Hampi monkey fun

Annapurna Circuit

Is it just me, or is this the dumbest don’t drink and drive slogans that has ever graced the airwaves… if you are looking for a potent way to discourage people from drink driving, it seems like the best phrase wouldn’t be a rip-off of Ben Parker’s advice to Peter… personally, I would probably write “Don’t Drink and Drive, or else you will either die, or end up getting raped in prison”… that would discourage me pretty well… but maybe that’s just me… I don’t mind Coors Light so much… I prefer Bud Light, but I have a personal connection with Coors, since a creek that runs in the area of Camp Shwayder (where I used to work in Colorado) apparently is used for water in the Coors bottling plant… it’s a pretty incredible personal connection, I know…

now that I’m back, ads have started to get to me… one of the niceties of world travel is your lack of exposure to adverts… don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy advertisements… I worked (briefly) in the industry, and I like being convinced by an ad that I really need what they are selling… I guess this joy came out of the constant bombardment, because now that I am back after spending a year without seeing very many ads, I’m beginning to see the adverts as intrusive and vaguely annoying…I am hesitant to go to the movies out here for fear of the number of ads before the movie starts (and yes, I know that I could just come 15 minutes after the start time, and I will miss all of the ads, though I would never do that because I always have to be early)… I am pretty certain that pre-movie ads have been increasing on an exponential curve for the past 10 years… I feel like it wasn’t that long ago when we didn’t have to watch a stupid polar bear gallivanting about the hillsides in search of syrupy goodness… actually… I do enjoy the one where the whole world inside the vending machine makes the coke… I was always partial to the fanfare at the end where everyone is cheering as the finished bottle gets launched to the exit of the machine… kind of makes me want to work in manufacturing, though I suspect I would get fired pretty quickly for throwing too much confetti…

the police sirens are different, and they sound really stupid… I like a good siren… it’s sharp, piercing, sounds like something crazy is happening… the new one I heard today in downtown Lafayette was a piece of shit… it was this weird low wooo woo woo wooo wooo woo, if the person saying woo is also doing birthing breathing exercises… it certainly got my attention, but is also made me think less the LPD… for that matter, I saw a new looking LPD truck with “Parking Enforcement” written on the side… since when do parking enforcement officers get to drive in trucks… I was always under the impression that the shitty little parking enforcement golf carts were punishment to the officers for being the wussiest and most annoying of all officers of the law… and beyond that, why on earth would the police ever need a pickup truck?  I understand (to a certain extent) the need for an SUV (in case you ever have to arrest the whole soccer team at once), but a truck? what the hell do the police need to transport that doesn’t have to be locked down… a case could be made for traffic cones, and flares and such, but for parking enforcement? this is stupid, and whomever decided that the Lafayette Police Department couldn’t possibly live without a truck, while our schools are slowly being starved out can get fucked…

I went on a bit of a book spree this past week… for my road trip I’ll have a lot of good reading material, which I’m pretty excited by… I should be able to finish Murakami’s oeuvre by the time I get back to California… it has been nice being home, but at the same time, a bit scary… I think this road trip across the states is exactly what I need to get myself back in the American mindset (whatever that may be)… I I am not overly excited to look for a job, but I am excited to get an apartment, and have my own room for over a week for the first time in around 20 months… I’ve decided to stop starting posts with howdy, and ending with I hope all is well… till next time… the first few times I did it I liked it, then I got used to it, but by the end (nearly 125 posts) it began to feel a bit trite… Instead, I’ll end with something different each time… This is a cartoon from “The Perry Bible Fellowship”…

if you find this funny, you can check out more of his work here, and you can pick up his Almanack here…

So here I am, back in California… the trip is over, and I’m not too worse for wear… I had a wonderful first weekend back home, couldn’t have asked for any more… Zachary’s pizza Friday night (spinach mushroom deep dish (obviously))… Saturday I got to go to the A’s game, which was a real joy… not only did the A’s win 5-2 against the Rays, I also sat in the all-you-can-eat section (why is all-you-can-eat always hyphenated… for that matter, I have never fully understood the whole hyphen thing… it seems kind of arbitrary to me…) and I ate 4 hot dogs, 1 tray of nachos (you forget how much you miss fake cheese… whoever invented it deserves far more credit than the first cheddar maker, that’s for sure), a bag of popcorn, 2 piles of peanuts, 4 sodas, and 4 ice cream sandwiches… it was wonderfully delicious, and the fact that it was free (because I went with the temple youth group) made it even sweeter… that evening, I went out with some friends, and it was really nice catching up…  on Sunday, we went to go see David Sedaris at the Zellerbach, and he was amazing as usual… the last time I saw him was at Cornell several years ago, and it was great to see him again… to be honest, since Me Talk Pretty, I haven’t been very impressed by any of his books… some of the stories, I found vaguely amusing, but all told, nothing special… this being said, when he began the story of having too many owls, I recognized it immediately, as a story I didn’t really like from an earlier collection… hearing him read it out loud, however, had me laughing quite hard all the way through… something about his voice brings out the humor for me…

