Sunday, June 28, 2009

Day 2

June 2, 3:49pm, NY

I just finished what is likely to be my last shower for a week. The sweet smell of success is likely to be eclipsed by the sour stench of exhaustion in the coming days. In fact, I won't stop moving for the next two days. The next possible shower won't be until Marrakesh. Before that, I have an 8 hour plane ride, a 1/5 hour bus, a 2 hour ferry, 9 hours in Tangier, and 8 hours on a train to Marrakesh. Camels will smell like newborns compared to me. And newborns often smell like shit.



June 2, ??pm

The flight has been going well enough. I sort of wish there was a bunch of excitement or colorful characters. Well, I imagine that uneventful plane rides aren't the worst things.



June 3, feels like June 2, 7:30am, feels like 11pm.

Due to arrive shortly in Malaga. I feel like shit and I'm pretty sure I smell like it too. The Spanish women won't know what hit them. Neither did the Jerries at Ypres.



[Editor's Note: I enjoy obscure historical allusions almost as much as untranslated phrases. Honestly, I'm not looking to impress. Far from it. I think I do it because I laugh at myself, even while writing it. My basic desire is to try to be as Romantic a writer as possible, especially while travelling. The more pretension and polysyllabic words I can fit into a single well crafted sentence, the more it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.]



I choose tea over coffee, as I'm not about to make the same mistake I made in Vienna of over-caffeinating myself into a near seizure.

Matt's Moroccan Adventure

Well, I have not updated this blog in about six months but recently decided that the best way to share my Moroccan vacation experiences would be to transcribe my Moleskine writings to this page. A little explanation: The entire time I was in Morocco, I kept a black Moleskine journal in my back right butt cheek pocket. Looking at the worn leather book right now, I can make out the contours of my own butt cheek. That's special. My hope was that some day when I am dead and gone, a curious young lad will dust off an aging, dust covered trunk, undue the tarnished brass lock, reach inside and find my tome. My memories. My stories. And maybe, just maybe, he would laugh his ass off. Here's to you, kid. You're holding something special that nestled uninterrupted against my butt cheek for 10 days.

Without further interruption (and minimal tangents), here's what I wrote:

"With the start of my journey, I am struck by how unprepared I feel. Not unprepared like "where is my underwear?" but more like I feel like I have to go to work tomorrow.
Anyway, I am all set. I even bought a ridiculous tourist hat to keep the sun off my translucent skin. Hats never look good on me. I believe that is a consequence of the enormous circumference of my head. Truly, it is one mammoth head. Hats always end up looking like I'm balancing a marble on a bowling ball. Not tres chic.

[Editor's Note: I try to write untranslated foreign language phrases as often as possible. I enjoy reveling in the pretension. After all, many of my favorite authors never translated certain phrases. I am only emulating greatness {read: Hemingway}. So, when you read me, and see an untranslated phrase, just sit back, laugh, smoke your cigarette, and reflect upon the glorious Summer evenings that were spent on the banks of the Seine, drinking vin blanc with your lover. Or, just mock me. I deserve it. But also recognize that each time I find an appropriate place to place a delicious phrasical morsel, my toes curl out of excitement.]

Goddammit, I have been here for a half hour and I already need a drink. Like most warm blooded mammals, the airport makes me nervous.

After me [sic] drink my mind is clear. I am not even thinking about the travels that await abroad.