Merigoesaround

When I had too much food for thought at work. Courtesy of US colleagues.

This morning I met Lady Pigeon. I was sitting in the metro, half slept and hungry. My mornings are always in a rush. Always. I am fascinated by those who manage to have full continental breakfasts, with warm toasts and everything, at home before going to work. Seldom are the days I remember to grab a cereal bar. Sooo, hungry, sleepy me sat in front of a lady who was talking to her closed bag. I sometimes talk to my open bag...specially when I psychologically lose my purse inside. Girls' bags are artifacts to make you suffer. But there she was, Lady Pigeon talking to her closed bag. "Shhh. Don't move". She whispered. "Shhh. Behave". And suddenly she unzipped her leather interlocutor and a fat, grey sparrow animated my commuting today.

While it is boyfriend husband who lives in Africa, I am the one who sees (and smells) the lions and tigers every day. This are some of the externalities of living by the Circus. It all started a couple of months ago, when the season was launched. Suddenly misterious trucks covered by white overalls and a mild-to-intense smell of horse dung invaded the surroundings of the Cirque d'Hiver (the Winter Circus). One of my three windows in my micro studio was opened and suddenly I heard: Rrrrrrrrrrrrooarrr. It was a lion. A real one. From then on, the love story started and my wish to go to the Circus increased roar after roar. On Sunday me an boyfriend husband finally went to see our wild neighbors. We were probably the only couple without kids, but we were kids ourselves.

Oh la la. Shopping time in Paris. Taking advantage of the winter sale I went for a walk through the Marais. I purposely avoided those shops with dozens of French girls and loads of annoying tourists fighting for the bargain and went for a chic version of designer, hyper expensive shops that I can’t afford. Dreaming is free. I entered one of those exclusive places that sell only two or three samples of each piece. I tried on a couple of eccentric shirts, did not really like them and stepped outside of the shop heading home. I passed through “La Cactusserie”, the only shop I know of that sells only cactuses. To my left, Café Rouge, to my right, another cute little shop with socks at over 50 euros. The shop attendant inside looked at me directly, for more than 3 seconds. French looks are intense. There is a 3-second rule. 2 more than in the rest of the world. I entered the shop and while I was browsing the clothes hanging in the little shop I noticed that what I was holding in my arm was...

This year’s resolution of writing more in good and bad moments is not happening. Is Paris insufficiently interesting to spark my writing? Is the French “metro-boulot-dodo” (subway-work-sleep) motto permeating through my skin? Or as suggested by a colleague, I need a boyfriend in town to get me out of the office before 8.30pm.

Simple. When the x-ray machine guy stops you at the airport, nod profusely to whatever he says. In this case he said it was sheep ham...fact that I confirmed with a big smile. All to please boyfriend husband's craves for the precious Spanish product.

Seen at any random corner, roundabout or street in Morocco. Picture taken in a taxi. If only I could understand Arabic...

Nous-Nous. Half-half. Each country has a different way to drink coffee. Americans is venti and in paper cups. Italians is small and in cute china. Spaniards is big and with lots of milk. French is with a complimentary dark chocolate and ridiculously expensive. In Morocco, tea with mint rules but coffee is of the extremes: from terrible soluble coffee that tastes like dirty water to overpriced creamy café crèmes. This is a little bit like Marrakesh, from sumptuous riads with overtanned rich occidentals to poor illiterate beggars whose lives go unnoticed in the corners of the medina.

Before finding a job in an international agency he used to sell chicken and cows in a small village 25km away from Marrakesh. The donor job is more pleasant than negotiating the price of chickens with old villagers or chasing clients. The donor job is also allowing him to build a house. A precondition to finding a wife in rural Morocco. Walid's eyes show goodness and more maturity than those of a 24 year-old boy in the continental Europe I live in. He has a plan, or many. A plan to build the house, saving dirham after dirham, a plan to use the weekends to work as a guide and make some extra money, a plan to finish secondary school while his driver job allows it, a plan to develop the fields inherited by his family in the valleys surrounding the Atlas. He even dreams of rebuilding the old riad his family owns, at 5 euros the tile he might need a third job. Over half of Morocco's population is under the age of 20. I wonder if under 20 in Morocco means under 35 in France, Spain or...

Or almost. Luggage girl's dad could not stand the strong smell of dead animal and we stayed outside inhaling mint leaves and eating mandarins.

Seen yesterday, at Yves Saint Laurent's Moroccan house. Electric Indigo (also known as 'bleu majorelle') is a mysterious color. Between violet and blue is a funky tone that makes me feel like swimming. I learned that the good indigo pigment comes from a plant, Indigofera , common in the tropics. Today, most blue dyes, the ones in jeans, table cloths or carpets is synthetic. Synthetic or not, YSL's house and open-to-tourists' garden in Marrakesh is a haven of peace and clean air. The coffee shop in the garden is not only a good gastronomical choice but if you are lucky you might come across an actor, politician or local jet-set representative.

Getting sick is always a bad thing but it can be more than bad if sickness comes on New Years' Eve, in the narrow labyrinth-like alleys of a Moroccan medina at 4am. This is a tale on Moroccan health emergency services. We ended 2010 as loyal Spaniards: eating the traditional 12 grapes following Madrid's Plaza del Sol clock via internet. One after the other, grape after grape, new dreams, new plans. We started it as panicking expats looking for a hospital. A bug attacked boyfriend husband's stomach and before I realized, he was shaking and as pale as the snow in the Atlas. Two lessons: - Get the address of a good, westernized hospital before settling in a new country - Bring a person who speaks the local language. Being able to articulate ‘thanks’, ‘good night’ and the numbers from 1 to 5 in Arabic is clearly not enough. BH is in recovery and I’ve decided unilaterally that 2010 started the 2nd of January.