It feels great being home, but it is also kind of strange… the kitchen has been/is being remodeled, which can be occasionally disorienting, and until about 10 minutes ago, the hallway outside of my room had carpet… more than the physical changes, however, home feels different to me… I wish I could put my finger on it, but perhaps I’ve grown up a bit on this trip, and I can immediately see that it’s time for me to get my own place again… it might just be that after 8 months of living here, I don’t really want to live here any more… who knows… it is nice having my full wardrobe again though… every day, I have made a point of wearing all different clothes, not only to celebrate my lack of restrictions (clothingwise (or is that clothing-wise)), but also to figure out what will stay and what will go… one nice thing about living out of a small bag for a year (oh, by the way, I’m going to refer to the length of time of my trip as a year, not because the trip was a year long (it was 11 months), but rather because I think it sounds better than continually having to say 11 months… it also removes necessity of deciding whether to type out eleven, or play the lazy game and use the number key…) is that you realise how little you really need to function day to day… during my trip, I had 1 pair of pants, 2 pairs of shorts, 3 pairs of underwear, 1 sweatshirt, 5 shirts (2 of which were the same), 1 pair of pajama pants, 3 pairs of socks, 1 pair of hiking shoes, and 1 pair of sandals… that’s it… and now, I have more pairs of shoes at my disposal than I had items of clothing for my whole trip…

my body feels pretty tired, so I’ve been resting a fair amount, and the next week will be dedicated to getting myself in tip top shape for Jason’s wedding… by getting in tip top shape I mean I’m going to sleep a lot, and catch up on lost and breaking bad…  I haven’t really had any culture shock per se, merely some cultural surprises… the advertisements here are very different than anything I’ve been used to… they are a lot more far reaching, and ubiquitous in every day life… it was pointed out to me that we adjust to the messages, and stop really noticing them, but as of right now, they are right up there in my face… I have also begun to drive again, and this has gone off without any major issues, though I have definitely forgotten which side of the road I’m supposed to be on more than 4 times…

I hope all is well… till next time…

Well this is it… tonight I sleep in my own bed for the first time in nearly 11 months… I’m in Boston right now, and in a few hours, I start heading to sunny (hopefully) California… I can’t believe it’s over… I wish I had something fitting to end this part of my blog with, but honestly, I can’t really come to terms with the fact that this is over… I was asked recently if I found what I had been looking for on this trip, and my response was, yes, I did, but I don’t know what it was… I’ve learned so much about myself and the world in which we all live… I’ve learned incredibly valuable lessons about people’s capacity for kindness and giving, and my own strengths and shortcomings… I’ve lived this past year on passing whims, floating from one place to another fully based on my random decisions, sometimes triggered by logical choices, and sometimes irrationality… it’s been wonderful, but it must end… it’s funny, but one of the things I’ve missed most during this year is a sense of structure, and a lack of control… having literally nothing to do for 11 months except whatever one feels like doing is a strangely empowering feeling, but at the same time, a tiring way of life… it’s not that I’m bored with myself, but I definitely need some outside strictures to keep me sane… then again, after I start working again, I’ll probably be bitching and moaning within a month or two, and I suppose, then it will be time to start planning my next trip, which will take a bit more planning… my next trip is going to be Africa (I just decided this (it was between Africa and South America)), and I’m going to go from the south to the north overland… I don’t exactly know when this will happen, but I would guess that it wont be that long from now… within the next few years…

yup… it’s almost time to head to the airport, so I should probably sign off… for anyone who is reading this on facebook, I wanted to let you know that this will be the last post that will be placed on facebook… if you would like to continue with me as I readjust to “real” life (well, kinda, after I get home, I fly back out to Boston in 2 weeks, then I’m taking a month long (maybe less) roadtrip across the states to see some people, and then I go to Hawaii and a backpacking trip, so in actuality, real life isn’t going to start for me until maybe somewhere around August, but none the less…) you’ll have to check in on my website at www.I-ramble-on.com, or just add me to an rss feed which is much easier than actually going to my site… either way….

