Isn't it fun?
A perfect tune for any party? ABBA never dies.
The song is older than I. And I love it.
So now, I know why I love hanging out with older people.
Can I draw a parallel?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
life is a Monthy Python movie
Do we (or maybe it's just me) always miss the places where we are not at the moment of thinking? If not always then at least most of the times? Are we unhappy to be where we are right now and always miss the past or look forward to the future? Even if the past was not that good and the prospects of the future are not either? I was already described by someone to be 'a man with no presence - just with the past and future'.
'Yeah...things are slowly coming together. I got the washing machine last night but the refrigerator they were supposed to give me smelled like a dead animal so I am thinking about just buying a small used one for myself.'
When I read what my habibi wrote me about his recent flat experience I got nostalgic. I kind of miss this ridiculousity of the Third World countries. The shitty services you have there sometimes make you totally pissed off but sometimes when you are simply helpless you just can't stop laughing and you wonder that you must have missed the moment when world became so surreal and ridiculous. In my second flat in Rabat in the quartier called Hay Nahda II (mentioned here http://kamil-in-morocco.blogspot.com/2008/02/experienced-restarted.html), I went through the most crazy flat experience. First of all, the flat was in a totally poor and 'wild' part of the city where many Moroccan that I know never even went. I was pretty scared to live there having heard weird stories before moving in but later it turned out to be really cool. I had connection with local people in the shops and it was fun. But the flat itself was the most fun part. One thing was the cockroaches. They were everywhere and firstly I was disgusted to live with them but then the killing part became hilarious and I felt as if in a computer game. Once on the kitchen shelve filled with glasses I saw a mid-size cockroach moving quickly from one end to another. It looked hilarious when you could see it ten times bigger through the glass of the glasses that he was passing one by one. It was like in a Hitchcock movie. The other thing was the shower. When we finally managed to install the gas heater and a gas bottle we discovered that there was a problem with the pipes. When you showered there was only the cold water coming from the shower receiver. When you opened the hot stream the water was indeed coming but from some other whole down in the wall which turned out to be the end of some other random pipe. You had to bend on your knees to get a bit of this hot stream but still only the cold water was coming from the main stream. By chance, I discovered that if you closed the down hole the water would magically run from where it was supposed to run. But as the stream was pretty strong you could not easily stick it right away. So what we were doing for the first few days was showering and standing on one leg while the second one was bended and the foot was leaned against the wall to stop the stream from running from the whole. You would look like a hooker standing by the wall or a street lamp. Did I mention the water running from the sink in the hall when it was open in the bathroom?
Another famous story is the fleas’ issue. In my last house in the kasbah the roof terrace door was always open. There was a female cat going inside and outside and eating out our food in the kitchen (usually from the garbage but sometimes she would jump on the table to grab whatever seemed tasty to her). We were almost about to stop that from happening but suddenly the cat gave birth to four little kittens in the closet in the bedroom on the ground floor. We were not cruel to throw the whole cat family away. But later, one of us started to feel really bad. She had some bites on her skin and they were really itchy. We figured out that the cat brought fleas. The kittens were not babies anymore so we decided to throw them all on the terrace and let the mother take them away. She was furious and wouldn’t let us approach them. We waited until the day when she was gone and quickly before her returning we brought the kittens outside. The mother realized that and brought them back on the stairs leading to the roof. She was still furious and wouldn’t let any of us pass her. We couldn’t live in a house threatened by a cat. Again, we waited until she was gone and then threw the kittens away. But there was a problem this time. We couldn’t find one of them. After a while of searching we ended up seeing it in the corner. We were just about to throw the last one away when we saw the mother coming back. Full of fear and screaming insanely ‘faster before she gets in!!!’ we closed the terrace door and put a chair to block it (it looked as if we wanted to prevent a psycho killer from getting to the house). We opened it slightly only to see her waiting for getting inside and tearing us off into pieces. There was no way we would throw the kitten out. Then we saw the mother leaving and going to the open living room roof window to, as we thought, jump inside, went up the stairs and tear us off into pieces. In panic, we screamed again: ‘quickly!! Close the downstairs door to the roof!!’ That’s how we ended up being stuck on the staircase between two doors with no light and a small kitten. The scarier thing than seeing a psycho killer wanting to kill you is when you do not see him but you do know he is somewhere there. We looked through the whole to see whether the cat was still there. She was not but she could have been out of our sight waiting for us to tear us off into pieces. We quickly threw the kitten on the terrace and escaped the stair case. Luckily no one was hurt but it was not that obvious while being trapped there.
