Feng Shui Fun

Yesterday, I was restless. I needed a change. Pronto!

So I turned my bedroom upside down once again. Ever since I moved here, 2 years ago, I have not been satisfied with the position of the bed. I always wake up during the night and the fact that I keep staring at the door drives me nuts.

Now I'm almost happy. I've tried following some Feng Shui rules, so I got distracted reading about that on the internet. Leaving the whole house in a state of unruly mess. When I need a change, I mean it! Apparently, according to Feng Shui, your bed is not supposed to be aligned with the door as it represents the dead leaving the house feet first, therefore taking a lot of your energy. You bed cannot be under a window and also needs a headboard (the latter we don't have), both for security. The bed cannot be positioned so that a mirror is reflecting you. This is like a third person coming into your relationship. Which means problems.

The room makes all of these options impossible to change, because we have a huge closet with mirrordoors, and either a window or door on impossible sides of the room. Now I've shoved the bed next under the window, somewhat awkward. The bed is half reflected by the mirrordoors, but you can only see my legs and the best thing is: I'm not looking into the doorway anymore.
Let's see how this works out.

While I read the Feng Shui rules, I also learned about no mirrors in your entrance door, at least not when it's directly opposite the front door. A mirror pushes back the new and positive energies that need to flow into your home. Which we had...
So, change the hallway also. The mirror now hangs into the living room and the hallway is made into a little Japanese shrine. It's a small but effective difference. Later, when I turned to read my email, I had good news from an excisting client, and an inquery from a potentially new client. Maybe it really does work?

Mad in Morocco

One of the countries that was high on my list of visiting, was Morocco.

I somehow did know what to expect, in terms of cultural differences, way of trading, food, etc.
Still, it was a cultural shock. I didn't expect the old centre to be so poor. Just sandroads; trash everywhere, horrid smells, people walking bare foot or barely on foot, donkeys, mopeds, you name it. Quite the opposite from the new area, where you'd find luxurious hotels, Gucci and Prada stores, beautiful clean streets and buildings. The only thing being odd where the Peugot 305 cabs, which all seemed to have a dirty camel color (sure that's no coincidence?)

Another contradiction was our Riad downtown Marrakesh which is called a Medina. A Raid is similair to an hotel, the difference is that it's usually a typical Moroccan house, which has appr. 4 floors. The entrance floor, the bedroom floor and the rooftop being the terrace. Ours also had a basement where the owners lived. The Riad was beautifully decorated, with everything Middle Eastern style. Just like you see in the magazines.
The rooms aren't locked. Ofcourse, keys are provided when asked, but as our group of friends occupied 4 out of 5 rooms, we didn't feel it was necessary.

It truly felt like an oasis, a centre of peace in the middle of the crazy Medina. The road to it was a tunnellike street, seemingly leading nowhere. Just a door on the left which you'd knock and hello! Paradise!

The owners and their staff where amazing and even provided beer for us when we'd be so desperate to find a nice cold can of beer, but can be quite impossible in a Muslim country. Only at evening meals in expensive restaurants we'd be lucky enough to get a 28 euro bottle of wine or a 6 euro bottle of Heineken. Ouch! Having said that, it was worth it every little cent.

I've had cuisines I've never tasted before, like lamb with cinnamon, or chicken pastries with sugar or beef with dates. It truly was a mindblowing experience. If it was up to me, I'd spent all day eating!

What I didn't expect to be so exhausting was the haggling. Seriously. You could be spending half an hour trying to pay 4 euros less. First it's fun, later you just want to pay whatever and get out.

The Medina has Souks right of the big square Jemaa el Fna. Each Souks has it's area and are usually divided by trade. One area has only leather, the other wood, cotton, shoes, jewelry andsofort. Jemaa el Fna has a lot of stands where you can find freshly squeezed OJ or you can have your body decorated with henna. The favorites are the snakecharmers and the monkeys. Moroccans see a great deal of humor in it to chase after tourist with these animals. I however, was not so amused...

The Moroccans can be quite friendly. Most of them will come up and talk to you, just to know where you're from. Others use this as a way to lure you into their shop. Truth is, you can not walk around having thoughts to yourself for more then 2 minutes. Someone WILL interupt them.

The real challenge was not to get overrun by a bicicle, moped or donkey. They don't stop. Period.

And they don't go slow neither. They just dodge you...well...sort of. You learn fast enough though. You keep to the walls and hang on to your bag. Watch where you step in front of you (mind the holes, puddles, mudd, poo, kittens, peoples feet) and look left, right and backworths. It's a skill you master with time.

