Week 18: Lentil-palooza

A Moroccan breakfast is the breakfast of champions and champions are made from protein.

A hidden niche in the medina of Rabat with craft goods.

Fun Fact

Everyone loves a good breakfast sandwich and Greek mythology.

Over a Moroccan breakfast of mint tea and an assortment of breads (perhaps that even rival Germany) my friend E told me “I am kind of a bro.” I can’t really explain what that means, but is more or less a ‘subculture’ of people who say yo, like to surf or bum around, wear the same outfit multiple days in a row, and hit the gym or believe that a meal is a protein shake. Believe it or not, I have heard this from multiple people. And this all happened in Morocco sans protein shakes. New year, same me.

The teapot is made from brass and holds the most delicious of all teas, Moroccan mint tea or atāy (أتاي نيكرو).

Likewise, I just discovered that the famed Lollapalooza Music Festival is not only held in Chicago, but also Berlin. While I doubt (although it is possible) that I will be there next September, it will be held in Olympia Park and this week, I went to the cave of the most famous Olympian, Heracles, in Tangier, Morocco and got as buff as him eating lots of lentils and bread and fighting off some of the stall owners in the medina or old place market. The myth about the cave is that Heracles stayed and slept in this cave before doing his 11th labour which was to steal the golden apples from the Hesperides Garden. He first had to climb the mountain Atlas to get there but like any impatient person, he smashed through it creating the Strait of Gibraltar that connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Apparently, Def Leppard also played a concert in this cave in 1995. A subterranean subculture.

The Bread

Top Slice: Morocco was very nice full of sun, sea, and good food. It is rich in history with peoples of the Carthage, Phoenician, Mauretania and Berber kingdoms, the Ummayyad Caliphate, Portugal, Spanish, and of course, French shaping the culture today. Seeing my friend E was so special, and helpful. Getting around Morocco with English in the bigger cities is possible, but not as pleasant. Her fluency in Maghrebi Arabic and French and just having lived in Morocco for so long made my visit so much richer and navigating cultural differences much more comfortable. Coming back to Hamburg, I immediately was hit with a heavy workload and a bout of chronic drowsiness getting very little sleep. My friend and I were planning to go to a rave at a techno club in a bunker, but bailed twice.

My friend E!

Bottom slice: Another friend from Bowdoin who is studying in Denmark will come to visit me. I remember hosting my friend, E, way back in October who was also studying in København, but feel more prepared to show A around this time. Maybe we will finally end up raving and raging and cooking more lentils

The Filling

When you google “history of lentils” an NPR article immediately pops up with the assertion that

“Man has been eating tiny dried lentils practically since the beginning.”

And apparently lentils are so seductive that the Book of Genesis in the bible recounts that,

“Esau, the firstborn, sells his birthright to Jacob for some lentil stew.”

Funnily, in Maghrebi, the phrase la bas (بأس") means “how are you” but a slight phonetic mistake means “you are rich.” At a restaurant our waiter came over and E was immediately taken aback as she thought he was calling us rich kids. We were in our sweat pants so I would assume she was just asking how we were but we will never know since Adidas tracksuits are actually a staple of rich bros in Morocco. But apparently while my brother S was at home, he also made lentil stew. So while lentils are the “poor man’s food,” now I am rich in the birthright. Protein power hungry.

DAY 1 & 2: RABAT

Speaking of hungry, the food in Morocco is so good. I got into Rabat where E lives late Thursday evening and took a cab that whipped me around so much I felt like I was going to puke. We woke up Friday to have lunch at a whole-in-the wall lunch spot right beneath the apartment. It has no menu and E ordered for me thankfully and every Friday and only on Fridays, the national dish of Morocco is served: couscous!

View from the top of the castle or Kasbah. Below are the beaches where I surfed.

I ate more food as I wandered through the medina, or marketplace on my own while E finished up her work day. Filled with hundreds and hundreds of stalls, the spices, cedar wood carved boxes, pottery, textiles, and freshly pressed juices were a feast for the senses. Here is a list of what I feasted on and while I won’t describe each one, highly recommend looking them up!

khobz

msemmen

harcha

beghrir

rfissa

tajine

The next morning I went surfing and it was so so nice to be back in the water. E often goes and has an instructor named Mehdi that she likes to work with. Mehdi was very chill and helped me a bit with my stance, but I still cannot read waves well. There are so many skills I want to practice and master but they are so placed based. In land-locked Iowa or the mountains, you have to settle for Wii sports surfing. In endlessly sunny spaces like Morocco or southern Spain, there is no snow to nordic ski slip and slide. I do know confidently I need water of some sort in the future. Hopefully it will filter places to job search.

