Cybersex

Our luck on this trip is sometimes staggering, and now thanks to Leigh's high school friend Pance, we have an apartment to live in close to the center of Skopje, Macedonia. It is perfect, situtated on top of the local green market, where peaches are cheaper than apples and we can by one egg at a time.

Despite the fact that we are still in a culture that drinks more than we can and dresses infinitely better than we do. However, we are lucky to have stumbled into Pance's fantastic group of self-professed geeks. They go to electronic conferences that sound more like huge raves than geek gatherings, but can drink until three and get up at eight in the morning for work.

Most days, we sleep until the mid-afternoon, spreading our arms and legs as far apart as possible as it is to hot to do anything except harrass the person who dares bring their limb close to the other's. The day usually starts with breakfast, a lesson from the yoga book and then the search for coffee or ice cream. Perhaps the biggest daily challange is ordering coffee, which we want iced, and not two cubes which will soon turn my cocktail into a diluted half-caff stew. Four days later, we still do not know the Macedonian word for ice (but we do know the word for hangover). At night, when we are not watching the Eurocup (GO SPAIN!) we busy ourselves trying to find out what the hell Greece is so worked up about.

And so with a life like this, who needs to come home and get a job?

Well, we do. Believe it or not, six months abroad is only cheap if you manage to circumvent Europe. As we let our funds dwindle we begin to miss the sensation of a good, hard, Puritan day of work. Turns out we are Americans and Americans love to work. So as much as we might poke fun at all our engineering friends, you're the one's whose couches (or vacation homes?) we might be sleeping at when we get home.

So, signing off with the favorite joke of our new friends, here is a shout out to all our beloved geeks:

There is a survey being conducted about Cybersex on the three campuses of the school, the Engineering campus, the Business campus and the Art campus. The interviewer approaches a student from the Art school and askes her "do you know what Cybersex is?" She gets a confused look on her face and askes "what kind of sex?"

Next he askes a student from the Business school, "do you know what Cybersex is?" He looks at the interviewer with a strange look and asks, "what kind of sex?"

Lastly, the interviewer finds an engineering student and asks him, "do you know what Cybersex is?" The Engineer looks puzzled and asks "Cyber what?"

A thousand words

Well, because a picture is worth a thousand words and Internet is free in Portugal, here you are:
Genna, sampling some ports. Where else, but in Porto.
Leigh agrees, less graphically.
Genna's first magnum bar, but not her first time being lost.
Table wines being bottled in the factory we toured the day before the wine festival.

We Are Aware

Many of our friends (and definitely Leigh's parents) are going to scoff at the following. However, as Genna so wisely put it "Most people get tattoos to describe themselves; I think of tattoos as a marker of phases in your life."

So, we decided to join the two together and have thus etched in permanently the most pertinent and beautiful saying we have come across along our journies to both remind us of ourselves and of this time in our lives. Also, because we are NUTS.

We are aware, Alex and Rob especially, how lame this implies Genna and Leigh really are, but we have never claimed otherwise.

So...here it is:



So what the heck is it right? Well, in Morocco there are many cultures. Of all the people we met, we found the Berber culture to be the most welcoming, warm and open. One Berber region is in the mountains and speaks the language of Tamazirt. Tamazirt is also a word used to refer to the small villages of the mountain people. The written language incorporates some of the oldest symbols of the history of written word and can be compared with Japanese. Most importantly to us, literally translated it means "I am free."

Can you guess whose is whose and where they are?

Announcements

Wow...how lazy and busy we have been in our travels. So much so, that we have about a million announcements to make about our recent past and near future. For bearing with us we will reward you all with a few pictures to boot.

First of all: WHERE THE HECK ARE WE?

Good question. Currently, we occupy the only free internet facility we have found in all of Portugal. As it turns out, internet is NOT that cheap in the EU and we have therefore been slacking in our contact.

Where exactly are we? Another interesting intrigue. Well, as it turns out, our friends from Spain in Salamanca, Caceres and Merida happen to live right next to the border with Portugal. It also turns out that Leigh is an ancient 25 years old. What does this all amount to?