I think we had such a great time, because we where with many friends. 12 people. So you'd always had someone to talk to or you'd go and visit the same places of interest. If you don't go with a plan you will be a little lost in the madness of it all.

If you asked me would I go back to Morocco? I honestly don't know. It's definitely something you should do at least once in your life, but I find so many other things interesting aswell. And frankly... more alluring.

Nevertheless, I'll re-consider it when my upset stomach and yes... the runs have dissapeared.

Attitude

While I was writing an old friend about my life here, I told her about the job I had last summer:

Waitressing in a 4 star hotel.

I hated it. I was nervous going to work and felt sick almost everytime. But I went. It was difficult, I didn't understand the language perfect and I had to understand a lot of new phrases and words having to do with tourism and hospitality.

The first two month I worked nightshift, starting at 8 or 9 pm -officially untill 1am- but always ended up around 2, 3 or even 4 am. I had to wear an outfit containing blue pants, white shirt and ochre vest. Yes, wonderful. It was vinyl of polyester, so very sweaty for the summers. Yuk.

I could never be fast enough and the maître d' would always seem to pick on me (that wasn't true at all, we got on great after work) which made me more nervous. I know he was just being hard on me for my potential. HA!
The last month they asked if I wanted to substitude a colleague who worked mornings. That suited me fine as I would have to do overtime and close everything up. Again, I had to try and fit into this new group of people, but they seemed a lot nicer than the previous. I started to enjoy it a little more and felt more comfortable with my language and could make jokes with them.

The relationship between co-workers is very different than what I'm used to. Eventhough there are bosses and subbosses and vicebosses and second waiter and first waiter, it all seemed like one family. Ofcourse, when clients are there, you are not allowed to talk too much with colleagues, but the atmosfere always seemed airy and not to serious (unless the Hotel Director entered....) The relationship with clients was always professional yet personal.
The Spanish temperament clearly showed in correlation with the clients. There was a slight kind of indiference when it came to complaints. They simply shrugged it off after providing the client with what they wanted, usually combined with a joke. It did make me understand the Spanish mentality a little better.

Nevertheless I was counting the days untill the end of my contract. They wanted to renew it, but I kindly declined. I couldn't do it anymore. I wanted to persue my translating career. Through this job I also learned that I enjoyed helping tourists finding their way around the area. I was mostly send to the foreigners tables, since I can speak English, Dutch and some German apart from Spanish. It did give me an edge, I guess.

What I really would like to do is have a little of both. I want to use my knowledge of languages and interact with people at the same time. Who knows what lies ahead of me?

Girlfriends

As I'm loving living in Rota, I'm also in between 'here' and 'there'. 'There' being what I used to call home. Holland.

It doesn't mean that I want to live back there again. But I do miss my family and my friends. Especially now I recently got back in touch with several old friends. How funny they all choose the same month and year to get back in touch with me, has it anything to do with some star alignment?

I miss that I don't really have any girlfriends here. Sure I know plenty of girls, but cannot express myself in Spanish as I can in my own language, or in English.
The thought of seeing my friend Daphne soon, who is coming for a week visit with boyfriend and baby, is very exciting. Then I also have my friend Paige, who is coming for a short visit in September, and it looks like she's really making her dream happen to come and live in Sevilla. For sure she'll be in Europe, hopefully meaning more visits and a more similar time-zone.

It's funny how friends fade in and out of my life, sometimes the contact very heavy, and other times we seem to be more absent. But never distant.
I don't have many good friends, and I prefer it that way, so I can invest in people who are truly worth it. That also goes for the recently new contacts. Girls who maybe left my life but never my heart. And it proves that recent emails or conversation felt like we only saw eachother yesterday. The trust never really left. And I don't hold grudges. You lose touch because life takes you on different roads. Nobody is to blame, life just happens.

Thanks to all of you, who made an effort to get back in touch with me. You have no idea how I loved hearing from you again!

Praia das Furnas

I'm back from Portugal!

Boy, how I notice I'm getting older. I don't enjoy big crazy parties anymore. I enjoy quiet time with a few friends.

How excited I was to get out of the car after 5 hours driving and finally see the beautiful Portuguese beach. That is something that Spain cannot compare with, no matter how much I love 'my' beach in Rota. The ocean in the Algarves is cristalclear, even when you are standing waist-deep. So blue, so quiet and soo cold! A good wake-up shower, especially with a hangover!