My first house was invaded by ants (always) and lizards (from time to time). I remember one night someone spilled some coke on the kitchen table at night and when we woke up we saw the ants lined up around the stain drinking the coke. It was almost a perfect circle made of ants. It looked hilarious. It was the first time (and definitely not the last one) that I thought that maybe it had been ants that invented the circle and not the people. We were sometimes as well visited by lizards. Once we saw one hiding behind the refrigerator. My friend panicked. She said she would not fall asleep knowing a lizard was in the kitchen. So for one hour we were shaking the refrigerator, moving it, putting the broom stick to scare it (and taking pics in the mean time) etc. The lizard finally left. Other lizards would come into the house more in the future but we would never tell my friend about them. At least she could sleep well.
And listen to the story of the red basin. For more than a year of living in Morocco I never had a washing machine so would always have to do the laundry in the basins and buckets (I don’t miss it anymore even though it was sometimes hilarious to do it). So one morning, I took over all the big plastic bathroom vessels to do all my laundry at once. It was ready by the evening and all of them including a red middle-size basin were free. It turned out later that we were having a lot of people over for a dinner. There were not enough pots available. When I entered the kitchen I saw someone preparing the fruit salad in the red basin that had been filled with my socks and underwear the same morning. ‘Excuse me. Should we tell the guests what it was used for a few hours ago?!’ I said. ‘I don’t think so’ the cook replied. I don’t remember anyone complaining about the fruit salad.
In Belgium it's different. It's not always truth what I am going to write now but the services are way better, the flats nicer, there are no basins you can use both in the bathroom and in the kitchen and everything is more sterile and cleaner. You usually have fewer situations like 'smell of dead animals'. Even the huge spiders in my room are not the same as cockroaches, ants, lizards or fleas in Morocco.
Am I totally insane to miss the Moroccan cockroaches? My friend once wrote that she missed the Moroccan fleas once she had left the country. And she was pretty sane. So maybe it's not that bad with me either?
'Yeah...things are slowly coming together. I got the washing machine last night but the refrigerator they were supposed to give me smelled like a dead animal so I am thinking about just buying a small used one for myself.'
When I read what my habibi wrote me about his recent flat experience I got nostalgic. I kind of miss this ridiculousity of the Third World countries. The shitty services you have there sometimes make you totally pissed off but sometimes when you are simply helpless you just can't stop laughing and you wonder that you must have missed the moment when world became so surreal and ridiculous. In my second flat in Rabat in the quartier called Hay Nahda II (mentioned here http://kamil-in-morocco.blogspot.com/2008/02/experienced-restarted.html), I went through the most crazy flat experience. First of all, the flat was in a totally poor and 'wild' part of the city where many Moroccan that I know never even went. I was pretty scared to live there having heard weird stories before moving in but later it turned out to be really cool. I had connection with local people in the shops and it was fun. But the flat itself was the most fun part. One thing was the cockroaches. They were everywhere and firstly I was disgusted to live with them but then the killing part became hilarious and I felt as if in a computer game. Once on the kitchen shelve filled with glasses I saw a mid-size cockroach moving quickly from one end to another. It looked hilarious when you could see it ten times bigger through the glass of the glasses that he was passing one by one. It was like in a Hitchcock movie. The other thing was the shower. When we finally managed to install the gas heater and a gas bottle we discovered that there was a problem with the pipes. When you showered there was only the cold water coming from the shower receiver. When you opened the hot stream the water was indeed coming but from some other whole down in the wall which turned out to be the end of some other random pipe. You had to bend on your knees to get a bit of this hot stream but still only the cold water was coming from the main stream. By chance, I discovered that if you closed the down hole the water would magically run from where it was supposed to run. But as the stream was pretty strong you could not easily stick it right away. So what we were doing for the first few days was showering and standing on one leg while the second one was bended and the foot was leaned against the wall to stop the stream from running from the whole. You would look like a hooker standing by the wall or a street lamp. Did I mention the water running from the sink in the hall when it was open in the bathroom?