DAY 3: CASABLANCA

The main attraction for me in Casablanca was the Hassan II Mosque. It is the largest functioning mosque in Africa and one of the only mosques open to non-Muslim visitors. The train ride from Rabat was quick, around one hour and I stopped for a quick bite at Rick’s Cafe which was created to replicate the scenes in the movie Casablanca (1942). Then I followed the promenade and saw many people deep water fishing. Even from the train station you can see the minaret, or where the muezzin calls Muslims to prayer five times a day. This minaret is the tallest in the world—210 meters tall. Right before my group tour of the inside of the mosque, you could hear the adhan ( أَذَان ) being called across the city. The practice is of course, standardised in every Islamic community, but they also each have their own interpretation of the adhan. Morocco’s is a long drone. Other countries are mellifluous and melodic.

The promenade where ultra-modern architecture is juxtaposed against the mosque that takes its architectural hints from ancient structures.

“His was over the water”

— The Qur’an (Hud, 11:7)

Water is sacred to the three Abrahamic faiths. The mosque which was built in 1980 and completed in only three years (it took thousands and thousands of craftsmen from all over Morocco to carve the cedar work, lay the marble tiles, the Venetian glass chandeliers, and install hefty titanium doors) is half built over the Atlantic Ocean. It aligns closely with the interpretation that the kingdom of Allah, is indeed, over the ocean. On sunny days, the rooftop of the gigantic mosque opens and on a clear day, the glass floor reflects the blue sky to create the illusion of a watery ocean on the floor. It was stunning. I sat for three hours outside just gazing at the beautiful muqarnas, mihrabs, fountains, arabesques, and telework and tried to wrack my brain to remember all the things learned in my South Asian architecture class and Islamic art history course. I couldn’t even wrap my head around the number of people the mosque holds as well at peak holidays: 25,000 inside and 80,000 outside for a total of 105,000. It could almost hold the entire population of Cedar Rapids, Iowa where E is from.

DAY 4 & 5: TANGIER

E had work off Monday and Tuesday so we decided to make a day trip to Tangier and stay overnight at a Riad, or the equivalent of a Airbnb where our host actively made suggestions of where to go, eat, and could offer tours which we opted not to take but rather just explore by food. We made our first stop while the weather was still nice at Cape Spartel or Ras Sbartil (رأس سبارطيل). The main attraction was the 30m tall lighthouse that you could climb up in and read about the history of shipwrecks and the innovative lighting system from Augustin Fresnel. On the plaque describing how the lighthouse was lit over time, I got so excited by the word la lentille on the plaque that I did not realise it meant lens and not lentil beans. Sad.

Beneath the lighthouse is the entrance to Heracles’ Cave or Grottes d'Hercule or (مغارة هرقل). Then we stopped at a lookout point where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic which obviously, you cannot see the difference in the water but it was a cool landmark nevertheless. Nearby is a half-submerged island that is rumoured to be the sinking spot of Atlantis. I simply love all the myth surrounding this area.

From Tangier you can see the tip of Spain and we were lucky enough that it was clear the entire day. It is a surprisingly easy trip from southern Spain to Morocco. It takes only one hour by ferry to travel from the port city of Cádiz to Tangier. I may be misremembering, but M, E’s roommate and another English teacher, explained how the etymology of the name Tarifa evolved over time in Arabic from the meaning of ‘shelf, end or limit’ to ‘little ass.’ 

We tried to find asses in Tangier. That is, the Donkey Museum which was a hybrid fine arts gallery and we assumed, about donkeys of Africa. Like the GOP trying to nominate a speaker of the house, we failed multiple times. It was obscure and supposedly in this apartment building that did not show up on Google maps, the opening hours were wrong, then on Tuesday all museums are closed in Morocco. I was especially disappointed as I wanted to decorate our home in Iowa with the fine animal of the democratic party and E wanted to find the only good burro AND burrito in the city. Moroccan tacos are extremely popular but she claims an appalling attempt at tex-mex.

Instead we went to the medina near our hostel or Riad and E bartered for a Parcheesi board for like, an hour. I think she mainly got a huge discounted price because she mentioned that we went to school in New England and the craziest collision of worlds—there is a University of New England satellite campus in Tangier.

The landform that looks like mountains is actually Spain!

To wrap up the week on a gentle note, I went to a concert at the Hafenklang venue about fifty minutes by train from me. It is such a beautiful venue nestled directly on the harbour—you can see the mist and lights of the cargo ship cranes and from the graffiti covered hole-in-the-wall venue, watch as it seeps into the red brick alleyways that I have very much grown to love and remind me a fair bit of Portland, ME and Boston.

There is an astonishing amount of bands that tour through Hamburg ranging from huge names to tiny indie singer-songwriter bands and tons of grungy rock. Hafenklang is known for cheap beer and high-energy acts but the group Florist did not fit the typical programme—the group is a relatively small, but popular among what I like to say “sad girl” circles. I guess there are a lot of sad girls in Hamburg with the surprisingly large turnout of non-US listeners. It sounds hyperbolic, but I think every other person wore a black beanie and leather. Florist creates the most beautiful nostalgic and nature-sounding songs rich with texture that I believe elevate it beyond the average indie-group. They were even better live which is rare for such quiet bands. The lyrics can get esoteric, but closing my eyes during the songs, feeling the warm red light pass over my eyelids, and opening them to see the harbour lights illuminating the dark still figures swaying, brought me back to all the moments at home and on the road I have listened to Florist’s songs. It made me simultaneously long for the places where I blasted the album, but even more so for past versions of myself. The concert and long commute home was a perfect start to this week helping me slow down again as I ease back into a routine that will soon be past in exactly one month.

