I started a journey. I have

walked about Hannah's house in Portland smoking a cigar thinking of what would come.



I have sat in snowy Chicago drinking a beer with the business men.



I have been helped by a Colombian in rainy Copenhagen.



I have been freaked to death about midnight Madrid. I have felt like maybe this wasn't a good idea. I have felt better after sleeping off a long two days. I have gotten onto a train that I had no idea where it would take me. I have looked over at my friend and wondered what we were doing.



I have played Ukulele in sleepy Jaen streets. I have partied with Americans at the Faria Primavera. I have argued with my friend about tomorrow and what it would bring. I have seen tomorrow and you must take it like today.



I have ended up in unnamed towns and slept in their ruins. I have wondered where I would sleep and when I would eat. I have stumbled upon celebration. I have sat with stranger families and stood next to waving parents to children in parades. I have drank wine, sitting in the dirt, in the city, under the windy sky. I have sat in front of the monument and not gone in. Instead I have played Ukulele and sang and laughed and not cared about what the passing priests thought.



I have picked places on maps that felt like a good idea. I have walked cobbled streets and wondered where I would sleep and when I would eat. I sat with old men and children while my friend has asked shopkeepers to look after all our worldly possessions. I have seen the processioners and I have seen the Nazareños and I have been in awe of their candle light and sweat. I have scoured a city for a place to sleep and I have felt broken inside for barely finding refuge. I have slept with one eye open. I have slept in a cave, through a beautiful night, to a beautiful risen sun. I have eaten Chinese food in Spain. I have been given a place to sleep in an empty house by a man who makes ice cream. I have felt so deeply grateful. I have traveled to a city where I know I would not find a roof over my head.



I have sat in a 200 year old park and brushed my teeth in the silence of the morning. I have talked with a girl from Rhode Island at a bus stop about Judaism. I have rode buses that took me to wrong places and walked back sulking. I have prepared myself for a sleepless night of walking, processions, picture taking and conversation. I have argued about capitalism and choice and accountability and freedom in front of a Starbucks during one of the largest festivals in Spain. I have thought hard and long about what it means to experience a culture and celebrate something you know nothing about. I have sat on curbs and climbed up light poles and snuck around barriers and made my way through crowds. I have sighed with exhaustion through the middle of the night. I have made googly eyes at Spanish girls in cafes at three in the morning. I have never been so happy to see the rising sun. I have never felt so exhausted in my whole life. I have fallen asleep in a 200 year old park at ten in the morning. I have never been so relieved to have met a stranger, snuck into their hotel and enjoyed the fruits of hospitality.



I have been to Cadiz for an hour but wanted to stay for longer. I have arrived in Algericas and known that it was dirty from the start. I have walked past prostitutes in order to call home to my parents. I have avoided fake ticket salesmen and I have avoided Tangier. I have ridden ferries across channels and into new continents.



I have bartered with Taxi drivers and ridden next to screaming children through green lucious mountians. I have seen the Blue City. I have no idea who to trust in new cities.



I have yelled at taxi drivers in Fes to "Allez! Allez!" I have walked the Medinas and I have passed the rug sellers and spice hustlers. I have smelled the terrible aromas of the tanneries never to smell the same again. I have lost my train ticket on the overnight Marrakesh Express.

I have been tapped on the shoulder by monkeys. I have been awoken many times by the first call to prayer more melodic and beautiful in the passing weeks. I have wondered where I would sleep and when I would eat.

I have eaten dinner with and slept on strangers floors. I have caught Giardia and I have been my own doctor. I have swam in the Atlantic with a setting Moroccan sun and I have passed the Camels in the rising tides. I have also riden the ones through the Sahara and climbed Morocco's only dunes.

I have walked through the wild and camped with sheep and their hearders. I have been rained upon, sun shown and frozen. I have hitchhiked out of the wilderness in the freezing rain and yelled at the drivers who did not stop. I have been thankful for the promise of warmer and drier times around the corner. Then I have slept on the first beach I came to out of Morocco and swan in it's baptizing waters.

I have seen much and certainly have more to do. I have a second part to write.