Continued from here.
So I was talking about how annoying these teens/twenty-somethings are when it comes to trying to be your tour guide (not a tour guide, a student, I want no money, except at the end when I expect a "tip" providing a service you didn't ask for and didn't want.) That was a very small part of Tangier, but it is something we've found in every city, and believe me, you don't know how irritating it is until you've experienced it. I've been to a lot of places at this point, and I have a style of travel where I wander on my own, not setting firm itineraries, just trying to see how people live. If there is a site of particular interest, I'm more inclined to go there first, but no matter where I go, I can assure you I've read up on it, at the very least. I want time to reflect upon the things I am seeing, and that doesn't happen if I hear "Where you from where you from espanol? italiano?" nonstop in my ear. But - it wouldn't happen if there weren't tourist hoards falling for it.
Tangier is of interest to me for its history as the gateway to Africa from Europe and vice versa. You can see Spain from Tangier, and for so many immigrants that was a sight of hope for a better life in Europe. It still is. What immigrants want is the same thing anyone wants - to raise their families in safe and stable places and to have a job where they can earn enough to live on.
Why is that so difficult for people to understand?
I thought about this as we roamed the streets of Tangier, a city of every flavor of human being on the planet. In the mid-twentieth century it was a city of artists like Matisse, Delacroix, and the American writer Paul Bowles, who seems to be glorified...I don't even know who he is, and I like to consider myself pretty well-read.
These are the streets they roamed:
So I was talking about how annoying these teens/twenty-somethings are when it comes to trying to be your tour guide (not a tour guide, a student, I want no money, except at the end when I expect a "tip" providing a service you didn't ask for and didn't want.) That was a very small part of Tangier, but it is something we've found in every city, and believe me, you don't know how irritating it is until you've experienced it. I've been to a lot of places at this point, and I have a style of travel where I wander on my own, not setting firm itineraries, just trying to see how people live. If there is a site of particular interest, I'm more inclined to go there first, but no matter where I go, I can assure you I've read up on it, at the very least. I want time to reflect upon the things I am seeing, and that doesn't happen if I hear "Where you from where you from espanol? italiano?" nonstop in my ear. But - it wouldn't happen if there weren't tourist hoards falling for it.
Tangier is of interest to me for its history as the gateway to Africa from Europe and vice versa. You can see Spain from Tangier, and for so many immigrants that was a sight of hope for a better life in Europe. It still is. What immigrants want is the same thing anyone wants - to raise their families in safe and stable places and to have a job where they can earn enough to live on.
Why is that so difficult for people to understand?
I thought about this as we roamed the streets of Tangier, a city of every flavor of human being on the planet. In the mid-twentieth century it was a city of artists like Matisse, Delacroix, and the American writer Paul Bowles, who seems to be glorified...I don't even know who he is, and I like to consider myself pretty well-read.
These are the streets they roamed:
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| Art Gate Hotel, testament to the city's art history |
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| i really loved the doors of the city |
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| palace, currently a government building |
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| one thing I didn't know about was the "hoodies" that many Moroccan men wear, as shown in this cartoon likeness |
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| i love orange trees! |
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| "God, country, king" national motto |
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| french, spanish, and arabic road signs |
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| a restaurant we ducked into for a rest |
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| olive heaven |
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| these soccer clubs are more like gangs. this one clearly hates women, who are largely absent in public life in Morocco. |
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