azrou

hey kids!

im in a small town at the foot of the atlas mountains, there is SNOW. yesterday we hitchiked a few ks up the road to see monkeys and have snowball fights.

ive utterly failed in my efforts to locate gram flour and so am living off couscous and a sort of chana balti, good times.

right, now im off to the (greek!) offie to buy some overpriced beer.

ps
can someone tyell me why i just bought a ticket for popfest next month§ im a dunce!

chefchouen

it looks like coming here in the off season may not have been a stroke of genius, the hash sellers (and carpet sellers, a,d jilaba sellers) are seeing some mean times, and with fewer europeans around, i make an easy target;:

on my first morning here i was followed, harassed and eventually grabbed by " guys, they were areseholes, you get them all over the world and unfortunately they were more or less the first people i came into contact with

one tactic they used in an attempt to extort money was saying that because i had bought hash from their friend the night before and he had been fined by the police i owed him the money for the fine; the problem being that i hadnt bought anything from anyone the night before so it was full on horseshit an i -politely- intimated as much, they followed; it escallated (only on their part i might add, cool as a cucumber i was) until one guy grabbed me, i pushed him away, told them where to go and wwalked off (not looking back but hoping to fuck they werent following)

latrer on in the day i met some LOVELY local people, drank some mint tea ('berber scotch'), met a vegetarian berber(!) and located a fridge magnet for my dad, well, actually i got someone to make one for me;

right, i might be off to fes toay so i better scarper,,,

pee ess

i started a googlemap thingy.

i don't really know how to use it properly, but here it is anyway, i'll try to update it as and when.

ok!

so, on monday i decided to go to the Museo del Prado, which is closed on mondays. My énd choice was Temple dem Debod, also closed on mondays. Eventually I settled for a long walk around town and through Parque del Oeste which is a huge park on the west side of the city stretching from the swanky Moncloa barrio (the prime ministers official residence is there i believe, hence men with BIG GUNS) down to Principe Pio (where Im staying). Its a nice park with winding paths and fountains and birdies and a stream. it was deserted on a grey and showery day in january and that suited me fine.

later i met 3 my hosts in a swanky bar near the university called delJardin Secreto,it was nice but the staff wanted us out, the heater thingy melted the handle on my bag, and the drinks go up in price after 10, and because we got there at 9 they told us we had to pay the higher price because wed still be there at 10!

Yesterday (tuesday) i decided to go to Museo del Prado, but changed my mind and headed to Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in the belief that itd have a greater variety of art.

i started with italian primitives, 14th century religious paintings, tryptichs, and my first ever dyptich! there are c.700 paintings in the museum and ill confess to skipping a few, theres only so many adorations you can handle. i made a point of seeing the famous ones that im supposed to recognise and be in awe of. i cant say that titian, tintoretto or caravaggio do much for me.

the museums exhitits are arranged in chronological order, so by the time i was half way through the 1st floor (starting on the 2nd) i got more in to my stride; there was a lot of 19th century american painting by a barrage of people id never heard of, but you can see why people fell in love with the new world. Eventually i got to the impressionist/post-impressionist, fauve, and expressionist exhibits. And eventually the experimental avant-gardes.

Picasso, Monet, Manet, Degas, Dali, Earnst, Rothko, Kandinksy and Lichtenstein.

I particularly enjoyed Monet's 'Waterloo Bridge' , the lichtenshtein. I had a good long look and sit down when i came to the Rothko, no matter how i tried i just couldnt shake The Endless Bummer song out of my head.

I also leqrned thqt i will never understqnd Kandinksy.

Later on I went with 2 of my hosts, nora and matteo to a couple of bars, one specialises in vermouth. on tap. it was incredibly spanish, cigqrette butts on the floor, avess to the toilet was under the bar, and there was a documentary on the tv about anti-bullfight campaingers!

mi gusta madrid

im writing this on a french laptop in madrid. everything is in the wrong place, so gimme a break;

after the mammoth coach journey (30ish hours) taking in 2 of the ugliest bus stations ive ever seen (paris something or other and area succo) and discovering that most of spain is covered in snow i arrived in sunny madrid, cold, but sunny.

i had to run around a bit to find a netcafe as i still didnthave the address of the people i had arranged to stay with, eventually i got it sorted. there are è or _ of them conpring of various nationalities: italian, french, american, new zealanderish and maybe even spanish, imnot sure;

after a much needed shower i went to the reina sofia and looked at their odern art, including a someti,es quite pleqsing photo exhibition. though really i - and everyone else - was there for guernica. when you get to that part of the gallery theres a definite bottleneck. its not surprising considering the paitings notoriety; and i ,ustve gone bqck to it ' times to take it all in;

also, the nuseun was free on the day score; also also, i got told off for standing too close to a painting. i stormed off muttering about LITTLE MAN WITH A BADGE SYNDROME and forgot to find out who the painting was by. stupid face me;

theres much more, but ihad enough of this keyboard. madrid is so far pretty good. im off to find a veggie cafe..

everything is wrong

i'm fucking sick of fucking wars.
i'm fucking sick of murderous flag-waving cunts.
i'm fucking sick of spineless politicians.
i'm fucking sick of people clinging to religion, nationality or anything else to excuse their base actions.

where do you think these arms are made? who profits? the quietist ones.

i'm too angry to think.