Yalla Maroc (Let's go Morocco)

3:20 AM Monday morning. The first call for prayer goes out from the central tower in Marrakech and the surrounding towers pipe up and follow suite. Ironically I was already on my knees head to the Berber carpet in our room praying for my stomach to stop cramping. 2 days later with lots of water and minimal food my prayers were answered. I think it was a combination of heat exhaustion and dodgy kefta (ground meat mixed with parsley).

To enjoy this wonderful experience we spent 32 hours traveling by train and ferry, swarmed by 6 or more Romanian gypsies in the middle of the night at a deserted train station, spent time with two young guys from the US who thought they could do a quick day trip from Spain into Morocco based on their hand drawn maps which were completely off scale and held up by Moroccan customs officers on the ferry because we missed getting a stamp in our passports somewhere along the way.

Aside from all these little annoyances Morocco is an amazing place. There is so much going on every day and just the music from the square which we can hear from our roof top terrace is worth the trip alone. We're off into the desert tomorrow so if you don't hear from us in a few days come looking and pack your shovels!

In need of a vacation!

I spent the whole day today lying on the beach. I was in serious need of a vacation ;)

We started burning both ends of the candle 3 days ago when we hopped on a ferry from Barcelona to Mallorca (one of the islands off the coast of Spain). We ended up sharing a cabin with a guy and girl from the US. It was an over night ferry and we decided to get a night cap. So we shared a drink with Banashek and Jen and before we new it we only had 3 hours left to sleep before our ferry was going to land in port. We ended up spending a very enjoyable weekend with Banashek and Jen who by the way were just doing a quick weekend get away and even had less sleep than us as they missed their flight connection and drove from Madrid to Barcelona; these guys are machines!

The Spanish eat a big lunch around noon and then have a late dinner from around 9 - 10pm. For some reason we took this to the extreem while we were on the island and found ourselves looking for dinner around midnight every night which hurt in the morning since I wanted to be up at 8am to claim my free b´fast.



Yesterday we decided to rent a car (renault) and drive around the island. We saw some cool things like a necropolis with tombs in the shape of boats so their dead could be sent on to the next life and a walled in city. Banashek and I managed to swim out to a very small island off the coast and since we had no swimming planned for the day underwear had to do for bathers, Bana gave us all a good show in his tighty whities.... lol




We drove back to Palma later that evening to catch the fireworks. This was a show like I had never seen before. They were setup in this plaza and had three six foot ornaments that looked like they were designed in disneyland. Not far from the six foot ornaments there was a 25 foot clown that we had seen the day before while buying wine for 2 euro a bottle and thought it was a permanent statue. We had pulled up a table and started drinking wine and eating paella when all of a sudden one of these 6 foot ornaments started shooting fireworks and then going up in flames! The next two followed and it wasn´t long before we realised that they were going to burndown the clown. Before they got started on the clown we decided to move up to the bridge as we weren´t exactly feeling comfortable sitting 20 feet away from exloding statues. They burnt that clown to the ground while singing some Spanish song it was very surreal.

The actual fireworks started shortly after the burning of the statues. It was an amazing show. I had never been to close to fireworks in my life and you would never be able to get that close in Australia or Canada. There were times when I thought about ducking for cover behind the concrete bridge railing :s

Banashek, since you left us with four bottles of wine to drink in one night this photo is for you!

Where's my hostel

I was cursing Maria under my breath on the way to our hostel in Barcelona. She did the booking for this one and swears it said "close to all attractions" but an hour later after leaving downtown we were still not at our bus stop for the hostel. After fighting though peek hour traffic between 7 and 8:30 PM we get off the bus a few stops too early just to see how we do at being lost in a foreign land and for some exercise with 40 pounds on our backs. Now after spending two nights I have had a change of heart. We have a room in a university settled in the hills and are staying with all the summer students. There is an amazing view from our room of the the city, coast and just off to the left you can see a huge Monastery built in the 11th century. Best of all there is a free buffet breakfast with chocolate filled pastries, fruit, eggs, donuts and sandwiches. If I was staying here any longer I would put on 20 pounds.... lucky for me we´re heading for a spot on the beach tomorrow.


