I'M IN FRICKIN' MOROCCO!!!!

And as you might expect...

IT'S RAINING!

A lot.

As in, Costa Rica style rain. It'll rain for a long time, clear up sunny, and then rain more. On top of that it's about 50 degrees outside and the wind is blowing hard. So needless to say, I'm sure glad I packed that extra fleece. Someone told me Morocco was a desert...not yet. :)

I'm typing on a crazy Arabic keyboard. Never seen one before, but as I expect will happen lots during this trip, it's a first. Fortunately the folks here are all super cool and helped me get it set to US English, so I can get the updates coming.

So, first stop...

IOWA.

Yep, This trip for 2011 is actually a couple trips put together. Iowa / Chicago, then Germany / Morocco / St. Louis.
One of these things is not like the other... (okay, maybe two of them).

I meant to write about Iowa and Chicago separately, but it was so busy with the trip and getting ready for Morocco I didn't get to it. All I really have to say is...I LOVE IOWA. If you've never been, don't knock it. Iowa City is one of the most wonderful places there is. It's truly magical. I enjoyed going back and visiting some of my best college friends who have moved back (perhaps wisely...). I rode bikes along the cornfields (Thanks Cadry and David), I enjoyed playing college student by walking around campus, stopping in on a lecture, and eating at my old dorm, Hillcrest. I rode around campus (thanks Nikki!) and read books on the Pentacrest. Went for a pub crawl. Was fun.
The whole experience was pretty surreal. Many of the memories were so specific and vivid, almost like nothing had changed. But other things felt like someone had "inceptioned" my dream of Iowa. There was a store that was different, an extra campus building that was open, an addition to the football stadium that wasn't there before.
Funny how after 10 years away some things were exactly the same, but some were so different.

I went and visited a class as well, did a little Q&A about moving to LA after gratuating and working in the movie business. Hopefully I can keep coming back and doing those as I achieve more success. Maybe it'll inspire some folks to come to LA and kick some movie butt.

But enough Iowa, now it's time for...

CHICAGO!

More great college friends. In fact I got to see most of my favorite college people on this trip. Yahoo! Watched some horror movies, enjoyed walking around the city, playing Ultra-Mega-Sonne with Dan.... if you don't know, feel free to ask. Frisbee. And SKYDIVING!

Yep, I FINALLY went Skydiving. A friend, Taylor, of some of my LA friends (Tom and Nina) drug my ass to Wisconsin to jump out of a plan. It was AWESOME! It's been on the list forever, and it was really cool. VERY different than what I expected it to be. I thought there would be the "whooopsie" feeling in my stomach of going on a roller-coaster. Nope. It's just FALLING THE FUCK OUT OF A PLANE. It's so weird, you're strapped to the dive master, you slide up to the edge of the plane. It was pretty cold when we did it so the wind was freezing my tears as we waited to jump. And waited. And waited. I'd watched Taylor and all the others just dissappear, and we waited and...

FELL.

You just FALL FAST. Flipping upside down. Watched the plane Dive right past us (okay, it was probably 300 feet away as it dove straight down through the clouds). You could spin yourself left or right really easily, and my head got really cold... and I forgot to breath for a while. IT's very strange. Just howling through the air. Then we shot through some clouds and tada... Lake Michigan stretching out around us. Fields. Houses. Other parachuters. Was great. Then the canopy is released... and we're flying. It was very smooth and fun and peaceful. Wish it went on longer....

The whole thing is great and very smooth. Not nearly as jarring as I expected it to be. Quite wonderful. Not much to do after that, it's sorta like "now what do we do with the day"? Cause really, what can follow that? Very cool.

So, enough of the midwest. (Though I can never get enough of the Midwest).

After 24 hours back in LA, I'm on a plane to

GERMANY!

Okay, it's really just a layover. But it was 11 hours. I left the airport. I got a stamp. I've been to Frankfurt-am-Main. Sweet.
It was fun to explore, take a river tour, eat some frankfurters (yep), drink Apfel-wein, enjoy the rather chilly weather, the cool German-ness of everything, and my favorite, the Dom... a church that was build in 690 AD! WHAT?!?!? Yep, it's been done in pieces, but that was the first part. Many emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were crowed there. It was awesome. An organist was playing this wild, deep, droning tune. I even paid the 3 euro to climb the bell tower at dusk and see all the modern skyscrapers light up. And then the bell went off... for like 5 minutes straight. It was so loud. Tom you would have loved it.

Then totally exhausted, I hope a flight to...

you guessed it...

MOROCCO.