CAR RENTAL. The lamest gift to turning 25, but a gift nonetheless. From romantic Lisbon in the south to the green vine covered hills of the very northern Melgaço we have set out along the wine routes of reds to tables to ports to vinos verdes of the famed Alvarinho grape. It's a dreamy little trip filled with people who give either the worst or best directions on the face of the planet.

This is just a small rendition of the countryside that we owe better photo skills to. All pending.

Ok. Number two. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING AND WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME?

Another interesting question. One that has taken us about a month to answer. Oh that wide world that beckons us forth and those loving friends and family that simultaneously coax us back home. It has been a rollercoaster of decision-making lately. So, upon a snap decision spurred by Pance and his wonderful family, Curtis, and Rosalie we have up and bought tickets to Sofia, Bulgaria. We are delighted to go visit Pance's family and hope for a little R&R before our auspicious and long-awaited return to the good ole U S of A!!!

Number 3. USA HERE WE COME

Our country, despite the fact that the whole world thinks our gun-toting ways are TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY ridiculous, is one that we miss with palpatating hearts of nostalgia: BBQs, summer microbrews, a kickass Democratic Convention and men who cannot stare at us for an entire city block. We want it back. We want YOU back. To our friends and our family, especially those who have kept in contact (and commented on our blogs), we MISS YOU.

Number 4. AND WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Well, nothing really. It has been a long time but nothing has changed, perhaps less than nothing. Leigh preemtively announced her acceptance into NYU which she has recently discovered is an unfunded invitation to do what she loves for a price she cannot afford. (In short, NYU accepted 4 students last year, 3 with Masters degrees and herself; they procured scholarships for 3 which they offered to those with more education and fuller doctoral proposals; I am invited to again apply next year with a few foundation classes and the "understanding" that I have already been accepted once to this incredible program.) One more year in Colorado, a few classes in Anthropology Methods and another round of applications will be her final attempt to make a career out of what she loves: food and people.

Genna, is in the same boat, but for the first time. She comes home to search for grad schools in the lucrative combination of women studies and poetry. It is perhaps, for this reason, that she plans on taking some time in Loveland to hunt down both the perfect job and the perfect grad school (that and she is flat broke).

FINALE

THE BOOK!
We charge it upon you that for the next 6 months every interaction, every beer is an opportunity to incite us to write. After all, if we really want to be worldly we should travel; and if we really want to be writers we should write. Your support and ass kicking through this endeavor as well would be esteemed.

AS PROMISED

Turns out that some of the best preserved ancient Roman ruins are in Spain. Caceres and Mérida gave us an excellent tour of such things and made us just about as culturally fulfilled as we could handle at the moment. This one's for you Mom and Dad.

To get things back on track Genna and Leigh have a little aperatif before the Gastronomia Festival in Balhada where we tried the famous casserole dish chinfana (while of course watching fútbol on a big screen where the town gathers).
While it may not be clear here, see if you can spot our wheels among the mobile homes. That's right, there it is, the Suzuki Ibiza, or as we like to call it - home.
This is perhaps 1% as breathtaking as this famous convent in Balhada really is. Our photo skills are on the decline but this is the most beautiful edifice we have seen on our entire journey abroad.

We really failed on all the beautiful photos of Porto, but this is just a sample of the romantic beauty that exudes from this city. And that's before we started visted the infinite array of wine cellars.

One camera down, one to go.

Alas, Leigh has unsurprisingly lost a camera. That's about 1001 food pics gone to waste. And so it is we realize that we have been jilting you all on photos. Here's some farm fun to make up for it.


Leigh finds two eggs in the barn and is wicked excited to show her treasure to Tia, who will probably make some sort of amazing frittata out of it. One that will blow America´s pathetic egg sandwich version of an omelet out of the water.





We helped to make this cheese. From cow to curd to delicious moldy goodness, we were in on it.






The family from left to right: Jaime, Florinda, Josep and Tia.

The farmhouse. People pay tons on money to honeymoon in rustic places like this. Instead, we paid in bruises and very dirty clothes.





Triumphant.

