Marrakech aesthetics

In all the distraction of travel between Marrakech, Dublin, London, Cambridge and Paris over the last couple of weeks, I have been blogging in quite a random way - more online diary than what I really mean this blog to be doing. I will indulge myself for long enough to confess that today is my 29th birthday, although mortifyingly my father thought that it was my 30th, and this only when he called me for the third time today, having forgotten that it was my birthday the first two times. Today has consisted of Valhrona chocolates, more spa joy, a bit of work this afternoon and in a minute we're going to have some champagne upstairs and then go back to Jardins for dinner at their Indian restaurant.

Anyway. Moroccan decorative art. The Moroccan tendency to excess comes across beautifully in craft, although of course this is hardly a great secret as the roaring craft trade here attests - metalwork, leatherwork, pottery, embroidery and woodwork as well as "fine" crafts like zellij and tadelakt abound in Marrakech. Of course, after spending more than a couple of weeks here, it is impossible not to suffer from a bit of a craft overload, and our intially huge planned shopping list was cut back dramatically. However, one thing that it is impossible to get bored with is the beautiful tiling that you see everywhere. These pictures are from our house (the first two) and our landlord's beautiful home next door alone. The tiles in the third picture are *everywhere* here, but my favourite is the black, green and white pattern, I think. Which is yours?

I also couldn't resist putting in a little picture of the knobs on the window beside the desk here. Aren't they pretty? Little leaves.

And... back in Marrakech again!

What an international jet-set life I seem to lead these days! We had a late flight back last night, which gave us a full day in Paris. Just as well, as before we headed out to the cemetery for our picnic, we checked one last online resource for accommodation and found something which seemed pretty perfect in print and was even more perfect in person when we went to see it in the afternoon! Wish us luck!

The flight was a slightly late one, and I got to spend the journey doing that oh-so-undignified head-bobbing thing that you smirk at when you see other people doing it on trains and planes as they fall asleep. It was just coming up to midnight (Marrakech time, 2am Paris time) when we landed and got straight onto the airport bus and watched the hundreds of people pouring out of the airport and getting into rows with taxi drivers instead of just joining us on board.

For those of you who are planning trips to Marrakech, and I know that some of you are, DO consider getting the airport bus into town - it leaves every hour, on the hour and is only 20DH each (30DH if you get a return ticket) and does the circuit of all the big hotels before ending up at the Djemma el Fna - just tell the driver where you are staying and he will tell you if the bus will take you there. It is *such* a pleasure NOT to start a stay in Marrakech with a blazing row with a taxi driver, followed by the disgruntled feeling that you were still probably ripped off. There is no reason on earth why a petit taxi should cost a penny more than 60DH (well, really about 20DH but you haven't a hope of getting them down that low) from the airport, or a grand taxi more than 100DH (again, it should probably be even less).

Arriving alone one time I told the grand taxi drivers that my top price was 50DH (they wanted a hilarious 150DH) but that I was equally content to wait the 30 minutes for the 20DH bus. They glowered at me but a few moments later grumpily picked up my bags and loaded them into a car without any explanation to me at all. This was provided by the presence of two other solo travellers sitting in the car already, who had clearly refused to pay less than 50DH each either. As grand taxis operated rather like minature buses, this was quite acceptable and certainly saved me 30 minutes of sitting on a kerb on a very hot night waiting for a bus. Westerners are accustomed to instant gratification when it comes to any kind of transaction (except perhaps ebay...) but life in Morocco becomes a lot easier when you learn to just state what you want and what you will pay for it and then wait patiently and politely. Even though this will naturally be of no avail if your price is genuinely too low, it will get you a lot further than fussing and getting stressed.

And seeing as I am in a "how to handle Marrakech" mood, let me say it again, DO NOT GIVE MONEY, CHOCOLATE OR ANYTHING ELSE AT ALL TO CHILDREN HERE. It teaches them contempt for their families, for working for a living, for honesty and exposes them to exploitation and abuse. I know my readers are not here for a lecture on how to conduct themselves in the developing world, but this gets to me so much. If you want to give money to the children you see begging in Morocco, please give it to a registered charity which knows how to get the money to right right places, instead of contributing to the problem yourself as I see people doing every day here.

http://gvnet.com/streetchildren/Morocco.htm

and while we're at it...

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/09/17/morocco-the-king-of-the-poor/

Feeling a bit better now.