Land at 1am. Still no confirmation from my hostel they would be there. So I considered staying at the airport till dawn. But that would mean the next day would be obliterated after 2 nights without a bed. So I used some travel skillz, talked to a tour group, and had them call the hostel for me...

... and no one answered.

Hmmm.

Then I thought about it, and headed out to the Grand Taxi stand (that's the taxi's without the meters that go beyond the city limits), and found 1 of 8 drivers who actually spoke some English. (Please note, this is MY problem that I can't communicate in French or Arabic, not theirs. It's always something I wish I was better at, and am greatful when I find someone who speaks English that can help me out.) I made a plan to goto the hostel, and if locked, have them take me to another hotel that I picked from the guidebook. He told me for sure the hostel would be closed. I believe him. Alas, he wasn't the driver I got to have because he wasn't at the front of the line. So I head out with a guy who speaks french, and LOVES to bump the hot american dance tunes on his car stereo. BEAUTIFUL, by Akon and Colby, Check. ON THE FLOOR, Pitbull and J. Lo (I think), Check. Was fun.

We head right to the Medina (the old part of town) and up to Hotel Central. Knocked on the door...

and waited...

and...

The door opens. Yahoo! Guy lets me in. I got my room, whew. So Tired (and pretty sure I'm not at the hostel, but I don't care. :)

The next day was all about exploring Cassablanca. (Here's looking at you kid!), and yes there is a Rick's Place restraunt and bar. I didn't go into it, because it was like 20 bucks to eat. Really? I'm in Morocco. But I did head out in the rain to the Hassan 2 Mosque. Which is...well... ENORMOUS. You could fit St. Peters Basilica in Rome, INSIDE the thing. Yep. Sweet. Went on a tour. Learned a bit more about our Islamic friends, and took some great pictures. It was a place I wanted to let seep in, but the tour was a bit rushed. Hopefully the pictures (which I can't upload from here) will give you a scale of the place. Later in the evening I went back (to goto a Circus that was next to it, but that ended up not having a show) and was there for evening prayers. Probably 100 plus people went in... the place was empty. It holds 25,000 worshippers on Ramadan. 80,000 more in the courtyard. The chanting and praying sounds really amazing in such a huge place. It was built in 6 years, with 6000 to 10,000 workers going 24/7 to complete it. It sorta looks like Jabba's palace. Yep, I said it. The 3rd largest Mosque in the world was inspired by Return of the Jedi. (I thought it might be the other way around, except that the Mosque was finished in 1993).

And for anyone who might be thinking "what are you crazy? All those Muslim's praying?! In a huge group like that! Isn't that dangerous"? Absolutely not. The Iowa Football game has more chance of getting out of hand than people worshipping. It'd be like a sunday church service turning violent. It's not going to happen. Even though we weren't allowed inside during prayers which is understandable. Everyone is so friendly, peaceful and giving. A guy gave us some oil to put on our hands. Others gave us well wishes. And one guy who was inside praying, was wearing a USA sweatshirt. We smiled and nodded to each other.

Yep, I think it's good to travel. Makes you realize (or remember) that, even though there are some crazy folks in all religions who do stupid things in the name of God. Most people who call themselves Muslims, or Christians aren't out to "get you". In fact, it's entirely the opposite. But I have a feeling I'll have many thoughts on this during the trip, so I'll not get too into it in the first email. :)

But it's not all about the Mosque in Cassablanca. I enjoyed the markets, the medina's, the pace of life is wild and exciting. And nearby is all the French colonial archetecture, which sort of feels like South Beach Miami, minus all the neon. And there are blocks and blocks and BLOCKS of the stuff. It's really cool. The collision of west and middle east is fascinating. I have yet to feel unsafe in the crowds or the Medina's or markets. It's been really cool.

And today I took the train to Meknes. One of the old imperial cities. The Medina here is AWESOME! A HUGE wall surrounds it. Markets are all around. I Saw inside a cool Riad (traditional house), which is now a museum. It's really really cool. All the ornate carvings and tilework and carpets (much like the Hassan 2 mosque).

And now it's raining. It's windy. I've barely seen any travelers in my couple days. Which is kind of awesome. I tend to like to talk with travelers, because well, they're traveling like me. But this is forcing me to interact EVEN MORE with Moroccan's. Of course, they mostly speak French and Arabic, and me, typical English only American. But we do the best we can. We smile a lot, and learn a little bit every day.

That's what we got so far. Tomorrow. More Medina, then off to some Roman Ruins. (?!?!?)

It's good to be back in Africa, even if it's a very different Africa than the one I saw before.
CraigO

PS: Alex Rose, how IS the Africa that I saw before? ")