Dec 2008

Rome rocks! The two days of airport hopping are over, Dave is safely back in the states, and I am at a very cool hostel experiencing Rome in all it's glory. Throughout the next few days I get to see what's in the history books up close. I wander through the city streets and huge parks with stories from the past all around me. I spend a half a day at the Colosseum reflecting on Jewish and Roman history and my place in the whole scheme of things. I spend a whole day at the Vatican walking the hallways of Catholicism. The Sistine Chapel really grabs me and I am able to really get a feel for the place because it's off peak tourist season and there is a lot of room to explore and move around. St. Peter's Basilica is mesmerizing and the scope of the building is hard to grasp inside and out.

I meet some really cool people in the hostel, some Aussies, and Indian, and a Kiwi. We all get along really well have some awesome conversations about travel and what it can bring out in a person. The Indian guy introduces me to cricket and somehow makes it seem exciting. I know that India will definitely be one of the next places I visit. The following are some snapshots of me in Rome:

Piazza de Populo I spend an hour here people watching

Rome from a hill top on the outskirts of the city

One of the many beautiful fountains

Midway up the Spanish Steps

The Sistine Chapel blows my mind I spend two hours here contemplating the paintings and what they represent.

Outside St. Peter's Basilica

The Merry Go Round from Heaven

The place that has the biggest impact on me: The Colosseum, built by Jewish slaves.

Inside the courtyard of the Vatican by a strange sculpture entitled: Sfera con Sfera, meaning a sphere within a sphere. It trips me out and I spend an hour contemplating its meaning, especially in that setting.

So there it is... the first leg of my Grand Tour. Thanks for accompanying me Dave, and all the people and places that helped us on our way. We were truly blessed I think with luck and travel skill and good people. I will probably add a bit more photos and videos when I get a chance to in Australia (where I am boarding a flight from here in London in about an hour) but don't be a stranger. I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth or anything! Drop me an email it will be good to hear from you. And here we go to the second leg of the journey... the land down under. OOOOO scary:-) I hear that where I am going, anything that moves can kill you... That means I better chill and work on my tan as much as possible! Till next time.

- J Lev

We arrive late after missing our flight in Morocco. I leave twelve hours later the next morning and so does David, so we just crash at the airport!! We have to entertain ourselves somehow and after hacky sacking and conversating and card playing and eating, I just start dancing. Note the Christmas decorations in the background and seventies architecture, it was a wacky place to be in.

Your moment of zen:

Morocckin it!! First stop Asilah, a coast town on the Atlantic 30 miles south of Tangier. Our taxi takes us right to the middle of the main street...creeps for a bout five seconds....and just stops. The junkies start slowly making their way to us and crowding the taxi... but who to the rescue but Hisham!! HIsham comes to the window "Hey dude it's me Hisham... let's get out of here!" Thank you couchsurfing. The junkies get scared away and Hisham takes us to his auntie's place where we rent out the entire second floor for two nights. It's a really nice place and hot tea and cookies are waiting for us. Hisham makes us comfortable in no time and takes us on a tour of the old city and new. It's a truly amazing place.

Jimi Hendrix Cafe!

Beached pirate ship

There is a yearly festival called Eid that is happening when we are in Morocco. In each family, sheep are gathered and butchered for the celebration and we see sheep and rams being unloaded and transported everywhere during our stay here. We have a chance encounter with one of the street celebrations too, check it out:

Now to Tangier! We start walking out of Asilah and hitch a ride on the "communal taxi" which is just a bunch of people in a car going to about the same place. We get to Tangier and try to find the phone number and address of our next contact Clare who works at the American school there. We finally find her number, but no answer. We can't find a taxi to the address to save our lives, so we just wander around the city for two hours. When all hope is lost and I turn down a random street because it's down hill, wouldn't you know it we stumble across the American School. I drop Claire's name to the guard who let's us in. We talk to the receptionist who calls Clare, and we finally get in touch with her! Wow life!

Clare sets us up at a real nice and real cheap hotel called the Tangier Inn. It happens to be where all the beatniks hung out in the fifties when they were in Tangier. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs holed up here and Burroughs wrote "Naked Lunch" in this building. The sight from the hotel room was really surreal with the rooftops of Tangier and the Mediterranean Sea in the background. We chill at the bar right next door and get cheeseburgers at a 24 hour place and sleep happy.

The next day we go to the Medina which is the old part of the city. It's walled off, and the narrow streets give a really human feeling as you walk. It's like your face to face with your neighbor and are forced to interact with them, a far cry from how things are in the states I think.

We wander the narrow streets and again stumble across an elderly Moroccan man who calls out to us. We keep walking because everybody is a hustler in Morocco and we don't want to be fooled again. Something tells me to go back though, and we do. He leads us past a pile of wooden planks, three locked doors, and into a synagogue. It must have been three hundred years old, huge, the walls covered with ornate Hebrew lettering. A balcony for the women, wooden seats for the men. Beautiful lighting and really clean. We are awestruck and stay there for a good while praying and giving thanks. It was a remarkable experience and I am so glad I had the opportunity to see it!

We then find gifts for all our loved ones back home: Great fabrics, cool boxes, nice hats, and some other trinkets. Dave looks good in his new hat!

Off to the airport, I mean seaport, I mean airport we go, but we realize that our flight was at twelve that afternoon and we are already eight hours late for it! We're glad we got to do the things we did that last day in Tangier, but the next two days in airports are a tough price to pay for it!