered to show me the treasure hidden down in the ruins....I was a little apprehensive but it turned out to be the fiery fuel of the Hama(the ancient bathing grounds) there was a frail old man with tattered clothing and crumbling knit cap feeding a furnace with scraps of wood for the baths hovering the next story above. my newly found tour guide then offered to show me the baths which I was thoroughly impressed by the authenticity of it all and then when I was offered to be bathed myself...... my mental clock said no way but my adventurous side was like ok and I striped down to my undies and gave my stuff to the coat check and paid my tourist price and was escorted into the walls of steamy moist......tiled half naked morocco by a man who reminded me of Sinbad but a little fatter and a little more bald and a little more guttural when he pointed with command....I felt awkward at first being in my underwear until I realized everyone else was in their underwear...and Sinbad led me to the farthest reaches and apparently the warmest given that it was centered directly over the old man with tired hands heating the whole damn place. my new guide to the Hama was also apparently my massage therapist and proceeded to also bath and scrub me and slap the ground and grunt since I didn’t speak Arabic and he not English.....it was amazing the whole smacking the ground and grunting routine...and pouring hot water over my head and scrubbing my whole body with some calloused sponge and then the massage came.....oh the massage...I admit I have a really strong threshold for pain especially when it comes to deep tissues massage...but this guy literally kicked my ass. while grunting and smacking the ground and doing everything extremely fast and wrapping his legs around me and arching my back over his hipbones and trying to disconnect my legs form my torso and probably trying to get a laugh out or a good scream at some point so he could finish and I would say uncle. but I just took it like a man and this could be taken many different way given the intimacy over our half naked bodies and the absurdity of the over complicated and painful stretching positions....but I assure you I was never abused....people are just a little more invasive of your personal bubble in Morocco.....and probably most countries where kids grow up in the streets instead of plugged into computers and televisions and digital camera simulated touristic adventures......
.all in all it was one of the most disturbing and eye opening and touristic crushing adventures of my 26 years in this funny shape of human.....I felt as though I was part of something that I should have only maybe been given the chance to take a picture of........

right when I thought things were at its pinnacle and I just received the roughest massage in my life from a Moroccan man who strangely resembled Sinbad......I managed my way to half purposefully get lost on my way to the hotel........to find three guys from Prague smoking a shi sha...or hookah on the roof (not of hash but you know....the hookah tobacco) and I was reminded of the time I smoked one with my friend Alonzo in Amsterdam and thought it may be a relaxing conclusion for a rooftop evening in Fez.....though their hookah just finished and I decided to find one of my own and to my enjoyment ran into two locals who were dressed as if they were two old friends from the Midwest and they recalled seeing me earlier and new the city like the back of their hands and offered to help me find the shi sha........they took me to this incredibly modern lounge in the middle of vacant desolate nothingness and they were undeniably the most friendly Michigan like friends that I could have never imagined finding in Morocco......it was seriously like meeting up with old friends who flew to Morocco to come and visit me... it was really strange.....and an absurdly perfect ending to my time in their country.. We talked about music.... and Europe and Morocco and Michigan.......surfboards and politics....libraries and soccer games.......salads and chocolate bars...high-five’s and pigeons......they really got a kick out of my Hama recap and understood my Sinbad analogy and pictured this fragile Michigander being pummeled by some overly aggressive bathhouse bouncer..........it could have gone on much later...they were just as intrigued about where I came from as I was of them....I thought they should have been brothers but by appearance they definitely weren’t.... soon enough the place wanted to close....they walked me most of the way back to my hotel and we said our goodbyes....I then ducked into this music store and talked about music for the next hour with the owner......he had that look on his face when he played something that we both though was awesome like he was going to cry when having to endure the silent space between songs.....I had nothing but sympathy for him.