The Blue City of Chefchaouen

 

Blue is my absolute favorite color. I like to look around on the internet for desktop backgrounds and came across one for Chefchaouen, Morocco. It’s nicknamed the Blue City for obvious reasons. I was totally enchanted looking at all the pictures of the place.

 

It was founded as a military outpost in 1471, but wasn’t painted blue until the 1900s. There appears to be no concrete explanation for this. Some sources say it was because of the large population of Jews, and that the blue represents the sky or heaven. Some say it’s a kind of mosquito repellant. Some say it’s strictly for tourism. Whatever the original reason, the blue coloring is maintained. 

 

 

Check out the pictures on the internet. The one interior pic shown here has the blue broken up a bit with the white walls and the Moroccan style cabinet. Some of the pics on the internet show the interiors as being totally blue on the inside as well as the outside. And as much as I love blue, the darkness inside would be hard to take on a daily basis. 

 

 

My favorite picture is this last one. It looks a bit like a courtyard leading up to a curtained doorway. Softly secluded away from the rest of the world. Sitting at a small table that is set for tea.

 

What Level of Hell is This?!?

 

The other night we watched an old movie, “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” (1969).

Cute movie. Lots of stars from the era. A VERY young and yummy Ian McShane. It’s about a group of American tourists taking part in one of those package tours of Europe. “9 countries in 18 days” kind of thing. The movie didn’t get very good reviews but I thought it was hilarious.

 

You have your stereotypical Americans: old married couple fighting constantly; middle-aged couple with promiscuous daughter; nervous man meeting foreign relatives he’s never seen, suspicious guy who steals everything he can from the hotel rooms.

 

And they are all trying to pack as much culture in as they possibly can while being run ragged from country to country. And of course you have your romance between the tour guide and the pretty single American girl.

 

Both Marv and I thought this trip would be like something out of Dante’s Inferno. Packed in a bus like sardines with a bunch of strangers and dragged all over the place. Of course, we both are introverts.

 

Now, if this was a trip with actual friends we actually like and enjoy spending time with, it would be different. And in the movie, some of the people do make friendships that might carry over after the trip. But the schlepping through all the countries at high speed is not at all attractive. Even if the world wasn’t as insane as it is now. Besides, thanks to computers, you can “visit” any place in the world. Any museum in the world. And for introverts, that’s the way we like it.

 

Our own bed. The food we prefer. Not needing an interpreter. Unless you’re talking to a young person and can’t decipher the slang. Word, yo.

 

Planes, Trains and Automobiles part 2

Marv and I flew to Virginia for Paul and Anne’s wedding. It took ALL DAY with changing planes and a certain amount of time between flights. I used to enjoy flying, but not anymore. The main reason being the lack of space. You are sardined in with 3 other people. At least they don’t allow smoking on planes anymore. Because of physical issues both Marv and I need aisle seats. Which means we never sit together anymore. And we found out that requesting aisle seats doesn’t mean you will get them. It does no good to complain either. The flight attendants have no say in it. It’s the airline. For one of the longest stretches we were in a plane, both Marv and I were stuck in middle seats. Miserable.

When the kids were little, we parked them with my parents for a weekend train trip to Seattle. Marv had a dental tech seminar and I went along for the ride. We got on the train in Chico at midnight. Truly awful trying to sleep sitting up in an uncomfortable train seat. Once it was daylight it wasn’t bad to watch out the window at the passing scenery. Eating in the dining car was interesting. We were seated on one side of the table and another 2 people were seated on the other side. The food was entirely edible. The biggest drawback was that the observation car had smoking allowed, which meant I couldn’t set foot in there. The trip back was about the same. We arrived back in Chico around midnight.

We’ve driven down to SoCal and back many times. HATE IT! It’s not too bad until you get closer and then the traffic is horrendous. We’ve driven to Carson City many times and that trip is OK. When we got married, we drove to Fort Bragg for our honeymoon. Lovely area. We did a day trip a few months earlier to scope the area out and find a decent motel. The weather was great. By the time we got married, though, the weather had changed and it wasn’t as great. Also, I got car sick on the way over the second time. Eureka is probably my favorite place to go, although road construction always seems to be an issue. Beautiful area though.