I hope all is well… till next time…

Holy shit… 2 days, I’ll be back in California, tomorrow, I’ll be back in the USA…

Here are my pics from Belfast, and my various travels around Ireland…

My mind is literally reeling with the fact that I’m coming home so soon… it’s pretty crazy…

I hope all is well… till next time… see ya’ll soon…

I can hardly believe it, but I have 3 days left before I am in the USA, 4 days before I’m home in Cali… wow… These last few days have been great… on the 16th, I flew from Marrakech to Belfast (with a friskalicious stop over at Charles DeGaulle)… the one problem that I have with easyJet is that they only offer point to point flights, no connections, so you have to sit with your bags during a 6 hour layover, which is kind of annoying, but whatever… my friend Gary picked me up at the airport, and we headed to where he and Rob live in south Belfast… that night I enjoyed my first proper pint since leaving the states (Guiness of course), and got a great night sleep… on Friday, Gary and Rob were both working, so I wandered around Belfast, seeing Ulster Hall, St. Georges Market, and a bunch of other stuff around the relatively small city center… that night, we went to the local where Gary dj’s, and I got to see some of the other Belfastians that I met in Goa… all told a thoroughly entertaining evening…

I woke up Saturday feeling fine, but it tuned out that I just had a very sneaky hangover that kicked in as we drove north on the coast, heading for Giant’s Causeway… The drive was beautiful, but I was in a bit of pain… we eventually made it up to the causeway, which is a wholly unique (except possibly for somewhere in Michigan (or so I have been told)) rock formation that juts out into the ocean… they are these bizarre five or six sided basalts columns that formed naturally due to volcanic action/cooling… it was really fun, hopping from one to the other all over the area… I got some really great pictures, but sadly, this computer that I am on is currently refusing to accept my camera, so I will put up the pictures later/in a few days… the mythology of the Giant’s Causeway is also pretty cool, as it involves a fight between the giant of Ireland (Finn McCool (which may be the greatest giant name ever, as well as the best Irish name ever)) and the giant of Scotland (who shant be named here out of respect for the house that I am staying in)… either way, the causeway was really incredible…

we went back to Belfast, and had a BBQ at a friend’s house, which was really nice… it felt, to a certain extent, like I was back home… although I felt some serious culture shock when I got to Turkey, I really haven’t felt it at all here in Ireland… once I got used to the idea that I can’t pee anywhere I please, or spit everywhere, or shoot snot rockets at will, or toss trash everywhere… well… once I adjusted to that, there aren’t that many more things that can really shock me… culturally at least… that’s the beauty/curse of the west… it’s really not shocking at all, rather, it’s just really easy to deal with… I’ve had to readjust here to the realization that I can understand what everyone says to me (which is a major change), but even that didn’t take long, though my understanding of Irish people coincides with that billiards/darts/bowling curve, which states that after your second beer, you are at your apex of skill/understanding, and after that, it all falls apart rapidly… after the bbq, I went back to Gary and Rob’s house where I am staying, and thought I was going to have a nice quiet evening, but in the end, that wasn’t the case…

Sunday was a really pleasant day… we started by getting a fry for breakfast… now, before this, I didn’t really fully know what a fry was, and now that I know, I’m not sure how many more I will ever have… I went with the super fry (the picture would be handy right now) which included the following: soda bread, potato bread, black pudding, 2 sausages, 2 large slices of bacon, 2 eggs, baked beans, sauteed mushrooms, tomato, chips (fries for us yanks), a hash brown (I know, chips and a hash brown, and potato bread seems a bit redundant), and that’s all of it (I think)… It was delicious, but way too much food for anyone to possibly need to eat… either way, after breakfast, we went to climb up a hill called Cave Hill… it was a nice little hike, and it had a great view out over Belfast… once we got home, it was time to just chill out after a fun weekend…

4 Days from now, I will be back at home, and as I have said before, I am totally ready to be back home… that being said, I am a bit scared about the return to normal (or what we call normal) society… I am obviously eager to see friends and family, but more than that, I am eager to see how I have changed throughout this past year… I have seen so many new things, had new experiences, and I know for a fact that I am a different person than the one that landed in Vietnam last May… How I have changed, though, escapes me in general… Hmm… I am having difficulties specifying this… that’s ok…

