Smooth Sailing

Hola, que tal? Yo voy a hacer un traje de saliva.

Well boys and girls, that’s about the extent of my Spanish. And unless you frequent construction sites—and for both our sakes, Grandma, I hope you don’t—it’s likely that you haven’t heard the latter half of that before. Right. Regardless of my lack of fluency though, I’ve still managed to survive—even with a limited amount of high school Spanish. Clearly, learning Russian over the past months wasn’t of much use here. Oops. Anyway, a helpful Spaniard in Madrid took it upon herself to teach me a few “important phrases”, such as the one above, to use with any new Spanish friends I might meet. As I’m sure you might’ve guessed, since that little intervention it’s been smooth sailing.

And speaking of smooth sailing (this is what some people call a “transition”), I’ll be taking the ferry from Algeciras (Spain) to Tangier (Morocco) in a few days. I’ve heard the straight of Gibraltar is a calm 70 minute journey this time of year, with the two bordering port cities each boasting a renaissance of art, culture, touts, and drug pushers. How delightful. Unfortunately there wasn’t much of an alternative, as the timing of the flights between Sevilla and Fez weren’t going to work for me. Plus I wanted to go to Granada. Plus plus, historically speaking, I love sketchy border crossings (see: Mongolia-China), but have never had the opportunity to go through one by sea—time to check this off my bucket list.

Anyway, Spain has been lovely and full of bingeing of various sorts: cheese-bingeing, wine-bingeing, olive-bingeing, you name it. As expected, this is a land of not only beautiful women, but also omnomnoming (“gastrotourism”, for those of you less high-brow folks out there). Quite frankly, the food here is delicious, cheap, and safe; being able to eat without the constant fear of post-traumatic stomach disorder (PTSD) has been a blessing, and a dramatic shift from many of my previous travels. And despite how much my friends have enjoyed hearing about—and repeatedly bringing up with strangers—some of my more “public” PTSD exploits, I’d prefer to avoid new ones. I’ve only been abroad a week, but hey—so far so good. As long as I can avoid any food that includes a white sauce during the next 3 months (milk+heat=use your imagination), I should be fine.

…But god, I’m only one man, and I’m too weak/cheap to resist Kebabs. Fie on you yogurty-cucumber sauce!

In other news, a bit of housekeeping: for those of you who are keeping track, and noticed that my itinerary never included Morocco until now, I’ve had a bit of a change of plans. Picture on a map, if you will, ye olde Mediterranean Sea. Now picture Morocco on the southwest end of it. Now picture me there, and then flying to Rome via Marrakech. And then picture the rest of my trip exactly as I’ve been planning it so far, but with me skipping Le France because I don’t really have time to backtrack and I’ve already been to the places where I was planning on going. Yup. Don’t worry though guys, I already stocked up on baguettes. Everything will be fine.

And cheese. Sweet, sweet cheese.

Omnomnom.

Hasta luego,

JHW