After my post last night we went out for dinner and it really is amazing what a bottle of wine and a good night's sleep will do for ones equilibrium. The plan is to take the Montparnasse apartment if we are offered it, and if not, then we show up on the 23rd of October for one week in a short term studio let and get cracking with FUSAC magazine (which comes out the next day) and every other accommodation listing available (thank you Lisa!), including the noticeboard at the American Church here. Much calmer now. The thought of handing over in excess of two *thousand* euros to the agent of the other apartment we viewed yetserday was just too much for our delicate sensibilites. Can you imagine?

Today we are about to leave the two suitcases we brought in a storage facility until we get our apartment, go to a couple of shops and put together a picnic of some kind and betake ourselves, suitably wrapped up, to Pere Lachaise cemetery for the afternoon. I feel vaguely anxious about not trying to do practical things, but we're *moving* here before the end of the month - Printemps, Ladurée and the dépôts-ventes can wait.


(Image with thanks to Savoie in Paris)

In Paris...

Well, the agent said "come to Paris!" so we spent a million euros and did. Then he said "to be honest, I think the landlord is going to prefer the other couple who looked at it". And we said "oh". We didn't like to ask if he was going to make a donation to all the money we spent getting here, but we thought it.

So now we are sitting in our hotel room (because we have been walking around all day, which was very nice, but now we're tired and are having a break before going out to Chez Georges for drinks) and wondering how to handle this. My parents would say "We know! Forget Paris and move back to Dublin!", but we are not disheartened yet. What is bothering us now is how to time our move. If we don't get the fabulous (and it really was fabulous) Montparnasse apartment we saw today, should be abjure agents and their exorbitant fees altogether and do it on our own? We could. It would be a LOT cheaper, too - no agency fees, you see. But FUSAC, the expat magazine that has all the listings for apartments comes out on the 23rd of October and then the 7th of November. I would like to come here, take a short term place for a week or two and get the edition on the 23rd. John says we should get it on the 7th. A small quibble, and not really worth even discussing, but I feel disrupted and would like to be in here as quickly as possible and back to work, rather than dragging all our stuff to Ireland for a week and then dragging it all to a studio in Paris while we look for a real place. It would be mid-November before we were in somewhere and just the thought of it all exhausts me.

This was supposed to be a pretty post with pictures and macaroons, but all this is on my mind, so that's what you get to read about instead.

Consoling comments are much appreciated. Oh, and if you are an American lady who works on an oil rig and has an apartment in Paris she is trying to let, pick the Irish academic couple, please!

Pampering *shallow post alert*

It is a little blush-making that so much of our lives here in Marrakech has centred around the Jardins de la Kouboutia hotel, a luxury hotel about a five minute walk from here, but I'm not sure what we would have done without it. It was the first cocktail bar that we discovered within an easy walk of our house (we have since found others, such as the glorious terrace of Cafe Arabe), it was our main source of internet for a long time having both an unsecured network and quiet salons in which to hide, undisturbed, for hours at a time, its swimming pool was a our refuge from the heat of July and the restaurant fed us (indifferently, it must be admitted) after these swims. The other night we discovered that all along, it has had an Indian restaurant, which while not very good by Western (or indeed, Eastern!) standards, is a rare treat here in Morocco. But best of all is the spa.

Yesterday I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself (something to do with the enthusiasm with which I threw myself into the task of getting through all that champagne) and felt that I couldn't possibly work, but instead needed to be pampered. I thought for a moment and then got out my brochure for the Jardins spa and booked myself in for a Clarins body treatment - more or less this one, I suppose, in its combined form. What followed *may* have been one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me. I was exfoliated, washed, massaged, oiled, moisturised, anti-cellulited, firmed and spritzed to within an inch of my life and it was *fabulous*. And, this being Morocco, it was also relatively inexpensive. I've had other treatments in that spa (hammam, massage, pedicure) but this was the best spa treatment I've ever had.

Now, if I could just find the address for the Clarins Institut de Beaute in Paris...


(Image thanks to Maroc Sejour.)

Well, seeing as my husband has given the game away...

I was planning to keep it a secret until the last moment, but John mentioned it on his blog yesterday, so I thought I had better come clean - we're leaving Marrakech. On the 1st of November we are taking a one-way flight from Marrakech to Paris, where we plan to stay until next May and I can't WAIT. After all, no matter how much one likes Marrakech, surely the prospect of Paris is irresistible? There are many reasons for the move - it's a little expensive to go home and see my parents from here and I would like to see them more often, we have completely failed to learn French here and John plans to do a full time course at the Alliance Francaise, we get a little bored here without a Marrakech-specific occupation and I do feel a little worn down sometimes by the difficulty of just leaving our own derb without receiving offensive comments from any teenage boys who happen to be loitering about.

