Mi filosofia de vida

Si o no?

...to the sexified "I Love Lucy" dress? Please disregard the accompanying hairstyle.

Happening right now

Partaking in some homemade tajine in Rabat while speaking on world politics in Darija/French and watching M6 #BeautifulHosts

Seaside at Oudayas

I look dumbfounded by the intensity of this heat + humidity moment in Rabat.



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Location:Rabat,Maroc

Hassan II Mosque

Or "Hassan deux jama3" if you are attempting to instruct a red "petit taxi" with your mix of Syrian dialect and limited French.

This mesmeric (complete with interior escalators---take that over-the-top sheikh zayid mosque!) half a billion dollar masjid pushed out slum-dwellers with no compensation. What the postcards won't show you regarding the the "view"






And of course the wall-E mobiles:



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Once you have seen one Arab corniche

You have seen them all






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Location:Boulevard Franklin Roosevelt,,Maroc

"Toma La Calle": Revolucion España 2011 continues

Named "15 May," a continuation of the protest that started in Madrid's Central Plaza that took place on the 15th of May has organized a nation-wide "manifestacion" (or protest) the day after I leave. Below are flyers all over Granada publicizing the movement by Los Indignados :

Apparently there is a twofold shock with this movement:
1) People that would not normally participate in political protest (as opposed to the typical activists) are the dominant participants and organizers of these protests.
2) They have spread to the barrios of Spain. This was unprecedented, especially since the stock leftist activists and anarchists don't have a presence there.

My de facto office in Granada

"You know, you are the only one we allow here to use our Wifi (weefee) and not consume anything." And beyond that, they bring me mint limonadas as I comb through the massive back files of writings due months ago. This is one of the Spanish waiters I have come to know in this past week and a half at my de facto office, known to others as the Casa Pillar lobby/restaurant. Unlike many of the Spaniards I have come to know during my visits to Madrid and now Granada, he speaks English fluently and initially caught me off guard when I first met him. I walked in entering through the bar side of the restaurant/lobby focused on finding an open cushioned wicker chair to prop me and my mobile offices on for hours. He started reading the Arabic name plate necklace my father bought me years back from Abu Dhabi. Although I have come to find a sizable community of Moroccans and Syrians in Granada, I was thinking: what is this Spanish-looking man doing reading Arabic? So I asked in Spanish. And he responded in Arabic: "I lived in Tehran for 7 years." Even more confused, I later asked, "how and why did you learn Arabic in IRAN?" It turns out that his mother converted to Islam while he was young and moved the family to Iran after marrying an Iranian man, where he went to school and learned Arabic as part of his standard grammar school education. I come to learn more about him everyday that I am here, and close down the place with my attempts to coordinate my skype sessions with my PST family, friends and work colleagues.

And this is one of the beauties I have come to know of traveling as an independently 20-something woman, the almost instant connections that emerge out of everyday, sometimes even transactional, experiences. It's unfathomable to think that I only have two full days left here, especially as I am only starting to apprend a conversational level of Spanish, getting my navigational bearings down, and fostering friendships with affable locals.

This happens everyday...

and thank the Creator for mysteriously designing me with most miraculous metabolism to handle it!

Of course, as a testimony to the inferiority of the Spanish cuisine, the heledaria considered the best in Granada is an Italian ice creamery branch (and compared to its adjacent competitors, much more reasonably priced).

If Paris Hilton was an adoring teenage fan of Justin Beiber who also moonlighted as a drug dealer...

She would have this swarovski encrusted mobile device as her second phone:

"No, no, I mean, where are you FROM FROM?"

Title for my next academic article about the politics of being.

Bab-ilicious

Tunis must be the 'entrancing' bab capital of the world
(I am well-aware of my nerdiness, perhaps I should create a category for it):

the old city

Sidi Bou Said

Beauty of Tunis

View from La Marsa

If they tell you that the role of social media in Arab Spring is overblown...

...don't believe them.

Downtown Tunis

Sidi Bou Said

Allez les bleus





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Location:Tunisie

Sometimes your paradigms need a little shifting...

...especially when it comes to my impressions of Parisians (well maybe only need to do the shifting for the African Parisians).

It's 1:13pm/13:13 in Paris as I write this. I am sitting in Air France's Business Lounge I bogarted my way into. This has been but one part of a series of events that speak to the good fortunes I have experiencedsince boarding my flight in LAX. As soon as I landed I started time strategizing for what I thought would be an impossibly lengthy layover. Given that most airlines will not check your baggage more than 5-4 hours before a flight, I was thinking about a master plan for dividing the 9 hours before my next flight. Since I did made the bookings, LAX-CDG and CDG-TUN, separately, my luggage did not continue on to my final destination of Tunis. I approached the ticket counter with my apprehension given that I was an American who was going to "ask for something altered." Afterlaughing at my Arabic pronounciation of "Tunis" (as it sounding like me saying "To Nice" in English), the Air France ticket counter clerk told me it was my "lucky day" and checked my luggage in 9 hours before my flight. I then re-entered terminal 2 with my carry-ons. As I was unloading my electronics on the scan trays I realized my phone was missing. I was sure that I left it out at the chairs by the ticket counter as I was re-arranged my the content in my carry-ons to consolidate three bags into two. As I walked back, my mind was racing, preoccupied with "next steps": find wifi connection, go onto my mobile me account, locate and wipe the phone, etc. I thought it was long gone within seconds of leaving my sight. When I returned, I saw a young woman on a phone that appeared to be an iPhone. She looked at me and realized it was my phone. She was calling mycontacts to find out the owner's name! I thanked her profusely and returned to the security line. And now here I am at the Business Lounge I probably was not suppose to be in feeding on chevre, perrier, and free internet with French news playing in the background.

On the Eve of LAX--->Paris--->TUNISIA

One of the intentions with this blog when I started it almost four years ago was to track traveling escapades and the tandem thoughts that joined them in that voyage. I am sure, although a night very much like tonight, one given to an atmosphere of nervous excitement, I never thought I would be blogging about an impending trip to a post-revolution Arab/North African country---especially the one that weathered the storm for Arab Spring to bloom. Less like four years ago, when I was preparing to spend a month and a half in my parents' homeland, I have naturally resolved to expect the unexpected and oxymoronically, to eject the expectation of the unexpected. I find that when I enter a place, space, situation tabula rasa only decorated with the vow to have good intentions, that I am the recipient of splendid serendipity, or as I learned today, "rhyming events." I guess that's an expectation to be surprised by adopting an expectation-less approach.