Chop Chop…

Today is Thursday, that means 4 days since i started working last monday.

Its not really a job, just a part time thing im doing in the mornings to get a bit of taste of what working-life is all about. 4h a day. Not much i know, but my main goal now is get over with the Uni. As long as this work doesnt take me too much time and as long as i dont feel unconfortable, i’ll keep on with it. Its not a lot of money either. Im doing it for the experience.

This morning was crazy. The train power line was down for a couple of mins in the most crowded time of the day. Rush hour here can become hell if there are not enough trains to take all the people to their workplaces. I thought there were a lot of people these past days when i was coming to work, but nothing compared with today’s situation. The train was packed. Full. Completo. People were pushing themselves to get one more person inside. Many people had to stay in the platform. It’s impossible to fit all the people that are supposed to get in 2 trains in just one. Today was the proof of that.

Inevitably, i thought about Japan. Rush hour like today. Everyday. Even if there are more trains or subways, the people are still too many to handle. Like the attack to Zion. Do you remember when all the machines got into the city? It was no longer “a lot of machines together”, it became like “one big river of machines”. You no longer could clearly distinguish a single machine. It was like one big river and the machines were waterdrops.

Well, the same thing in the mornings. People just walk in sort of waterstreams. Its very difficult to change the direction once the group has decided where to go. Which exit, which scalator…Once is set, you can just follow, being carefull of not crashing with some crazy that decided to change his way without asking the rest.

I will try to get and learn as much as i can these days. At work, in the uni, in life. So far…ITS ALL GOOD!

Morocco Trip

Its been a week now, but i still remember the sounds and smells of Morocco.

It was a very nice trip. A different one. Different from the last ones: I went with more than one person and also in a different way of travelling, all expenses paid; A travel-pack people on their 60s tend to take. Easy, organized, scheduled, planned…less fun from my point of view, but still interesting. It wasnt the first time i took one, it wont be the last.

My brother came on the 6 am bus from Madrid and met my cousin,sis and me in Plaza de Cataluña, Barcelona, where we had spent the last 2 days. We flew to Marrakesh and started our trip. Marrakesh was good. We visited the city by ourselves in the afternoon we arrived and then all day the following day with a guide and the rest of the group. It was good. Apparently the traffic was a chaos, but i didnt see a single accident. I guess respect and common sense is the key when driving and walking around.

We went to Ouzazate, a bit on the south. The hotel we were staying in was full of retired french people, the worst ones when it comes to eat with them in a “free-buffet” dinner. Next stop: Erfourt. The gates of the desert. The Sahara. That was the best part of the trip. We went on a 4WD through vasts red-sand-no-roads landscape. Awesome. But nothing compare to what was yet to arrive: The dunes. As far as your sight could go. Small, medium and huge. All red. All beautiful. Like nothing seen before. We played around, jumped, crowled, rolled…The desert can be a cool playground! We stayed up till 2, then went to a “jaima”, like a touareg tent just for a couple of hours sleep. At 6 am, up again to see the sunrise.

The sunrise in the desert was like the first time someone has sex: Loads of exp

ectations but at the end it was rather unconfortable: Sand in your eyes, windy, the clouds don’t really let you see the sight, only 3 hours of sleep…At the end, its one more experience. Not as good as you expected but not as bad as you thought back then. It was ok. I liked it.

We went from Erfourt to Fes. That’s a city that seen from up above looks like a dead place, but it’s just because all the people, all the markets are hidden between the narrow streets. We got into the Medina (the old city). A labrinth of smell, noises, people bargain, working, talking…non-stop activity anywhere you looked at. We went to the top of a 5 floor building and saw how people worked with the leather on the yard next to it. Awful smell. Brutally intense. It got inside your brain and stayed there for a long time.

The last days passed by pretty quickly. Mekness, Rabat and Casablanca. Ok cities. Although we couldnt really see them and enjoy them as much as i’d liked to, i thought the things we saw were good.

Once back to Madrid (with a stop in Barcelona again), the balance was 3 down and 1 ok. All except me experienced different ways of unconfortableness related with the stomach. As a friend wrote me, the reason why i didnt have any digestive problems might had been closely related with the massive piece of pork meat i had in a german restaurant in Barcelona the day before we started the trip. The walls of my stomach were covered with grease to support anything!