London and Morocco

It was a short trip, only two weeks, but amazing! I flew into London the day after Halloween, and luckily made it to Monica's before the evening tube strike took place.
On my second night, Monica, her roommate and I headed over to Brixton Academy to see the Black Keys.
All I have to say if that they were absolutely amazing, and even better live than their recordings.
My week in London was filled with TopShop [which, I think there was some sort of bomb threat or something of the like one day],
incredible vintage shopping on Brick Lane, and dinners with old friends.

Lightsaber on the Tube from Kari Langslet on Vimeo.

London is amazing.

I headed down to Morocco for a few days, landing in Marrakech on a bustling Monday evening. I was immediately greeted by swirls of smoke emanating from the hundreds of food stands as well as snake charmers, drummers, and women with henna syringes trying to make a few Dirham. The next two days were spent winding through the souks, discovering hidden treasures. I made some friends at the hostel and invited one of them to accompany me to the mellow Muslim beach town of Essaouira.

Marrakech via my Flip from Kari Langslet on Vimeo.

[bus to Essaouira]


Marrakech is absolutely nuts compared to Essaouira. The beach mentality isn't just a California thing. Essaouira still has the old school medieval charm and markets, but not to such a crazy extent. People seem well fed and happier in general, with only a couple dozen beggars compared to Marrakech's thousands.











One little Berber dude had some funky patchwork parachute pants out front, so we decided to humor him and check out his shop. Most of the shops have the same exact things, but this shop had stuff I've never seen before; amazing jewelry, carpets, and trinkets all handmade by the nomadic people of the Sahara. After drinking traditional mint tea and talking down about $500 worth of silver to $80, he invited us to make traditional tagine [a kind of stew] at his apartment the following night. Slightly apprehensive about leaving the medina to eat in a strange dude's apartment, but equally enticed to be immersed into the local culture, I brought a guy named Tyler from the hostel to Ahmed's shop the next day. After he bought a rug, and Nicole and I bought daggers, Tyler was also invited to traditional tagine at 6 o'clock.



The three of us met Ahmed at his shop before getting ingredients for dinner. Our host didn't seem to understand the concept of a vegetarian.
A:"You can pick whatever meat you like, we put it in."
N:"Oh, no meat for us, we don't eat it."
A:"Oh, okay, we put in chicken then."
N:"No, no chicken."
A:"No chicken? Then fish!"
N:"No, no meat! No animals!"
A:"Oh, so I put it in the middle, and you eat around it."
Us:"It doesn't work that way!"
We all laughed, and he was just confused. Anyways, the four of us threw in twenty dirham each, about two Euro, and walked to Ahmed's apartment for our feast.
Upon arriving at the apartment, we met our host's first roommate who has to be one of the most intelligent and witty people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Fluent in six different languages, with an extremely outgoing and likeable personality, he would be extremely successful in the world. Bill Gates successful. I mentioned this to him, and asked if he would ever want to leave Morocco. To this, he responded,
"My whole family is in my village. I am the only one who has left. But I am happy. Why would I leave if I am happy? I like my life."
This man, once again fluent in six languages [we know this because between the three of us we chatted in a mixture of English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Arabic, plus he speaks his Berber language which would actually make the total seven].
Their third roommate came home just in time for some pre-dinner jokes and conversation.
Then the feast began. This was literally the best tagine I have ever had. The best stew type dish I've ever had made for me. Ahmed brought out the tagine on a giant silver serving dish with a triangular top, and we all broke up bread [no forks] and dipped it in the pot. Dinner was followed by more conversation and several broken pomegranates for dessert.








After that, we thanked them and left.
Truly it was a pleasure.
After trekking back to Essaouira Hostel, I decided to go back to Marrakech the next day. For one, I had left the stuffed animal Knoblauch gave me, Franklin, at my last hostel and furthermore I didn't want to chance getting held up in the road construction and missing my afternoon flight. Before I left, I took Nicole to the port. It was as if we had stepped back in time. I couldn't believe that the boats they had still sailed. It was amazing.





























After the port, a few of us walked around the markets and had lunch before I left.

Peeing Confessions in Essaouira from Kari Langslet on Vimeo.