Another famous story is the fleas’ issue. In my last house in the kasbah the roof terrace door was always open. There was a female cat going inside and outside and eating out our food in the kitchen (usually from the garbage but sometimes she would jump on the table to grab whatever seemed tasty to her). We were almost about to stop that from happening but suddenly the cat gave birth to four little kittens in the closet in the bedroom on the ground floor. We were not cruel to throw the whole cat family away. But later, one of us started to feel really bad. She had some bites on her skin and they were really itchy. We figured out that the cat brought fleas. The kittens were not babies anymore so we decided to throw them all on the terrace and let the mother take them away. She was furious and wouldn’t let us approach them. We waited until the day when she was gone and quickly before her returning we brought the kittens outside. The mother realized that and brought them back on the stairs leading to the roof. She was still furious and wouldn’t let any of us pass her. We couldn’t live in a house threatened by a cat. Again, we waited until she was gone and then threw the kittens away. But there was a problem this time. We couldn’t find one of them. After a while of searching we ended up seeing it in the corner. We were just about to throw the last one away when we saw the mother coming back. Full of fear and screaming insanely ‘faster before she gets in!!!’ we closed the terrace door and put a chair to block it (it looked as if we wanted to prevent a psycho killer from getting to the house). We opened it slightly only to see her waiting for getting inside and tearing us off into pieces. There was no way we would throw the kitten out. Then we saw the mother leaving and going to the open living room roof window to, as we thought, jump inside, went up the stairs and tear us off into pieces. In panic, we screamed again: ‘quickly!! Close the downstairs door to the roof!!’ That’s how we ended up being stuck on the staircase between two doors with no light and a small kitten. The scarier thing than seeing a psycho killer wanting to kill you is when you do not see him but you do know he is somewhere there. We looked through the whole to see whether the cat was still there. She was not but she could have been out of our sight waiting for us to tear us off into pieces. We quickly threw the kitten on the terrace and escaped the stair case. Luckily no one was hurt but it was not that obvious while being trapped there.
My first house was invaded by ants (always) and lizards (from time to time). I remember one night someone spilled some coke on the kitchen table at night and when we woke up we saw the ants lined up around the stain drinking the coke. It was almost a perfect circle made of ants. It looked hilarious. It was the first time (and definitely not the last one) that I thought that maybe it had been ants that invented the circle and not the people. We were sometimes as well visited by lizards. Once we saw one hiding behind the refrigerator. My friend panicked. She said she would not fall asleep knowing a lizard was in the kitchen. So for one hour we were shaking the refrigerator, moving it, putting the broom stick to scare it (and taking pics in the mean time) etc. The lizard finally left. Other lizards would come into the house more in the future but we would never tell my friend about them. At least she could sleep well.
And listen to the story of the red basin. For more than a year of living in Morocco I never had a washing machine so would always have to do the laundry in the basins and buckets (I don’t miss it anymore even though it was sometimes hilarious to do it). So one morning, I took over all the big plastic bathroom vessels to do all my laundry at once. It was ready by the evening and all of them including a red middle-size basin were free. It turned out later that we were having a lot of people over for a dinner. There were not enough pots available. When I entered the kitchen I saw someone preparing the fruit salad in the red basin that had been filled with my socks and underwear the same morning. ‘Excuse me. Should we tell the guests what it was used for a few hours ago?!’ I said. ‘I don’t think so’ the cook replied. I don’t remember anyone complaining about the fruit salad.
