Morocco

Just a quick little update. Morocco has been pretty fantastic and the tour has worked out about as well as you could expect. It is well designed and varied with a good mixture of the cultural, the historical, the recreational and the the retail. The tour leader was excellent and the people all very nice. In Fez we checked out the medina - visiting a caarpet place, a tannery, and a pottery place as well as taking in the general vibe. We visited the Roman ruins at Volublis and also went to Moulai Idress and Mekness. Then it was off to the Sahara. This was great - with highlights including a visit to the women's tent on the first day of a Berber wedding and a camel ride in the desert dunes. After the Sahara we visited Kasbahs of the Todra Valley, went to Marrikech and have now ended up back in Essaouira. The accommodation has been great and I have been eating well. In short I can find no fault with this tour and Morocco is a fascinating place. Plenty of wonderful things. You can check the itineray in a bit more detail here. Its the Deserts and Kasbahs one.

Wish I had time to write more, but things may have to wait to I get a chance to talk to people...

Essaouira to Fez

Well have left Essaouira, gone back to Cassablanca, met up with my tour group and am now in Fez.

Essaouira was a good place to hang for a few days and the Gnaoua Festival was pretty interesting. Mainly it attracted a very young and enthusiastic male Morocan audience. Moroccan ladism, if you will. However it also attracted almost everyone else in the community - including women, children families etc. A local Italian woman, who was multi lingual, was good enough to show me round, introduce me to some of her Moroccan friends etc., so it was a hoot. At times though I couldn't work out what all the excitement was with the music. Mainly a good vibe though. The ghost of Bob Marley looms large here, with dreadlocks; ites, green and gold colours; Jamaican themed t-shirts; and the ganja leaf. One local band had a one drop style reggae pop number too. Would love to elaborate on it all, but there isnt time at the moment.

My tour group is largely Australian and also pretty Sydney. There is also a couple of Swiss women and a Canadian guy. Seem like a nice bunch so far, and has been good to catch up with my friend Bruce. This morning we went to the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. It is built on the premise that big is better, at at one level it is quite impressive. Another part of me kept feeling the money would be better spent on improving things in this life rather than contemplating the next. Think I may be over religious buildings. Yes Kate, AFC. The rest of the day was spent getting to Fez and will be off to dinner soon. Anyhow tour should be great.

Essaouira

Well am in Morocco. Flew from Barcelona to Casablanca and then got a bus down here, on the south coast. Far from the romantic images that Casablanca may conjure up to you it appeared to be a hole. Mind you I did only see the rundown bits around the train station and bus depot. Was a little freaky getting into to Essaouira too, as it was late at night, I was bloody tired and I couldn't find a phone that would work to contact John's friend, Renzo. Eventually I did and I am now staying with some very nice Italians in a lovely place with a tiled courtyard in the heart of the medina.

Essaouria was initially a Portuguese outpost, but it its current form dates back to the 18th Century. Orson Welles spent some time here and famously shot bits of his version of Othello here. It is now a very laid back and touristy town, with a relaxed and bohemian feel. There are people from all over here. Tomorrow the Gnaoua Festival starts. So I should get a couple of days of great music in before I head back to Casa. The place is starting to fill up with more Europeans, and I have even noticed some Australians about. One woman I was talking to was a Sydney uni student! Of course the offers of hash have increased today as well!

The medina is full of life and colour. Children, stray cats, the disabled, and everyone else. There is great food to be had here (especially the seafood) and a mixture of music to be heard as I hang out - from Louis Armstrong to Bob Marley, hip hop, French pop, Arabic and African music, and of course American pop music. The stalls are full of great jewellery - especially for anyone interested in American Tribal Style Bellydance, great woodwork and clothing.