...to write during periods of happiness. Up to now, I haven't been able to. Not to say that the last 200 posts have been a product of sadness but I realize that the happier I feel and the more places I see, the less I write. In order to write this blog I have had to change the music from lively African rythms to distant Russian folk music. Am I losing part of the curiosity that threw me into luggage girl life? Is this a sign of getting older? Maybe I am just scared of ending the peter pan lifestyle. Some writers find inspiration in the most miserable moments of life, others' writing reflects only the highs of their daily monotonies. I am not yet the writer I'd like to be. One that writes about the tears and the smiles of others, that portrays life as it is in many corners of the world, from the poshest mall in Paris to the darkest corner in the medina where boyfriend husband lives. So during 2010 I am planning to breach new boundaries in the art of writing/communicating. Wr...

"Oh music in the street", I said after repeatedly hearing music outside the building. "It is the rubbish collector", my interlocutor replied. I smiled politely with my embarrassed I-am-a-tourist face.

They looked at me and said "What do you stare at? we are shoes". "I know" I answered. "Are you lost?". They started weeping. Their owner had gone to buy tobacco and vanished, just like smoke in the air. They were together, milimetrically in parallel, side by side. I smiled at the random solitude of those shoes and kept on walking. Alone.

How can somebody with the whitest white of the upbringings become color-blind? The first time I mingled with somebody racially distinct to the other 100% of my friends, relatives, neighbors and fellow citizens was when I met a friend of a friend who had himself a gypsy friend: Pepe. Pepe was not even in my highschool but we went to the local disco a couple of times and I always enjoyed imagining he belong to a different and relatively unknown culture, his roots were exotic to me, and his skin was beautifully tanned. Then, somehow young for the average Spaniard of my generation but terribly late compared to my same demographic cohort Europe-wise, I convinced my parents I would learn English in a summer and I flew to the UK for my first ever job. The job deserves a blog by itself (I worked in a turkey slaughterhouse in outer Norwich) but my key color blinding British moment was quite a thing too...just after landing, when I saw an airport packed with exotic Desis, women wearing colorful ...

I wondered. I was buying some eggplant and onions at the organic shop. I am not sure why I keep on going there. I might be saving the planet but it is costing me almost 1 euro more per onion. So I was playing the bohemian me in the organic shop and when I grabbed the tofu 'nature' my shopping bag accidentally fell down and a very tall guy helped me putting my aubergines and onions back in order. He was actually quite good-looking but the most visible feature adorning his face were a pair of ginormous black-framed vision glasses. I think this city is obsessed with artistic crazy glasses. I thought funky glasses owners were leftist kind of people but with the average pair at 300 euros and the onions double the normal price I think they are all undercover little Sarkozys.

A morning walk through the neighborhood. Coffee and croissant at the Boulangerie Boulangerie. It has no name but the croissants deserve walking two blocks further. Saturday routine of dry cleaning, supermarket and domestic chores. And lots, lots of beautiful temptations in my hood, almost as good as the croissant. Beautiful rings Very special gold, it has an Indian type of shine. Terrific bags I passed by the shop in Rue Saint Sebastian and saw a dirty window with what looked like an old bag hanging from a metallic bar and a Japanese magazine showing an article about the dusty bag hanging lonely. Very artsy. Powerful song and a new zen sport straight from California to the Parisian Marais. No socializing, no boyfriend husband, nobody. The street and you, the book and you, the rain and you, nobody to share your happiness with, nobody to care or worry. The happiness of being anonymous and free in this big beautiful city.

In a letter to Dear Economist this week somebody asked him about what to do when facing the good boy/bad boy dilemma. One of the funniest letters I've read lately. Let me explain. The letter defines “good boy” traits as thoughtfulness, caring, and emotional support versus “bad boy” ones: adventurousness and sexual attractiveness. You can find a good bad boy, but it is rare and some of the traits do not last long enough. Personally I think depending on your caring, emotional, physical needs a distant lover might suit you and solve your good/bad boy dilemma. We all go through the spectrum good/bad boy or girl when looking for a partner and when available in the market of love. I mean: 'bad boy wanted' and 'tonight I am a bad girl'. So, what to do?. Polygamy, cheating? We happen to have a friend resident in a non polygamist country who declares quite openly having two women in his life. One is the wife and the other one, with whom he has a kid, the lover. My mum would...

We entered the place with an enormous smile and some stereotypes polluting my mind. A squat? in Paris? They must be people living on the edge of society. I imagined empty bottles all over, pans and pots with leftovers of petrified food, filthy bathrooms, girl hair all over the floor, yellowish sheets. If that stereotyped squat exists, this was not it. Instead, I met Romain, Claire, Kapoani and another guy whose name I forgot. They occupied what used to be a gym for the employees of the French Utility Company (Electricite de France) some years ago and now it is their spotless, orderly, funky and, more importantly, free of charge home. The generosity goes as far as free electricity. They aim small and live big lives. Romain completed an elite school in France, Claire went to Harvard, Kapoani is a film maker and the guy with no name publishes creative stuff side by side to types such as Mr. Simpsons: Matt Groening. And yet, they probably don't make more than 10.000 EUR per year. And t...