Hokay, so...last time I wrote I was in Mauritania, now I'm in Amsterdam. I wonder how many miles that is.... how did I get here unscathed? Answer: I try my hardest to speak to people in their own language and I smile A LOT. It's amazing how nice people are and how much more fun it is to travel when you smile at everyone.
Now, logistically, I rode from Nouachott to Agadir, Morocco in a truck carrying furniture with 3 french people and the Moroccan driver. It was a pretty good trip, although tiring because of the road or lack thereof, the heat, speaking French and attempting moroccan Arabic. I realized that I speak better French, but I can tell jokes/make people laugh better in Arabic. I guess that's because I learned my french in school and my Arabic from friends. They all made fun of me because I slept so much of the way, but hey, when the back is full of couches and Mom used to drive us around to make us go to sleep, I couldn't help it. Plus my eyes hurt from all the sand, so I had to close them, and by default I would fall asleep. So when I was awake, I stared at the vast stretch of desert, listened to Jay-Z and unsucessfully tried to make the French people laugh. I have yet to figure out French humor, but when I do, I will conquer the world. We stopped in Layounne, which is southern Morocco, northern Western Sahara (which isn't a country yet, but the problems between them are clamed down) at a friend's family's house. Luckily one of the girls had lived in Jordan, so we could get by in Jordanian/Palestinian Arabic together. The two girls took us to the Hammam (Turkish bath) and scrubbed sooooo much dirt off of us (the french girl and me). We had never felt so clean in our lives. Then we at couscous with our hands, which is kind of hard to do without having to just lick it off your hand, but we managed. Just trying won me a new Moroccan family to come visit whenever I want. The next day we continued on our way and made it to Agadir where I decided to continue straight to Tanger by overnight bus. I spent a nice day in Tanger by myself wandering around and caught the first ferry the next day to Spain. I met Elizabeth in Madrid and we spent about a week in Madrid, Valencia, Tarragona and Barcelona before flying to Amsterdam. Now we're staying at Alicia's (who I lived with in Nablus) house. We're planning to head to Prague in a couple days and then down to Greece to see Kristin and then to Italy for Elizabeth to catch her plane on the 14th.
So now that you've been updated, let's talk about trust and fear. When I think about how many people I have trusted with so many things part of me is amazed that nothing has gone wrong or gotten stolen or something and part of me thinks, of course nothing went wrong, people are trustworthy. So I would like to state my gratefulness for the luck I have had in my travels, but I would also like to make a big blanket statement that everyone is trustworthy. I know that's probably not true, but right now I feel like then benefit of the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you trust someone and they don't break it is well worth the slight risk that they will break it. Also, so you don't all worry that I'm handing my wallet and passport to people just to prove that they won't cheat me, I have learned fairly well how to trust people in a safe way. I do keep everything that is essential in my bag and keep it with me all the time and I trust myself more and more that I won't put myself in bad situations, but all this fear so many people have of strangers is not fair. You're a stranger to so many people and you would never hurt them or cheat them or steal from them, so why would it make sense to think that every stranger is dangerous? Maybe that's naive and tomorrow everything I have will get stolen and I'll become cynical, but right now I see things through rose-tinted glasses because people actually are rose colored and the glasses just look cute. :) That's all for now, I'll try to write more often! I love you all more then free breakfast at a cheap hostel and european coffee.
Love, Lisa
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Hi Lisa, this is Nick Ettinger from Iowa City (MSTP student at UI). I agree totally with you about what you wrote about trust. I think that once you travel a bit and if you have any kind of common sense and the ability to observe, then very quickly you learn how to judge whether this complete stranger is somebody that I can believe what they say or whether this person is trying to take me for a ride. And I think that it is almost easier to do when you are single as opposed to a group. I think that as one person, you are much less threatening or intimidating to others and I think that others can appreciate how much of a "fish out of water" you are and feel willing to help out. And if you are friendly and open (not the same as gullible, mind you, as I'm sure you are well aware....) then often really cool things, like staying at a stranger's house or going somewhere cool, can happen. When I was travelling from Ghana through Cote D'Ivoire en route to Mali, I ended up staying at the house of a guy I met on the bus for several days. He was returning home and his parents insisted that I come stay with them instead of trying to find a hostel/backpacker type place in Abidjian. It was terribly humbling...they didn't know me from Adam and yet here they were admitting me into their house and life for several days with incredible hospitality. Not something you forget easily.....Safe travels!! --Nick
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