10 Things I Learned on a Farm

1. If it looks like shit and it smells like shit, it's probably shit (and yes, that is what the geriatric people call it too:mierda).
2. There is a similarity among us womenfolk: not all nipples are alike. They are as varied in size as they are in color, shape and production (Just ask Carmelia who has one extra dwarfed one on the lower left side).
3. Waterproof Wellingtons are only Waterproof Wellingtons if the are not torn at the ankle bend. Otherwise they are just shit socks.
4. Fat is a food group, and an expansive one at that. A well balanced Catalan meal includes a smattering of lard-fried meat, salt cured pig fat, cheese (milk fat), and a lovely salad drenched in olive oil (olive fat).
5. No. You DO NOT want to know what happened to the kittens(unless you are Leigh and kind of want of see how they do it).
6. If it looks like mud and it smells like mud, it's probably shit.
7. You can get along fine on a Spanish farm as long as you know the following words: mierda (shit), pala (shovel), paja (hay), cuidado (careful), vaca (cow) and caretilla (wheelbarrow).
8. Wine and chocolate are both acceptable breakfast foods.
9A. You are not, in fact, stronger than that 1/2 ton animal; you will have to outsmart it.
9B. You are not, in fact, smarter than that 1/2 ton animal; you will have to get this stick.
10. All species agree: cereal is delicious.

10 Things you learn to appreciate when you can find them in Morocco

1. The one two punch of a toilet with a coresponding wipping method. A squat toilet with a bucket/toilet paper or a sit down toilet with TP. You don't know how rare this is until you've tried the splash method on a Western style toilet.

2. Ice. Two months, one ice cube that magically appeared in someone's cocktail in the refrigerator-less town of Imsouane.

3. Male companions. As much as we hate to admit it- an escort is a welcome break from the gauntlet of "bon jour les gazelles"that doubtlessly waited for us on the walk home.

4. A hot shower. We took one in all of Morocco and it cost us two dollars and took an hour and a half. This is not to suggest that we haven't gotten very efficient with a cold bucket.

5. Coke. One Swiss guy called it America's best invention. Nothing like cold sugar water for a break from the hot sugar water that they call tea. Beware- some are home brewed in bathtubs and poured into empty glass bottles.

6.Insh Allah. "God Willing," a country wide excuse to get out of all undesirable rendezvous, potential plans and unexciting obligations. "Wanna come into my shop and have tea tomorrow?" "Insh Allah."

7. Octopus. Delicious, slimy, tentically octupus. To be found under a rock at low tide by a good-looking Bereber man armed with a rusted iron rod. Then fried in spices by the sweet old Bereber who owns the cafe and to be consumed until you can't possibly eat anymore. Seriously, when is the next time you are going to be able to pull on octopus out of the ocean, spill sepia all over your hands and then devour it piece by delicious piece no more than 30 minutes after it was hiding under a rock.

8. Trannies. I mean...Transies. These gutted buses are like those vehicles they use at home to transport large amounts of marijuana or Mexicans, or both. Still, when you come across them you leap for joy as you know you will be charged the same price as everyone else to get to the next town on that uncomfortable wooden bench bolted to the floor (if you're lucky). The good news about a transie especially is that old-town rules apply so that women MUST sit next to women unless they are accompanied by male escort (read: family member). The chances thus of being masturbated next to en route are somewhat mitigated (however, see #9).

9. Consanguinity. Ok, so still not for us, but it's definitely a practice thriving in Morocco. What does one do when one cannot leave the house without male family member and does not talk to other males for all of one's life. Well, one marries in the family of course. When asking our companions in Zagorra where they met their wives both answered with nonchalance, "She's in my family."

10. American men. Wow, we never thought we'd say this, but if there is anyone who is not going to think of you either as their mother or as their whore it's American men. We think you respect us, but even if you don't, at least you are a little afraid of us. (And thank you to Peace Corps Shawn for offering this brief but absolutely necessary respite from Moroccan males).

We loved Morocco dearly and absolutely plan to return to the richly cultural south and mountains that we missed on our first journey there. However, there is only so much that one can take, so after two months we decided to buy a ticket to a place where coffee and chocolate come from actual beans and the wine is for drinking. Barcelona is a little upscale for us, but two weeks on a farm should adjust us quite well. Cuidase!