I hope all is well… till next time…

happy 4:20

Marrakech is a really nice city… it’s no Chaouen, but honestly, that place is pretty special… there are 2 aspects of this city that I really enjoy though… First off, the city streets are wonderful… unlike in Fez, where you always emerge from alleyways to find yourself in a recognizable place, Marrakech’s streets are brutally disorienting, turning you every which way before simply stopping… the medina here is quite large, and I had a great time yesterday getting really lost, and eventually finding my way back to the main square… Marrakech is known as the city of Souks, and the souks certainly suck up a lot of your time… a souk is a market basically, and the markets here are second to none… a lot of travellers that I speak with seem to have problems with touts in these markets, being harassed and grabbed and such, but I haven’t had any issues… I wonder if the touts have a sixth sense that allows them to see that in the end, I’m really not interested in what they are selling, I’m just passing through… one of my favorite shops that I went by was filled with metal objects of all shapes and sizes…

After a day of wandering, the roof which I sleep on is a wonderful place to enjoy the slowly setting sun, which seems to be at its hottest in this city around 4:30, which is kind of annoying, but none the less, I’m reinvigorating my tan, so that’s ok… during the night, my favorite part of the city comes out, which is the evening food market in the main square (I would type the name, but one of the words makes no sense to me, well, I guess I should be authentic… it’s called Place Jamaa El Fna… I mean Fna? is that possibly a word? it seems a bit sketch to me, but whatever, that’s what a country gets for having it’s primary 2 languages being Arabic and French… a strange combination if you ask me… the north of Maroc spoke Spanish as well, but down here, it’s just French and Arabic, which means I’m basically up merde creek (I couldn’t find the e accent for merde) when it comes to speaking to anyone… c’est la vie) (oh, right, also, the keyboards here aren’t qwerty, which I may have mentioned before, but instead, they are azerty, which is annoying, but I just switch the setup in the control panels, so it works out fine, but still… it’s annoying) and the food at this market (the problem with using all these damn parenthesis is that I always lose my place about what I’m trying to say, and I end up with a strange sounding sentence, but either way…) is incredible… a nice variety of tasty soups, salads, tagines, couscousi (what the hell is the plural of couscous? I am going with couscousi until a better option is found (couscouses just sounds dirty to me…)), and random animal body parts… here are 2 pictures of things I have eaten recently…

yummy sheep’s head…

and my new taste sensation of last night… sheep’s brain… 2 nights ago, I decided to try out a nice mix of sheep head, cow tongue, and cow breast (which I didn’t fully grasp until last night (I was thinking it was… I don’t know… but I wasn’t thinking it was the boob of the cow… I was thinking like a chicken breast, but then I realized… oh shit… this is cow tit…))… the cow breast was interesting, a bit fatty, but good flavor… oh who am I kidding, it was all fat, but the taste was curious, because it had real texture, just not meaty, more… I don’t know… more chunky??? either way, the meat mix was pretty good, the sheep’s head had some nasty looking bits, which I of course left to the end… I definitely ate an eye socket, but I know the eye ball wasn’t included, because I saw the butcher guy toss that into the trash can while he was de-meating the face… I mean, how do you say removing the meat from the face? when I think of where meat comes from, my first instinct isn’t the face… hmmm… either way, the eye socket was pretty gross, but the rest was ok, which led me to last night, when I really wanted to try the brain which was really just sitting out there, goading me towards consumption (see the above picture… I mean, if that isn’t enticing, I certainly don’t know what is…)… I ordered some (pretty cheap actually, about a buck fifty for a whole brain), and out it came, looking… delicious isn’t quite the word I am looking for… let’s see… looking non-repugnant?…

the yellowish things are pieces of cow tit, and the sauce was actually really really good… If you asked me what the above picture looked like, I’d probably say tofu, or oyster mushrooms, so I wasn’t so scared of it at first… I grabbed my bread, and grabbed a big chunk of grey matter…

not too bad actually… their cooking style is just boiling the brain in a bit of stock, and the flavor of the brain really shined through the stock taste… it had the consistency of a very silky pate, or perhaps the soft tofu, and it tasted vaguely of liver (that might be why I found the consistency to be of a pate)… honestly, not too disgusting… if you didn’t know it was brain, it’d probably be considered a halfway decent bread spread… by the time I finished up all I could handle (I began to fear that if I ate too much sheep brain, they they’d invade my dreams with their crazy sheep thoughts), my plate looked thus…