The Sauce

Speaking of grungy music, it finally clicked for me that the song “Rock the Casbah” is about a literal Kasbah or castle. The punk British rock band, The Clash also wrote London calling and a ton of other bangers. I love London and would love to make a trip there before leaving Europe, but time is limited and the London Heathrow Airport is a disaster.

But the layover from Rabat to Paris on Tuesday was a Herculean task. There was surprisingly nothing wrong with the flights themselves, but the layout of Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and the personnel there are an entirely different story. Switching gates even between terminals requires shuttle buses, walkways, escalators, elevators, an atrocious amount of passport checks, and cranky border control police who ask if you speak French and you politely respond, in French out of respect, that you do not. On Tuesday, I had a layover between Morocco and Hamburg in Paris. I had contemplated going to a jazz club on Rue des Lombards, since Paris has mildly sparked my interest after reading a lot of James Baldwin, and then would return back to the airport and wait out my flight. I decided against it and was planning to sleep in the terminal overnight like I had once done in Madrid and domestically. Tons of people do this. But apparently, in CDG, they do not since every gate required another passport and boarding check so I couldn’t wait in terminal 2E where I landed with all the comfy seats nor could I get through the security line of 2G even though that was my departing gate. After hopping on the wrong shuttle and going through the improper corridor and up three different levels, I was halfway through security until the officer scanned my boarding pass and said something angrily in French. Once again, I told her I did not speak French in French and she just pointed to my boarding pass and said, ‘not possible.’ I am sure the double meaning was that it was not possible to enter until the morning but also everyone should speak French. I beg to differ and begged to go through, but was unsuccessful. I just gave up and ended up booking a hotel outside the airport but could not figure out whether the shuttle was running from the airport or not, so called them. Surprise, they did not speak English either so I sat in awkward silence and frantically googled how to say “sorry” in French. Feeling defeated I decided to take an Uber but the four levels of the airport were so confusing the driver could not find me, my phone was about to die, and SURPRISE AGAIN, he did not speak French. Luckily, Uber has an in-app translator and exasperated I hopped in the cab and got to the hotel easily. In every scenario, I followed up my “do you speak English” question with “do you speak German” in which I received stares, dead silence, blunt “no’s” or in the case of the driver, howling laughter. At the hotel, I got a free drink voucher since I had to wait while the desk agent found my reservation so trust me, I ordered the most expensive wine on the menu and finally got a good night’s sleep. I logged more than 8,000 steps wandering aimlessly around the airport and didn’t even eat a single baguette while in France. Je ne comprends pas.

The French truly were yanking my strings and testing me. Not a labour of love.

I promised myself all-nighters would not be a thing anymore after Bowdoin but getting back from Morocco absolutely exhausted on Wednesday (but still protein-upped) and having two assignments due by Friday was not ideal. So Thursday, the entire day and night was spent working on a presentation about the artist Zhang Dali for my history of photos in China course. Since I took a course about contemporary Chinese art at Bowdoin online in Fall 2020, I had a background in contemporary art theory and non-canonical approaches which I drew from to craft a, well, relatively complex argument. After my overly long presentation, the Dozent or ‘lecturer’ looked confused and said, “Well, maybe I didn’t explain the theme well enough or what I wanted you to focus on before. Your discussion of the avant-garde and modern history came way before next week’s presentations. It was way too theory based and I thought you would have just listed out the facts of the project more.” Yikes. My sleep deprived body just nodded drowsily, eager to escape and take a nap. I didn’t feel upset about the feedback and in fact, when I left the classroom, four of my other classmates who I had never met were waiting there for me. They told me that my presentation was the most interesting one of the semester and “one of the only ones we were actually interested in.” Maybe it is self-conceited, but I see myself as the Victor in this situation over bland, dry presentations with no original argument. I got no sleep, but ate a hearty breakfast of overnight oats that is truly the “Breakfast of Champions” (c.f. Wheaties cereal slogan).

Mystery Meat

Remember that a New Year’s Eve kiss is a thing? In full honesty, I forgot. But the reminder helped me pick last week’s photo which was my attempt to take a bit from the plant that hung beneath the Küssbogen in Lübeck. I assume it is some Northern Germany form of mistletoe, but like swapping nasty saliva and german—ahem, germs, the weird yellow seaweed-like branch did not seem appealing. I had no success with either types of kisses. That’s a problem for future me in 2024.

And solving this week’s mystery meat is as usual, a you problem.