And now in Chefchaouen

I'm currently sitting by an open fire, in a baby blue all stone hobbit-type-home of a hostel, with Pink Floyd playing the the background.

It's pretty hypnagogic. You like that word? Hypnagogic. Meaning: relating to the state immediately before falling asleep. It's my new shiny word and I like it a lot.

I'm spoiled. Haley and I felt cold, so the hostel man made us some tea and a fire.

The day was absolutely gorgeous. We got to Chefchauoen around 12:30, the blue city, and it does not disappoint. Especially the Medina, it is so beautiful it doesn't even seem real.

I will say, the men are more aggressive here. Most will say hello, some even follow you until you tell them to go away. Usually it's to get you to go to their restaurant. But I've had a few just say hi, hello, hey, until I acknowledge them and walk away.

I don't feel unsafe. I don't think they will do anything. Most of them are young. Younger than me, or maybe my age. No older men have said anything or followed me. But I definitely made use of my new word, "truukna", except I add a "please" immediately after. It makes them turn away pretty quick. One guy even told me to go back to my country. Aha yikes.

There are a lot of interesting people in the streets. All abilities, all ages. A lot of tourists, but mostly street vendors and beggars.

One thing I see here more than other places are vegetable vendors. They don't even have real shops, or stands for that matter. They just pick a spot on the sidewalk to lay out their baskets and bins full of fruit and veg.

For dinner Haley and I bought a baguette, tomato, cucumber, olives, and vinegar, and made a meal of it. Best meal I've had in a while actually, and we had it on the roof top terrace of our hostel which has a killer view of the mountains surrounding the small town.

After dinner we hung out and went over some basic Mandarin phrases. Like, "can you help me?", "do you understand?", "I don't understand", and "where's the bathroom?". Then the numbers. Haley studied for 4 months in Shanghai, so her Mandarin is pretty good. A lot better than mine. So I plan to get her to teach me more before we split.

Tomorrow's going to be pretty epic. We take a hike to a waterfall somewhere near by. I'm excited. I'm really happy to be here, in Chefchaouen. It's gorgeous, it's peaceful, it's quaint, small town. If I had to choose to live anywhere I've been so far in Morocco, it would be here.

Today, on the bus over, I got some work done. I bought my blog domain and signed up for WordPress, which is the website I will have to be posting my travel blog entries to for the new job. I'm anxious I'll admit. But I believe I can do it. And I figure, if I make a bit of effort every day, eventually I'll get the hang of it and find some success.

That's it for today.

All my love,