Cabron, Cabron

Spanish mussels taste like perborate and a sock full of brackish water. I washed them down with a shared pitcher of sangria in the park comme Lou Reed. I’ve reformed my “vegetarianism” for the sake of adventure. I can’t wait to watch Planet Earth again. I’m going to eat every animal featured.

Cadiz is a dead horse. I’m not going to beat it, but I’m not going to lie. I watched an old man fish. Cadiz is also very beautiful, the Mediterranean is my favorite shade of blue. But donde esta la playa? The city might as well be a distant constellation, neither here nor there. So we made our way East.


Cadiz, home of Hercules

I can say without hyperbole that my sense of direction is good. Ran to many bus stops, and got lost like Magellan thanks to my Spanglish. Fell asleep on the bus, didn’t put up my armrest and fell out off my seat. Am I the Seated Harlequin? I feel so rushed, with no time to process these adventures. Am I living Dali’s Persistence of Memory? I envy the lazy Spaniard.





The role of line leader is a demanding responsibility. The traveling wolf pack was so fun, but I wanted to be alone per usual. I led the group astray to the bars of Seville with boys in dress flops and Jager bails. I’m sorry!

We found Granada and it’s Alhambra easily, and left it how we found it. We tired easily. The magnitude of the fortress was all but overwhelming; a jigsaw puzzle of shapes and elements intended to help you consider another shape or element. I just got puzzled. I fell deep down its rabbit hole. I ended up watching people admire the arabesques by virtue of colors, the blues, and the reds. It felt too cinematic, and I can never sit still during a movie.





I wandered from the group and of course I got in trouble for touching everything. The lone wolf gets the “shit end of the stick.” “Don’t touch the 500 year old Lapis Lazuli tiles;” “Don’t cross the red rope and smell the Moorish roses;” “Don’t wash your face in the Birka Pool;” Rules, rules, rules. The effort to preserve art always elicits an amount of distance, and I hate that. I don’t want to be a passive participant. I want to make some art. I need some things tangible. And I’m tired of this out of reach business.



I couldn’t sleep in the hostel’s cluster muck of really bunk, bunk beds with the street sounds, and the neon bible glow on my face, dying my hair orange. I kept thinking about the band of gypsies, their sagebrush bouquets and their ancient curses they brandished in my face. I should’ve slept on a park bench. It’s against the rules, but whatever. I would’ve saved myself a few Euros.

Before we reached Casablanca, I woke up floating on the Straight of Gibraltar. A man looked in my window from the neighboring oil vessel. “Can I get some unleaded?” I wrote on my window. I’m running on empty. I smelt Moroccan phosphate from the deck. Morocco’s the second largest Hashish producer in the world, but I don’t smell it (so I don’t believe it.)


I smelt a perfume in a Plaza de Medina bano and had my first European Proustian moment. When I was 14, I bought the smell in a Parisian perfumeria. I wore it when Cole and I went clubbing in Barcelona. It smells baroque, just god-awful. I know why I forgot it. But it’s better than tennis- shoe- ash- tray. That’s how most of us smell after three days of backpacking Andalusia.


“Writers are traitors to the human race,” says Henry Miller. Am I a traitor? Am I a wolf? I hope I don’t ruin any fine places with my own two cents. Traveling will make an introvert out of me. My collection of maps will someday fill the ocean.

You make me sad, Spain.