Casablanca

It hasn’t been all that long since I’ve traveled somewhere new, but it’s been long enough that I’d forgotten just what it feels like.  Specifically, I seem to have blocked out just what a fantastic mix of lows and highs the whole affair is.  The lows started coming on sometime while I was writing the previous blog post, and got much lower after I boarded the plane to Casablanca.

After carefully stashing my small backpack and my precious ukulele in an overhead compartment and getting settled in the middle seat right by the wing of the plane (of course), between two middle-aged Arabic-speaking men, I was alarmed to see another passenger take my bags out of the compartment, insert his own hefty rolly-bag, and roughly begin to cram my uke and backpack back in.  “Hey, hey, careful!” I snapped, half-standing.  Every passenger in the back of the plane turned to look at me…except, of course, the guy who was manhandling my gear, who continued to stuff them in between other, much heavier suitcases before finally sitting down.

For the next half hour I sat there fuming, hating every minute of the travel experience.  I hated how long we sat on the runway.  I hated the cramped space.  I hated the fact that the video screens hadn’t been turned on yet.  I hated the smell of the other passengers.  Most of all I hated the notion that some rando had busted my gear, the valuables that had been so carefully packed, that had survived thousands of miles of travel by train, ferry, plane, and bicycle.  I eventually convinced myself that the only thing that was likely damaged in the repacking was the half-finished bag of Cheez-Its in the side pocket, and those were mostly busted already.  This conclusion ended up being entirely correct.

Something else I’d forgotten is what it feels like to travel alone.  The last time I traveled anywhere without Jenn was ten years ago now, and I mostly remember spending my time moping around London and Oslo, shunning human contact and feeling sorry for myself for not having any money.  That may have been a function of youth, or perhaps listening to too much mopey music (which itself is often a function of youth); whatever the reason, wandering around Casablanca for three hours felt like an almost comically long amount of time.  And while I still shunned most human contact during my day on the town, spending a few hours walking and taking pictures definitely felt like a high point.  (It helped that the $20 I withdrew from the ATM turned out to be way, way more money than I needed for buying a coffee and lunch, enough that I also splashed out on a couple of pastries in the marketplace and a bottle of water in the airport.)

I didn’t forget how much easier traveling by yourself can be than traveling with another person…in fact, I had never known this.  It’s lonely, sure, but not having to justify poorly-informed or impulsive decisions cuts back on stress in a big way.  For example: after a nap in the airport-provided hotel, I rather unwisely decided to just walk towards where Google Maps claims the Old Medina is.  It should come as no surprise that there was very little where the pin was placed by Google, but the fact that I was only wasting my own time made the experience much less of a thing.  Likewise, choosing a restaurant is often a fraught experience with travel partners: when one person doesn’t like the feel of a place the other person suggests, that creates some natural conflict.  (Also, had there been anyone else around, I probably would have been embarrassed that after two and a half hours of wandering around the city I ended up eating at the awesome French restaurant right by my hotel.)

Speaking of, it’s striking just how much less stressful it is speaking French with people for whom French is likely not their native language.  I’ve griped about this extensively before, but it bears repeating that many French people are kind of…well, to put it as kindly as I can manage, they’re proud of their language, they place a premium on being well-spoken, and they don’t take terribly well to the fumbling efforts of cretins like me getting grubby fingerprints all over their beautiful language.  Speaking a simple sentence in Korean or Japanese in those countries is frequently met with smiles of relief (and sometimes literal applause), no matter how simple the grammar or how awkward the pronunciation.  Not so French people, who tend to correct minor errors and/or appear frustrated when they hear a foreign accent—not that everyone we’ve encountered has been rude, of course, but no matter how kindly it’s done, it’s frustrating to have one’s best efforts with the language met with condescending correction at best and angry criticism at worst.  This is one reason I managed to make it out of seven months of living in Normandy and still speak pretty piss-poor French.  After today, though, I’m hoping that I’ll discover that speaking French to French speakers not from France will be just as easy in Conakry as in Casablanca.

And what of Casablanca itself, then?  In some ways, it was completely different from what I had expected: it was quite green, especially from the air, and it was chilly enough that I ended up needing the hoody I’d packed.  In other ways, though, my expectations were confirmed: the architecture is white and dusty and gorgeous, the coffee is powerful, and the city is crawling with a population of extremely pathetic-looking stray cats.

That may not be a great deal to learn over three sleep-deprived hours getting lost in Casablanca, but it’ll have to do for now.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever stop thinking “I wish Jenn was here to see this,” but it’s good to know that I can have a good time discovering a city even when I’m alone.