Instead of taking the local bus back to Marrakech, not wanting to deal with four hours of creepy stares, i upgraded and paid 10 Euro for a van ride, which cut more than an hour off the travel time. This van, however, dropped me off really far away from the medina. I decided rather than pay for a cab, I would walk the 7+ kilometers to the hostel.
It was dark. I made it about halfway to the medina, and deciding it would be worth the five dollars to not get robbed, I succumbed to a cab ride. The cabby saw me walking, and when I told him where I was walking to, he said "You were going to WALK there?! You crazy!!!"
Yeah, it was a far walk.
Fifteen minutes later he dropped me on the outside of the medina, and five minutes later I was back at Equity Point. Starving and sweaty after the walk, I made my way back to the smokey food stalls and sat down for a peaceful couscous dinner and a liter of water. A British* guy sat down next to me, and we chatted for awhile before I asked him if he had booked a hostel yet, and took him to the front desk of Equity Point, the best hostel in Marrakech. [*He is British by blood and passport, but raised in Malaysia and lived in Asia the majority of his life].
The next morning, after a cup of the best orange juice in the world, I took the Brit to see where a good local hammam was. Women weren't allowed in until noon, and men were allowed morning and night. I decided to come back to the hammam before my flight, and we ventured off in search of the royal palaces.
The palace we went to was stunning. Yes, in ruins, but stunning. We ventured off the path and I crawled into a subterranean edifice, which turned out to be some tombs. This I know because after crawling into a hole and turning the light of my phone on, I discovered a coffin. The Brit jumped in another hole and found a giant black snake.
After running and jumping around this huge palace for an hour or so, we said goodbye and parted ways.








Off to the hammam.
This was my favorite part from the last time I was in Morocco. This hammam, a dark, no frills bath house not meant for tourists, is a place where the locals with no running water go to bathe. My Arabic and French limited, and their English and Spanish nonexistent, we somehow managed to communicate that I wanted a bath, exfoliation, and a massage.
A tiny Muslim woman with stern yet kind eyes approached me, and ordered me to take off my clothes. She then escorted me into a dark room, with the only light coming from a tiny whole in the domed ceiling.
She scrutinized my piercings and tattoo in wonder, getting up beyond close to examine. She then tsked me on not exfoliating much, asked me in french if I was married and what it was like in California. She laughed at my Arabic, but was grateful that at least I had tried to learn a little. My few Arabic words were more than the English she knew, which makes me want to learn Arabic even more.
After the bath, the little woman accompanied me to another room while I changed. Amazed that I could get into a pair of painted on skinnies so easily, and moreover wondering why on earth I would want to, I demonstrated the amazing properties of spandex by letting her pull on the fabric and doing a series of high kicks and cheerleader jumps. Needless to say, she was impressed by stretch denim.
After this, it was time to go. I met up with a few guys I had met before Essaouira, chatted, and walked with them. Declining a lunch offer, I told a cabby to take me to the airport for 80 dirham. He wanted over 100. I said, "I can just take the bus for 20!" He agreed on 80, and, knowing I had 100, went and got change for me from a gas station. The cabby was nice, but ran into a guy and his lady on a motorbike. A lot of sorries and praise Allah's later, we were on our way. That was literally the third collision I had witnessed that day. People are crazy drivers. He dropped me off, and I wished him a good life and jokingly scolded him on his driving skills. He laughed, and I walked into the airport.
As I remembered, the Menara airport used to be overrun by loads of adorable kittens. This, sadly, is no loner the case. I waited....and waited. Easyjet decided to delay my flight by a couple hours, and I ran into the boys from the hostel again. We sat and chatted, and my plane finally came.
I was happy to leave the airport, but sad to leave Morocco.
I'll go back someday.
I got into London near midnight, with 8 tube lines closed. I ran through the slew of drunks to try and catch the last central line train to Monica's. The tube smelled of liquor and unrealized dreams. The old man yelling about the movie Dirty Dancing and how he was proud to be British reeked of booze and stumbled around trying to serenade his audience.
As aforementioned, I love London.
A couple more days were spent perusing Brick Lane in absolute freezing temperatures; the kind of heavy, freezing cold that penetrates down to your bones and very being. I ate lunch at a vegan Bustaraunt,


packed my things, had dinner with friends, and left at 5 AM.
It was a good two weeks.
:)