We both love cities and drifting about between cafes, bars, shops and parks (and indeed, the drifting is just as much fun as the arriving) but drifting in Marrakech, although it has its own pleasures, is very different from drifting in a Western city (for one thing, the doormen of Brown Thomas in Dublin have yet to accost me on the street with "Bonjour, hello, hello, just to look, HELLO, HEY! HEY!!!!") and sometimes we dream of wrapping up warmly in velvets and tweeds and being *ignored*. Oh, the bliss of it.

Also, a lot of women love living in Morocco, even me, but even the most die-hard advocates of living here must admit that it can be heavenly to walk down the road in, say, London and be ignored by EVERY SINGLE MAN you pass. The only people checking you out are other girls and they're just interested in your shoes. It's great.

So, we're off. Although I know it would be more economical to search for an apartment in the local press when we arrive, I would prefer to have it sorted out before we get there, if possible, so I have been using agencies in my search for the perfect apartment, although when I say "using", that might be a little optimistic as I have been getting replies from about one in seven emails, which makes me wonder why estate agents bother having email addresses or enquiry boxes at all. I have been emailing rather than calling in order to save myself the mortification of having my appalling French met with complete incomprehension on the telephone.

Of course, moving to Paris brings other challenges. I plan to keep blogging (if we manage to get an internet connection in our apartment-to-be) but naturally I'm going to have to change the name of the blog. And probably the colour scheme too. I am completely open to suggestion on these matters, so do post comments if you have any ideas.

The other challenge is the fact that last time I came through Duty Free, I stocked up on champagne, Cointreau and wine and as we can't carry it with us, we have three weeks to get through it... O the harshness of a life that requires you to get through several bottles of Moet & Chandon in a limited time... (*maybe* we'll pack the Cointreau)

PS I google-imaged Paris to see if there was a picture that I could "borrow" for this blog entry, but the only thought I came away with is that Paris Hilton is very thin indeed.

Oh dear.

If you are reading this then you are very loyal indeed, after such a long silence! We have had the busiest month in the world - guests back to back for three weeks and then a weekend in London which turned into a week in Ireland with my parents.

Having guests was marvellous in that it made us leave the safe confines of our house and actually explore the souks again. We went to Essaouira twice (staying at Riad de la Mer again each time - it's like having our own house there), Imlil and various places in Marrakech that we hadn't bothered visiting before, although I can now tell you that as pretty as the Menara is in the photos, it is actually crashingly dull to visit. Still. We couldn't have known that before we went. Even though there aren't that many "sights" in Marrakech after you've seen the Medersa and the Saadian tombs, the main thing that Marrakech has to offer is the pleasure of just wandering around aimlessly, dropping into cafes for restorative tea and discreet glances at your map to find out where on earth you've ended up, and trying to avoid being mown down by mopeds and donkeys. Oddly, many visitors here deny themselves this pleasure either by getting the hell out within hours of arrival, like the suspicious German girls John and James gave directions to (why ask directions from people if you're not going to believe them?), or by allowing themselves to be herded about and ripped off by a guide for the day before, you know, getting the hell out.

Anyway, after our wonderful visitors, we flew to London to hear Joanna Newsom (above) play in the Royal Albert Hall, which was fabulous. She is even more adorable live than she is in her recordings - we were afraid that we had cooked up a personality for her up to which she would not be live and that we would then be disappointed for something really not her fault, but no! The following day, after a quick run to Topshop for woollies to help us along with the fact that London was about 20 degrees colder whan Marrakech, we went to Cambridge to see a beloved friend who had been away for a very long time indeed. While there, I discovered that my Mamma wasn't so well, so we took our leave of our friends and betook ourselves to Dublin, where we have been for the last week and last night we arrived back home to a wonderful discovery - the Jardins de la Koutoubia hotel, such a part of our lives here in Marrakech for its unprotected wireless, generous helpings of nuts and olives with its cocktails and its pool, is also home to a quite passable Indian restaurant! How could we not have known this before? Well, we know it now, and they will be seeing a lot more of us in future - possibly even starting this evening...

Speaking of food, Ramadan has had very little impact on our lives apart from the addition of "cranky" to the list of moods and sales pitches displayed by shop owners here - apparently it is not being able to smoke that gets to people more than the eating and drinking part. It ends on the 12th of October, I believe. The streets are a little quieter during the day though (and completely deserted when the evening siren goes off) which makes moving around a little easier.

(Image of Joanna Newsom from Online Grapevine with thanks)