Jetlag: The sweet mistress of the air

10 place Paul Verlaine: My apartment in Paris from 2002

The most spectacular lunch at the Musée D'Orsay. That's thyme sorbet on my plate - heavenly.

Seriously. Look at the room! Brian says 'a happy wife is a happy life'. I was pretty spoiled :)

Il est venue le temps des cathédrales!

We're HOOOOOOME!!!
And now I don't remember how to type on a qwerty keyboard, so I'll keep this mercifully short.

1) Paris was perfect. It was beautiful, we got some sunshine, and mostly we roamed around the town in between food stops. Heavenly

2) We had the best honeymoon ever. Brian is such a wonderful travel partner, so this bodes well for the miles in years we will cover.

3) We fulfilled our top ten (I rode a mule! What could be more important than THAT?!). But nicest of all is that we looked forward to coming home. We're really happy to be home :)

That's all for tonight folks! I'll be posting photos to the entries tomorrow, so if you're curious (and still reading this) check back in and you should see illustrations for the entries.

Thanks for joining us on this beautiful loving adventure. I've appreciated writing down some of our stories, and sharing them with you.

A birthday in Marrakech

Brian the Marrakchi

My birthday dinner in the place Jemaa el Fna - I wasn't feeling in tip top shape this night, but it was just perfect regardless

This is the historic Medersa, the islamic school now open to the public as a tourist site. Incredible detail on every inch of the building.

The museum. That's a big lamp.

The ancient water cistern in the old (12th century) centre of the Marrakech medina.

Well, Marrakech isn't as hardened to tourists as we were led to believe. I mean, yes, some people can be persistent - take for example the woman who grabbed my hand and started henna-ing on it throughout my protests. When I refused to pay her, as I said I would, she took her henna thinger and scooped the black goop back up leaving a not so gorgeous yellowish tinge to my hand. But that's been the most audacious attempt at money-making so far. I've heard to steer clear of fellows with monkeys, cause they'll throw the monkey on you and ask to be paid to get the monkey off your back (hah! sorry, pun intended). Brian and I got lost a few times yesterday wandering through the medina and we were guided helpfully by numerous people, none of whom asked for compensation. I'm not sure if this was a stroke of luck, or if we just look too darn cute to be harrassed :)

I'm still struggling with the head-turned-chest cold, but that hasn't slowed us too too much. We may save my fancy birthday dinner for another day, but we did go out to the Place Jemaa el Fna - a remarkably lively square FULL of temporary food stalls. They set them up and take them down every night, the prices are reasonable and you eat on benches alongside other tourists and locals alike. It was certainly a memorable birthday dinner! And really the narrow streets are FULL with pedestrians, scooters, cars, and mules and carts. The only thing I can compare the volume of people with in Vancouver standards is Fireworks nights. But it was just a regular saturday night out for these folk. Very cool. And kind of tiring :) Two more nights here and then Paris calls us!
I would love to post some photos, but we can only rely on borrowing card readers (silly me!) so you will just have to use your ol' thinker and imagination until we find the equipment again.

With love and good wishes from Marrakech, L Stomp

The masseuse fell asleep on me!

Seriously!

So B and I are in Essaouira, as you know. It's been great taking it easy in the city - especially nice to be in one place and in some comfort as I'm still duelling with a head cold. I think I'm winning, just gotta keep it from becoming a chest cold - harder to do in this humid climate. ANYWAYS, on the up and up.

We went to the beach yesterday to catch some rays (first time I've 'sunbathed' in t-shirt and long shorts) and like Allison's comment in the previous post, the wind kicked up so much fine sand that by the time we arose our beach blankets were almost submerged! I still have sand in my hair. There's a song out there about sand in shoes being the reminder of a wonderful holiday, well friends, we'll be reminded for a while to come I think.

Following our day on la plage we treated ourselves to massages - swedish style relaxation massage in a well-appointed spa atmosphere complete with muzak piped in for our listening pleasure. Finally, a Bryan Adams revival! My masseuse began to seem distracted during the foot massage, to the point that I thought she might be reading while massaging or something like that. Once we got to the head massage I noticed that she was again losing vim and vigour. Her fingers would by turns massage and then pause, twitch awake again and massage. I'm pretty sure her head laid on her arms beside my head because I could hear her breathing. I didn't know what to do! I was face down on a massage table with a very tired (and quite possibly overworked) masseuse with her hands in my hair! It was a little bit hilarious, actually. It ended well once we got past the head massage - I thought I was the one meant to be relaxed into slumber!

Brian's experience was much more typical. I can only hope that the lady takes a day off to relax and sleep a little. That's it, Maegan, I'll never stray again! (Maegan's a fantastic Massage Therapist for those of you who don't know - a shade or eight more therapeutic than the one described above).

Today is our shopping day, since we want to avoid the pressure of shopping in Marrakech (which sounds like 'Marrrrkch' when the locals say it).

OH AND PS. in case you didn't remember, tomorrow is Ghandi's birthday. And an unkown friend from my travels in India has emailed to remind me that it's mine as well! Goodbye 27, helloooo 28! 12 hours left to live it up as a mid-twenties'er.