Friday was our day of arrival, Saturday would be the party. Fridaynight meant a get-together with our friends from Sevilla. As we waited on Nacho, Saber and Antonio, who would supply us the BBQ (we had the meat) it was just sitting in the cool sand, sipping on our Cruzcampo Beers. Good thing we came prepared with a whole loaf of bread and some coldcuts, otherwise we wouldn't have survived the wait. Our dear friends finally showed up at around midnight, totally wasted. They managed to spend 100 euros each on the way from Seville to Portugal - barhopping!

Nevertheless, the BBQ was on. As we sat in a circle, around two little fires, Nacho passing out our grilled meat sandwiches, Cesar playing his Spanish guitar, I felt happy. It takes a few things to feel total happiness, and I usually find them in small things. When I looked up at the nightsky, I could see the milky-way. So far away from everything, yet cosy surrounded by this small circle of friends, I forgot all the worries I had in this world for a moment.

For the next day, the big party was planned. I was less excited about that for some reason...maybe I'm psychic or supersensitive to feeling bad vibes in the air. Everything was fine during the morning and early afternoon. Miguel, Nacho, Saber and me spend all day together, going into the neighbouring village of Figueira, enjoying the scenes, beautiful streets and the Portuguese Sagres beer. That was all we need, just the four of us.

Although I hung out with 3 boys that were talking amongst them most of the time, I never felt leftout and frankly, I enjoyed having my thoughts to myself. After a phonecall, Nacho tells us we should lunch at this amazing restaurant, where we'll be meeting up with other friends and party-goers. I think he was the only one really up for it as the rest of us couldn't care less about meeting up. Saber did want to taste some local cuisine, as he said it's normally impossible doing such thing with Nacho, usually ending up having a BBQ. So we decided to go ahead with it.

Arriving at the scene, the restaurant is situated on a clif at the most beautiful beach that Carrapateira has. I'm a big fan of this beach, and it's surfnirvana. Candy for the eye, I'd say! We go to the back and find all of our friends already seated at a table that takes up the full length of the patio. They insist making another row of tables, but we prefer to stay seated at a table for the four of us. We can decide about our own dishes, without having to share it with 20 other people.

Then, out of nowhere, we see the DJ and host of the party getting upset about something. We look back and to eachother, slightly bewildered at what is going on. Somebody is trying to calm him down. Then the DJ rises up from the table and flies over to the end of the row, shouting at a girl. Our bewilderment grows and the whole crowd silences. Nobody dares to say anything. The DJ goes to sit down, the girl quietly leaves from the table walking alone down the road to the beach. Nobody follows her.

The food arrives but the silence is unbearing. Slowly people start to chatter and laugh again, but the awkwardness of it all doesn't leave the air. Right now, I couldn't care less about the party and rather get up and leave... But I don't, and we quietly whisper about what the hell was going on? I think it's rude and disrespectfull to everyone to let yourself go this way, especially with so many people witnessing the incident. Later, we find out that the DJ was shouting to his sister, and that she wasn't welcome at the party because of a current breakup with her and the DJ's best friend that was very painfull. She was told not to come but did anyway and the friend was shaken up with this. I don't get it, choosing your friend over family, but whatever, we don't know what more really is going on. It doesn't hide the fact that we are all 30-something and things could be handled in a more mature way.

We finish our delicious food, a fish-stew with a tomato sauce, and we head back to Figueira village to our now favorite bar. After all this, we don't feel like the party and rather stay there as long as possible. But after time, we start forgetting about the ordeal and we continue meeting up with another 2 friends that will be arriving from Seville; Jaime and Rafa. We do this in Carrapateira town, were we sit at yet another bar, while Nacho and Saber head on looking for somewhere to shower. I know already I won't last long for the party and don't care for having a shower myself.

And that's the second time this day that my 'psychic' ability comes forward. When we arrive at the beach where we left our tents, we are told to pack up and leave by the local police. After a lot of hesitating, talking and negociations, we go. With a police escort. They block off the road from the beach to the highway so our 'caravan' of cars can safely pass and we are guided to an open field full of windmills. We are to have our party here. The police joins for a bit, then leaving honking the carhorns after singing happy birthday in Spanish over the intercom. No joke. They probably had the day of their lives. I however, am fed up with it all, as the location sucks and I'm annoyed with the younger kids who think they are alone in this party. I hold on for maybe another hour and another rum/coke before turning into bed.

I had a good time, but next year I'm planning to do it different. But hey, who's complaining?