In Belgium it's different. It's not always truth what I am going to write now but the services are way better, the flats nicer, there are no basins you can use both in the bathroom and in the kitchen and everything is more sterile and cleaner. You usually have fewer situations like 'smell of dead animals'. Even the huge spiders in my room are not the same as cockroaches, ants, lizards or fleas in Morocco.
Am I totally insane to miss the Moroccan cockroaches? My friend once wrote that she missed the Moroccan fleas once she had left the country. And she was pretty sane. So maybe it's not that bad with me either?
'what happened to fun?'
Am I really cruel and mean to publish this SATC video and find it sort of hilarious?
'This used to be the most exciting city in the world! And now it's just nothing but smoking near a fucking open window!'
I hope I will never have to say that about any city. Otherwise I will be over. O-V-E-R
'live and don't make me die'
I really don't like when people keep telling me: 'yeah, you had the time of your life in Morocco but that is over now and you should appreciate the life you have now. it's not that bad' I agree it's not that bad. But what they usually mean is: 'you can't live like in Morocco all your life. have you seen the movie l'Auberge Espagnol? it cannot be like that all the time. Life is not a constant party under the palm trees'. They are never able to give me a clear answer when I ask them: 'and why not my dear? give me one more legitimate reason why I cannot live the way I like and want!'
I have to admit that I had more parties during my one year in Morocco than during my twenty three years of life in Poland before. But my life was not a constant party. It did look like 'l'Auberge Espagnol' but only in the first two seasons. Later, it was even more fabulous than this movie. I don't understand why some people think that it's ok to have one great experience in your life but later settle for something stable and predictable and live like that for the rest of their lives. To have 'a normal life'. Whatever they mean by normal.
I disagree.
As soon as I feel I am bored with Belgium I will just move to some Thirld World country, get a good job there and will be partying under the palm trees in my free time. It will take a while to move and find a job but I will eventually do that.
Once I had a facebook conversation with some random person - a friend of my friend. He apparently lives in Beirut, Lebanon. I wrote him that I find his country very intriguing and maybe would like to live there for a few months/years one day. He replied: 'no, ıt's not a dream, ıt's easy - just do ıt and you will be happy'.
I guess you don't have to only browse Internet or books to find some words of wisdom. Just hang out with wise people.
I have to admit that I had more parties during my one year in Morocco than during my twenty three years of life in Poland before. But my life was not a constant party. It did look like 'l'Auberge Espagnol' but only in the first two seasons. Later, it was even more fabulous than this movie. I don't understand why some people think that it's ok to have one great experience in your life but later settle for something stable and predictable and live like that for the rest of their lives. To have 'a normal life'. Whatever they mean by normal.
I disagree.
As soon as I feel I am bored with Belgium I will just move to some Thirld World country, get a good job there and will be partying under the palm trees in my free time. It will take a while to move and find a job but I will eventually do that.
Once I had a facebook conversation with some random person - a friend of my friend. He apparently lives in Beirut, Lebanon. I wrote him that I find his country very intriguing and maybe would like to live there for a few months/years one day. He replied: 'no, ıt's not a dream, ıt's easy - just do ıt and you will be happy'.
I guess you don't have to only browse Internet or books to find some words of wisdom. Just hang out with wise people.
Friday, November 14, 2008
a very good season
The new season is here! I am having way more fun than in the previous one. I went to Paris and Istanbul (a wine glass in the left hand, a cigarette in the right hand while standing and enjoying the view from the balcony overlooking Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque) and it was fab! (wait! am I having more fun because I am out of Brussels?!?!).
The month of November is sponsored by the letter R that means reunions! Reunions with my friends living all over the world – I managed to meet Charles (my Chinese friend met in Morocco) and Noellie (ultra fabulous friend from Morocco) and bien sûr my habibi in Turkey.
