The Alchemist

Well, im officially a spanish speaker. Ok, not exactly, but yesterday I had to act as a translator between my landlord (nice old spanish senora) and a german tourist who had just arrived. His bagages did not arrive at the airport and he needed her to call the airport and give the name and address of the hostel. Sevilla really grew on me. On the final day I felt at peace with the place. In the evening, I went to a bookstore, bought a couple english books (more on this later) and sat outside on the curb in front of a quartet playing classical music as people hurried by doing their shopping.

Today i spent the entire day on a bus-ferry-bus traveling from sevilla to Casablanca. A few interesting things to note, first the arrival in Tangier and second the volume at which Moroccans (or maybe arabic people???) listen to music or watch TV. It's about twice the normal volume of western countries...almost painful at times. The whole day on the bus, they played arabic music (gets very boring after 3 minutes) and TV at almost speaker-distorting volumes. As i wrote this blog (on paper on the bus) i was listening to my ipod at 95 percent volume (sweet home alabama) with the voice of an arabic comic piercing through. Oh, forgot about Tangier. Ive been warned by many people about this place so i was well prepared. Essentially when you exit the ferry, a swarm of people approach. Some are legitimate port workers, others are conartists, others want to sell you something, some beggars, and some people who are willing to do anything or help you with anything for a few coins. Add to this the boatload of arabic people who just come off the boat, one polish-canadian and a japanese guy and you get the picture. Like i said, i was prepared. My first line of defense was 'La shukran'...no thanks. The second line is pretending not to know english or french or spanish...polish comes in handy in all sorts of situations.

Finally (i know this is getting long), id like to tell you about a book i purchased yesterday in sevilla and read on the way to Morocco. Its called The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. 177 pages, over 27 million copies sold. Its a story of a young sheppard who gives up his stable job to pursue dreams of travel (sounds familiar?). The story begins in Andalusia...a region in southern spain (sevilla is in andalusia) and continues into tangier (must be an omen). Anyway, it's a good story about the discovery of the meaning of life,love,destiny by following one's dreams.

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