This guy was on the street playing the game where you had to pick which container the ball was under given a choice of 3. He moves them around really fast... I´m sure you have all seen it played before. People where taking shots at 50 euro a go! I totally had it down but I didn´t have the balls to play as I was worried he would stab me in the back after I took all his money.


This is the photo where apparently I was about to be mugged. Maria wanted to get a photo of me and she made me stand in this alley. She started taking the photo and the suddenly turned and walked away. I caught up with her to see what was going on and she said this big guy and his mate were pointing at me at starting to walk towards me. Thanks for the heads up Maria :p

London on a shoestring.... or should I say platinum card

Back in 2000 I was going to leave Australia and go to London to find work with only $500 in my pocket. Lucky I didn't because in the last 3 days I have blown through over $500 and I only have £21 pounds left in my pocket (the train back to the airport cost £19.60).

We did the usual tourist things, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, walked over London Bridge and the Tower Bridge. If you had to pick one then go over the Tower Bridge, I expected London Bridge to be spectacular since there is the children's song about it but it is really quite plain. The picture is of St Paul's Cathedral, can you tell what's wrong with it?


Beer is cheap (less than £2), you can buy Stella in the supermarket and Guinness is served cold to put any rumors to rest. We'll be back to explore England in more detail in July. For now it's off to Spain!

make any flight interesting, fly ZOOM

8 hours behind schedule and we have finally made it to London. What an interesting start to the trip. The flight was initially delayed leaving Edmonton due to a tire change, then once we stopped in Winnipeg they somehow managed to bust the door on the plane which set us back another few hours. Good thing for us we had a friend at the airport who got us the “Premium” economy class seats ;)

I was getting some shut eye while the plane was stuck on the tarmac in Winnipeg and was abruptly awakened by this musician with huge hair, I had noticed him earlier as he was scoping out empty seats which I also had my eye on. He had made his way to a seat behind me and then woke me up by shouting across the plane for BEER as he was apparently a raging alcoholic. The second time I came out of consciousness on that flight was when I dreamed I was drowning in a big pool then woke myself up to find I was drowning... just in a pool of my own drool :s

I would have to say the most exciting part about the plan ride though was when we were rounding London and the plane decided to drop out of the air. It was pretty funny as there were all these people walking around the cabin while the seat belt light was on acting like god owed them something because there flight had been delayed 8 hours by now.... guess what? God doesn’t owe you anything.... hehehe

Finally we get to Gatwick airport but the fun hasn’t stopped yet. First the immigration officer decides to give us a hard time because Maria applied for a work visa but was denied and then decided to try enter the country anyway. Then I’m left standing at the luggage carousel watching a single red backpack go round and round but it wasn’t my red backpack! Some dude from Winnipeg decided to snatch my bag.... I guess it looked fancier. Luckily for me I had a baggage tag that said “WRONG: being mistaken or incorrect (as in: it’s wrong to take my bag)” and I think that got the better of him and he decided to turn it over.

The hostel is nice enough except for the luggage room which needs to be seen to believed.... let me just say if you need some underwear and you don’t care too much about personal hygiene then this is the room for you.

Goodbye CANADA!

This is it. Only a few more hours until I board my plane and see what else this world has to offer :)

Man this world must be a dirty place. 8 injections later (3 for me and 5 for maria... hahaha) and a bucket full of pills and we are safe to go. Some of the more exciting items are:

• Diarrhoea tablets; two kinds, each one for a specific purpose, one to make you stop and one to make you start


• Gastrolyte sachets; for replenishing electrolytes lost when suffering diarrhoea


• Antifungal cream; unless I plan to start a garden in my groin

I've have all my possesions in one bag and two small boxes (to ship to Oz). Whoever goes through my dumpster is going to think they won the lottery. Seriously this is all I have left and it actually feels pretty good.

It's been a fun five and a half years and I'm going to miss all the people I got to know during that time.

See you in Australia, and thanks for all the foos!