Yesterday, we officially started les Oudayas reunion of some of my most precious flat mates from my last house in Rabat. The reunion commenced in the bar/restaurant Havana where Olga and I had a dinner and a drink last night. We got inside and were promptly asked for the password through which we had to prove that we were expats coming for the after work party for expats. Upon saying my name I was already recognized by the owner who remembered me from emails regarding reserving the table and handed me in my membership card (fab fab fab!). We had the great dinner and although party was pretty calm we had a blast eating, catching up and toasting to our great lives.
Today, new people are coming and another cool party to be attended.
More friends and more trips (Marseille, Amsterdam and Paris) in the next 2 months to come! Job is fine. Money is fine. Studies are fine. Tout va bien!
It’s a very good season.
The month of November is sponsored by the letter R that means reunions! Reunions with my friends living all over the world – I managed to meet Charles (my Chinese friend met in Morocco) and Noellie (ultra fabulous friend from Morocco) and bien sûr my habibi in Turkey.
Yesterday, we officially started les Oudayas reunion of some of my most precious flat mates from my last house in Rabat. The reunion commenced in the bar/restaurant Havana where Olga and I had a dinner and a drink last night. We got inside and were promptly asked for the password through which we had to prove that we were expats coming for the after work party for expats. Upon saying my name I was already recognized by the owner who remembered me from emails regarding reserving the table and handed me in my membership card (fab fab fab!). We had the great dinner and although party was pretty calm we had a blast eating, catching up and toasting to our great lives.
Today, new people are coming and another cool party to be attended.
More friends and more trips (Marseille, Amsterdam and Paris) in the next 2 months to come! Job is fine. Money is fine. Studies are fine. Tout va bien!
It’s a very good season.
Monday, November 3, 2008
the beginning of the new season - continued
I had a blast.
Following getting involved into the expats' community through the Sunday meeting with Belgian artists I went for an opening of a bar / pub / restaurant last Thursday. The place was called Havana Afterwork and it is ultimately fabulous. I luckily got the link where I could subscribed for free entrance and through my new connections I could also get a table and have a dinner. Upon the entrance we were stopped by nice women with guest lists. Fancy, isn't it? Then we entered and saw a place full of cool expats and the great music in the background. Later, the dinner. Of course, the most amazing part were the people. First of all, a young Belgian guy (half Flemish and half Walloon - isn't it a great example of a reconciliation of the two parts of the Kingdom?) - I have never met someone so funny, smart and cutely pretentious. With sincere disgust on his face he confessed not having liked the beer (in the country of beers) as this is a common and ordinary drink. It stunned me and made me want to worship him. Red wine rocks! Then having heard my stories regarding my social life in Rabat he demanded the emails of my friends as soon as he knew he would be going there. It rarely happens that I feel the same wave length with anyone.
Later, there were some crazy and wild dances on the dance floor. They luckily didn't play any severe techno or house. Just the low-quality hits of 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that I adore. Somehow later, I had this eye connection with some forty something woman. It started when I was charmingly asking for a cigarette for my friend. We had this sweet discussion. She told me she was Welsh. It was loud and I hardly understood. She thought I didn't know where Wales was but when I quickly said that the capital of Wales was Cardiff she was highly impressed. My geographical knowledge is one of my favorite tricks and it almost always works :) Later, she said she had a friend - head hunter - who could be interested in me. Not my priority to look for a job while partying but nevertheless I took her contact. If not for professional purposes then at least for partying.
Later while driving my friend (a dancing queen) home I had to change the lane in a very unfavorable place just before the traffic lights. I managed to have the eye connection with some three random guys behind me. It was so funny as I was sort of communicating with them as if in a silent movie or through the sign language. And the conversation was more than asking for letting my car in front of them. It was a friendly dialogue.
I arrived home being grateful for getting back the life is a movie moments, meeting great people, going through funny, grotesque and ridiculous moments.
And a small headache the next day at work but apparently (!) you cannot have it all ;)
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