An excursion to make the unknown familiar: June 2009

so this is practically an afterthought now, but it seemed a good idea to post some last photos and thoughts. I've been stateside for a few weeks now, and just easing into summer mode after a brief but now-calmed panic.

Now that I have experienced many times over the "How was it?!" or "Paris! I'm so jealous!" interaction, I will admit the conversation is not as strange as originally anticipated. There's definitely a gradient of truth, but I try to be sincere. It was difficult, and for a long time I was pretty damn unhappy. But I learned a lot of things that I didn't expect to learn, and truly disliking school gave me more time to learn to love the city. I think it was important that I stayed. Important somehow really does seem to be the most fitting word. stories, life lessons, friends, individualism, etc etc etc. in the end we laughed a lot and found ourselves strangely comfortable in a foreign place. and on my last night in paris when i missed the last metro and has to walk from concorde to chatelet while susannah and grace thought i was maybe dead because i was so late, it struck me that i would miss the city.

so that is my brief spiel about paris.

and here are some travel photos for those of you who didn't subject yourselves to seeing all.... 400? of them. not counting the ones that sarah and madeleine took..

we went swimming in this lovelllly place, outside of marseille. it's the mediterranean, and it's cold. for the sake of madeleine's dignity, i'm not including the pictures of our ensuing sunburns.

i'm not sure how i wound up with such adorable friends. as a generally land-locked midwesterner, i was caught off guard by the saltiness of the water.

beautiful, right? this was on our bus ride between marseille and barcelona, i think pretty close to the border and verdant verdant verdant. (i have a special appreciation for french/english words these days.)

barcelona. here it is! gaudi, my love! this picture is really not enough.. you can't see the turtles and turkeys and chameleons and all the other inspired insanity.

the discovery of fresh wonderful juices #1. delicious and extensive markets. strawberry coconut. kiwi. dragonfruit. americans need to catch on.

in the enormous mosque in casablanca before taking the train out. sarah is a master photographer.

of course there were donuts. moroccan street donuts part 1 of 2. (emily has a good photo of the other ones on her blog.) i'm pretty sure everyone else buying/selling them (aka the crowd of moroccan men) were all laughing at us. but they were delicious. and we braved much street food without a shadow of upset stomachs.

the moroccan landscape, viewed from a very sweaty train. yes, we were in africa.

the main square in marrakech (still not sure how to pronounce that..), it was crazy and huge and full of a confusion of real and tourist-fueled disneyland. juice stands and mint sellers, "snake charmers," sad looking monkeys, henna, dried-out lizards, and constant sensory overload.

the souk just off the main square. essentially full of a million things to sell to tourists, but an insane MAZE with at least three levels and no easy way out. down the rabbit hole?