hmmm… my plate looked thus… though that is probably one of the more heinously grammatically incorrect things I’ve written in a while (apart from this sentence), I just finished up Dracula, and I find I have the desire to write in the Victorian style (wait… is Dracula from Victorian times? when the hell was the Victorian era for that matter…)… either way… the food was good, well… it wasn’t bad, and after a few fruit juices my palate was cleansed, and I had a lovely night… on to other business…

as I head to Ireland in a few days, I wanted to put a few things out there, because I don’t know how well my brain will be working after a few nights in Belfast… I want to first of all give a massive, massive, massive public thank you to my wonderful parents for making this entire trip possible… if they hadn’t allowed me to live at home for those 8 months in Cali, I would have never been able to save up for this trip… also, a specific thank you to mom, because although at first I thought you might be a bit paranoid about your baby going all over the world, you have been remarkably poised about my trials and tribulations, even to the point of finding my second (fake) arrest “bizarre”… so mom and dad… thank you so so much, from the bottom of my heart for the room and board which I can’t imagine was fun/entertaining, considering your 25 year old son moved home after 7 years of getting to live by yourselves… I love you both very much, and I can’t wait to see you in 10 days…

a second thank you is in order for those people who read this blog… One of the joys of this trip for me was getting to keep up this blog, mostly because I knew that a lot of people read it, and hopefully gleaned some sort of enjoyment out of it… so everyone who has been reading from the beginning, and those that joined me somewhere in the middle, or randomly, thanks for reading, I’ve really enjoyed writing this, and I doubt I would have written nearly as much if my friends and family weren’t out there reading… that being said, the blog will continue after I get home, but to be honest, I don’t know what it will be like… I would suspect it will be more ranty, curse-ridden, and possibly perverse… who knows… from the look outside, the morning fog has blown off, and it will be another scorcher, so I should go throw on some shorts, and face the day…

I hope all is well… till next time…

So now that I’m in Marrakech, perhaps I can put together a partially cogent explanation of my last several days… I loved Chefchaouen (known locally as Chaouen)… it was basically Amsterdam, minus the assholes… one of my main beefs with going to Amsterdam is that despite them having wonderful legal grass, there are a ton of really annoying tourists around… in my experience, the biggest asses in Amsterdam are Americans, British, and Australians (no connection between these three countries)… The assholes from these countries come to Amsterdam to get as fucked up as possible, no matter what time it is, no matter the setting, it’s just get as fucked up as possible… this sucks for those of us who are looking quite simply to get a bit stoned, and relax in a really beautiful city… this being said, Chaouen was like Amsterdam, sans the assholes… the city itself is nestled in the bosom of the Rif Mountains, the medina (old city) is painted a beautiful blue color (check my pictures on facebook for examples), the food is great… ok, that’s not entirely true, but I must say, for a place that attracts a lot of stoners, it certainly has its food down… delicious sandwiches (once again, see facebook), great pasteries, and no alcohol, which was really nice, because I save a lot of money when there are no bars around… all told, a great place to kill some time for very little money… I spent 8 days in Chaouen, and honestly, 2 days ago, when I decided to make my escape, I knew that it was time to depart… one can only get so stoned for so long without beginning to feel the side effects… In my normal life, I’m not a daytime smoker, with the exception of special occasions… in Chaouen… well… see the above song…

either way, enough babbling about my stoner proclivities… suffice it to say, I am more relaxed right now than I have been in quite a while, my stomach is better, I am happy, and glad to be in Marrakech, which at first sight seems to be pretty nice… I am sleeping on another roof (again, 3 dollars a night as opposed to a room for 10-15)… I actually really like sleeping on the roof… it’s quite pleasant, and I never have to worry about too much dust… It gets pretty cold at night, but a single blanket has been working for me…

12 more days and then I am back in California… it is kind of scary… hmmm… I am totally stuck with books right now… for some reason, Morocco has very few book stores in English, which is a problem… I’m on my last book right now, Dracula, and it is actually the best of the “classics” that I’ve had to read in this country… I tried to go to a book store today, but they were closed for some stupid reason, so I’ll go back tomorrow… yup… so that is about it…

I hope all is well… till next time…

I hope all is well… till next time

So I have gotten word that some people think that I was arrested again… please note the date of the post from April 1st…

yup… here are some pictures from Morocco…

I hope all is well… till next time…