Mainly I have just been hanging out in the sun, drinking coffee, eating gelato and reading. I started Victor Serge's "Birth of Our Power" in Barcelona and finished it here. The first part of the novel is set in Barcelona during the failed workers uprising of 1917, and it finishes in St Petersburg - with the victorious Russian Revolution as a new hope. The novel was written in 1930. I love reading Serge as he has such empathy for the characters he creates - so that no matter how bleak the situations and personal loses, no matter how sombre the tone, there is always beauty and hope. Yesterday and today I read the book I picked up on him in San Francisco A life as a work of art. All of which is probably only of any interest to you if you are interested in the left and the revolutionary movements of the first half of the 20th Century. If so well worth reading as a way of understanding that rich vision that motivated so many.

Interestingly both Serge and Orwell did not care for the Sagrada Famila Cathedral either, I disovered on re-reading their books!

Today I picked up a novel by a Moroccan / French author, Tahar
Ben Jelloun. It's called This Blinding Absence of Light and is about imprisonment following a failed coup and attempt to assassinate the Moroccan king in 1971. Sounds cherie,eh? But just my kind of thing.

Hola

Well still really loving Barcelona. It is a lively city with a great vibe. Nice people, good food, coffee, bars, music and so on. Also full of interesting architecture, great museums, galleries and parks. Add to that mix great weather, compactness and good public transport and you can see why this place is considered special.

Last night I went out and had a pretty good meal and then stumbled across a little bar called L´Angel. About twice the size of my living room it had samon pink walls, some blueish coloured pictures and photos of happy patrons. The place was crammed full of very friendly and groovy people - there to see a 3 piece African band. The lead singer from the band looked Jamaican, was speaking fluent Spanish to a Japanese woman in the break, and had on a t-shirt with celtic designs. They were a fantastic band, with really nice guitar and percussion, and the audience wasn´t afraid to dance. Hope that gives you something of the flavour of the place. Needless to say it was a lot of fun. I´ve also discovered a nice little bar called Sincopa - with excellent decor (including a detailed reggae band suspended from the ceiling). Through the week caught a good blues jam session and also a flamenco band. They were excellent - once again with a very casual vibe. Various friends acted as guest musicians, vocalist and back up clappers.

In my time here I have been to visit the Cathedral and the very mad cathedral designed by Gaudi, which is stil being constructed the Sagrada Familia. To tell you the truth this wasn´t really my thing. Very intereting for sure, but a bit garish for my tastes. I much prefered the Parc Guell.

Not wanting to leave galleries out of my tourism I did a Picasso related walk and went to the Picasso Museum which has some of his early works, as well as some of his last. The day before yesterday I checked out Miro Foundation and also went to the National Art Museum of Catalonia. These are both located in the Montjuic area, a hill south of the city, with the castle / fort, that overlooks the large port area. In fact Companys the leader of the Catalan Republic was executed here by Francos forces. The gallery has some wonderful Romanesque art and also some great modern pieces - including modernista furniture etc. Another interesting Park area in Barcelona was the Parc Ciutadella

Also on the museum front I went to the History Museum. This was truly fantastic, for a mere €3. There was an exhibition of posters from the period of the Catalan Rebuplic, to celebrate 75 years from its commencement. There was also a collection of photos from the civil war. Unfortunately there were not postcards from either of these exhibits and I didn´t fancy carrying around heavy coffee table books. If you are in Barcelona over the next 2 to 3 months you should really check this place out. The museum also has a display covering the complete history of Catalunya, and generally has the politics of mainstream Catalan nationalism (from what I can tell).

Yesterday I went to Monserat. A touristy thing to do, but still worth it and nice to get out and see some of the countryside. Today I went to the beach side town of Sitges. Was a very relaxed day reading, eating and wandering around watching people have a good time.

My only hassle in Barcelona was finding some accommodation when I had to move. There was a music festival on with Daft Punk, Massive Attack, Fatboy Slim and so on. Meant the place was inundated with young people - and a lot of Brits. So a lot of the good cheap accommodation around the centre of town was all booked out. Eventually found somewhere.

A final note. If you haven´t read Orwell´s Homage to Catalonia you really should. It works well as a personal memoir, a work of historical witness and description, and most of all as a briliant piece of contemporary political analysis of the Spanish Civil War. Its been years since I read it and I think I love it even more this time. Amazing to think it is only a little over 30 years since Franco´s death and fall of fascism here.

