Okay, so, here I am again in another new country where the weather is extremely amazing, which I know better than to catalog under anything other than Dumb Luck.
A portion of a family waiting outside this cafe on goodies from within is suggesting I also visit Munich, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Dresden.
When the son/dad emerges with what all they all wanted he asks if I am Spanish.
I’m American, I say, omitting the United States of, and he says, You have the Spanish look, which I cannot help but catalog under What Germans Have to Say About What Does and Doesn’t Look Jewish.
Are you guys battening down the hatches? I’m in Essaouira, recovering from some kind of virus — Africa is not. fucking. around — but still caught word that storm’s a-comin’ far away in another spot in another ocean I call home… The coffee here is excellent and the orange juice is even better, but since Eid on Wednesday there are pieces of sheep everywhere — yesterday I went to change my bus ticket and literally tripped over a foot on the sidewalk outside the ticket agency, still trussed at the ankle — which isn’t my favorite. All in all, though, having a great time.
Gossipy, restorative group dinner. Sigrid says there are many more men than women here, and Omiros says it’s because the way to conceive a female baby is under a south wind, and in this cove on the Aegean there are ten months a year of winds from the north.
I tried to sit outside to write but had to move in — it’s so cold! — but writing with this fresh pen is like how that emo brainiac from Stanford who spoke only to me on our birthright Israel trip described hang gliding, impressive in the back of that bus on the road to Haifa or wherever all those years ago — that is, like taking a long, long piss — that is, a relief.
The locals here — at least, around this bakery, which seems to be by the side of the Santorini version of a highway — are not friendly. They don’t smile back, and the latte lady fairly barked at me about where to pay and did not reply to my ευχαριστώ OR my thank you, and I caught myself sticking out my tongue when she turned her back. On the ceiling-mounted TV an advertisement for a water filter shows a water glass overflowing as this filter fills it endlessly and MADE IN THE USA around a circular insignia of the stars and stripes, so I guess that’s a selling point here.
Everyone but me seems to know to anticipate high winds, everyone meaning Byrdie-and-family plus the Australian guys I talked with on the shuttle up from the port, and I guess me, I only know for their telling because I don’t consume any information anymore. But they are correct. Powerful blowing, dust in my eyes. The table I started at outside was coated in a fine grit, like the Aegean sea spray finish on yesterday’s ferry but of earth instead of water borne on the air.
