Oh dear oh dear oh dear… Where does one begin..? As I make my plans for departure from London I am reminded that I havent written a blog while I have been here. An entire month dearest reader, such a long time for us to be apart! You see, unlike the country where I left all of you darlings at, Morocco, the cost of internet in London Town is a little, well, AGGHHHHHHHH!!!! And so it is only now, that I have my own little netbook of love and joy, that I have the cost effective manner in which to communicate [View Full Entry]

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Hello again my intredpid friends and welcome once more to the adventures of your favorite traveller, Lord Master Ian Michael. I shall pick up where my story so hasitily finished, In Marrakech. Secretly just continuting the story right here is a bit of a stretch because I actually went back to Rabat, got food poisoning, said goodbye to my Desert compatriots and picked up a new group of peeps then went BACK to Marrakech. But such as it is i say just deal with it and imagine that the segue was much much cleaner. *Insert hypnotically swaying hand motions 'doodily doop [View Full Entry]

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Sorry for the delay, travelling with other people means that you have to really find time to get to a computer... also no time for editing or spelling checks. sorry! cont. The sahara: Evocative little name 'aint it. It conjours up great hocking gobs of images of rolling sand and the endless sky, people struggling along on lonely yet majestic desert voyages and a wilderness so dauntinly beautiful that it has retained a certain sense of mystery all throughout the world. Nothing can really prepare you for the Sahara and even its arrival is can come as quite a shock. We [View Full Entry]

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Sorry yall for not hitting back sooner but i have been just ever so slightly incommunicado. The main reason for this is that i was in the motherfucking SAHARA. Yes. Yes. Yes thank you. OK settle down. Please stop clapping or we will never get through this.... thats better. Now, where to start where to start. I guess the begining is as good a place as any... Connections are everything. I have never been very good at building them and have always been ever so slightly amused by people who make a habit of doing so. In morocco connections are the [View Full Entry]

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Lair, Lair Lying is, aparently, a deeply cultural thing. As my bespeckled literature-guru Muhammed told me yesterday, "In muslim culture deviousness is considered fine, almost commendable" and this has been the most glaring item of culture shock that i have experienced. An example: Abdel my new 26 year old Maghrebi friend who has spent the last eight years working and living in America was kind enough to show me around his old neigbourhood today, a very ritzy area of Rabat full of yuppy, converse wearing, mercedes driving Maghrab twentysomethings. Abdel speaks perfect Darija [View Full Entry]

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Les Jacarandas I wandered around the medina or Rabat today, full of hectic locals buying everything from bootleg DVDs, to the most amawing smelling herbs: corriander and thyme by the cartful. I experienced the Atlantic Ocean for the first time afterwards then took a look up at the beautfil Kasbah aith its painted and lovingly adorned entrances. I was pleasantly suprised to find that growing in one corner was a beautiful, flowering Jacaranda. Home, it seems, can come from the most unlikely things. [View Full Entry]

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Thank Cod for Rabat Casablanca brings forth in my mind the words of Banjo Patterson in my favorite poem, "Clancy of the Overflow": "And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city, Through the open window floating, spreads it foulness over all" As an introduction to Morocco Casablanca can be likened to showing a new tourist to Australia the town of Nambour. On a very bad day. After a small civil war. It is a filthy business town which neither sees many tourists nor wants many tourists. It is a place for businessmen to come and work. To [View Full Entry]

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Casablanca!!! well hello there sexy co-adventurers on the journey del ian. First note...did you know that many parts of the world do not use a qwert keyboard.... boo hiss! anywho... i left of at a wonderful juncture in my life, namely, seven hours into a 14 hour stopover in beautiful abu dhabi airport, mother of all that is bwonderful and holy. i spent a good seven hours talking to a charming young man from the punjab region, recently arrived to accept a job in the slave trade...I MEAN the Emrati Overseas Work Program. When i say talk i do of [View Full Entry]

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And so it begins, (or, The things ive learnt about international travel in the last 24 hours) I find myself at a thankfully free internet terminal in abu dhabi airport at midnight. Thankful in part for the freeness and in in another part because it is midnight outside and dipping to a very chilly 33 degrees celcius. I am on a time limit so i will just list a few points i have been thinking about interntional travel. 1. Lingua Franca internationalle baby! Every single native english speaking person has an almost intollerably wonderful advantage in the world of international [View Full Entry]

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