Barcelona

Well I´m a bit of a slut when it comes to places that I visit. I seem to fall in love with everywhere and Barcelona is no exception. I´ve got it bad. Its a city full of life, light and energy. Just wandering around the old city and the area around La Rambla is a real buzz.

The place I am staying is called Ram.Cat Apartments and is just of La Rambla. It is a really nice room and the apartment is all recently fitted out. Quite fittingly it located above and near record stores. I also discovered a wonderful book shop near by full of history, politics and art books. If only I had Spanish or Catalan. Apart from a lot of walking around and bits and pieces of fast food coffee etc. I haven´t done all that much. Last night I went to the movies and saw The King and today I went and saw The Road to Guantanamo. Both are very good, if a little heavy. The Road to Gutanamo was very interesting as I knew very little about the British guys who had got caught up in the barbarism of the war on terror. It is a stinging indictment of US policy (should you need anything else to convince you) and a chilling reminder about what a lack of process and natural justice really mean. Movies are in their original form with Spanish subtitles - so works well.

I am hoping I can find some flamenco somewhere tonight, though I realise I am not in the best part of Spain for this sort of thing.

Currently reading a very good book called Homage to Barcelona by Colm Toibin. After that I plan on re-reading Orwell´s Homage to Catalonia (an old fav) and Victor Serge´s Birth of our Power. Mighteven go for Robert Hugh´s book on Barcelona after my holiday if I hace time.

Auf Wiedersehen

Well tomorrow I leave Austria. The last few days have been quite nice. On Wednesday Deb and I went to a nice little Italian restuarant called Ecco. After that we went to a small reggae / hip hop bar called Zion. It was run by some local Africans and was very quite. They mainly played poppy hip hop. It brightened up a bit after Kate and Miguel arrived. Kate and Deb were doing turkish drops on an otherwise deserted dance floor to a track with the lyrics "you can do it, put your back into it". Hilarious!

On Thursday we hung out in Linz and then went to the opera again that night. This time to see Hansel and Gretel, which was a much lighter piece than the previous two and a lot of fun. Kate's friend Karen was fantastic in her debut as the Sandaman, but the show was really stolen by the witch. Afterwards we had a gathering back at Evelyn's.

We got up early today to have breakfast with Evelyn and her two boys, Alex and Andrew, before they went to work and school. Evelyn has been so great to us. Later we got the train back to Wein. The countryside was pretty and it seemd that the summery weather has finally arrived. We walked around town this afternoon and went to the Osterreichisch Galerie Belvedere to see some of Gustav Klimt's work. I also discovered a portrait by Johann Baptiste Lampi which really took my fancy and had me very excited. The faces were just amazing and showed just how wonderful oil paintings are at capturing light, likeness, character and emotionn. I think you had to be there.

Deb and I go our seperate ways tomorrow which will be more than a little sad as it has been a great time travelling together...

Linz

Well a pretty quite day of hanging out in Linz. It had its moments though. I picked up three old reggae 7"s on the Greensleeves label fom a great little second hand record shop, Schallpplatten Fundgrube, in the old part of the city. Deb was waiting around outside and was asked for sex by some drunk guy. While she was pretty freaked at the time it was also kind of funny, and sure enough we found out that this is the area where a bit of drug dealing and prostitution goes on.

We went for dinner at the Promenaden Hof, next to the theatre and then saw the opera, Manon Lescaut, by Puccini. We had great seats. I really liked the sets and costumes. The whole thing was given a 1940s setting. Of course the singing, the music and the cast were great - including Kate. There was even an Alsatian on stage, though somehow I missed the part where it attacks someone. I think I was too busy checking out this guy, who Kate had said was skinnier than me. Never did work out whether he was, even when we were having drinks later. Was fun after the performance as Kate`s friend Miguel (who is Mexican) and Deb tried to communicate in Italian as a common language. They did remarkably well.