But after I went downstairs and web-surfed a bit, I saw the roommates emerge after an hour or so and head off into town. I went back to the room armed with my new My Yoga Online subscription, rolled out my mat and loaded up a 45 minute class. No annoying buffering, and I held Crow Pose for the first time ever! I think I can do this, and now I deserve to pig out at dinner!

Day 2:  Had to check out of the hostel by ten and catch a bus at four. Plenty of time to do some yoga. But where? I psyched myself up as I hauled my wheeled duffle and its attendant yoga mat all over town. On the main street of El Calafate there is a grassy area, park-like, between the lanes. Perfect for yoga? Maybe. I can totally envision it. The problem is, the girl doing yoga in my vision isn’t me. The me doing yoga in this very public place with cars and tourists going by at an alarming rate might be getting rotten veggies thrown at her from a passing remise (taxi) or getting hauled off by disgruntled policia. I chickened out.

I walked by a place I’d seen the day before – a collection of shops with a garden and deck behind. I peer around. It appears to be part of a very cute and very dead café. I find some courage and ask the woman at the counter in my substandard Spanish if it would be all right if I did some yoga on her deck. She agrees, I roll out my mat and a cheat sheet of poses and do about half an hour. Only about half a dozen people walk by. She has no clients. Afterwards, I get some lunch and a sandwich to go for my bus dinner, and write up a quick Tripadvisor review for her business. I don’t mention yoga in my review. (I’m not the entertainment, after all!)

Day 3, 4, and 5 – did different classes from My Yoga Online at the hostel in Puerto Madryn. Very nice way to practice, as I can load up videos of different lengths and types based on how I feel that day. All I need is the internet to be functioning properly, and I’m good to go!

Day 6 and 7 – At my new place (through Help Exchange) in Buenos Aires, there is a choice of great outdoor places to do yoga. The lower courtyard is shaded and cooler, but in a shared area with my host. The upper terrace can get brutally hot with no respite from the scorching sun. I choose the lower courtyard, and as a bonus I get a boost from my host’s Siamese cat, Tato, who rolls on his back in yoga-empathy and tries to squeeze under me for a clandestine caress in Thread the Needle.

Day 8 (one of my faves!) – tired of solo yoga, I open up the Couchsurf events page for Buenos Aires and discover a group doing yoga in the park that afternoon! I brave the mid-day heat, sling my mat roll over my shoulder like a quiver of om-arrows, and hope I can find the exact location. Success! I meet half a dozen like-minded souls and we practice together, led by an easy-on-the-eyes instructor and complete with groovy tunes from his I-Pod. I attempt a new arm balance pose (flying crow, I think?) and can’t do it, but am inspired enough to add it to my “gonna try to do this one better” list. Armed with a new attitude, a new view of Buenos Aires, and a handful of new Facebook friends, I leave with a smiley yoga glow.

Day 9 – a well-deserved day off to check out the Chinese New Year festival after a lazy morning.  No yoga, but everyone needs a teensy break sometimes, right?

Day 10 – Overcast enough to practice on the rooftop terrace. The Yoga Online videos are loading slow and buffering, so I rely on a series that I have copy-pasted from one of my WordPress peers. Again, Tato Gato watches with silent encouragement. I practice in a bikini and make sure I use sunscreen.

Practicing yoga while traveling can be difficult, but worth the effort. Bringing my mat was a big help. Of course one can practice without a mat, but it is a psychological nudge, if not a physical reminder (who would bring a mat all over South America like a big yoga dork and not ever unfurl it?)

Next week, I will be reporting from Eco Yoga Park. I didn’t give resources in this article but if anyone wants a specific link, ask in the comments section and I will be happy to oblige!

Peace!  – Catnip

You see, there is a Disney Princess living in my head. She has been there for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure which one she is, or if she is just a compilation of all the worst ones: passive, helpless yet optimistic, beautiful and fragile, golden or raven-haired, perfect lips and huge sparkling eyes, and waiting-for-a-prince. If I had my way she would be a combination of Belle (bookish and independent) and Mulan (tomboy and unconventional), but I’m afraid she is more like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. She lives her life waiting to be rescued.

She must die!

You may think me a bit harsh, but this broad is screwing up my life. I’m single and happy – most of the time. After some attempts as physical encounters in the past year that were unsatisfactory and boring, I have settled into a reluctant state of celibacy; accepting this temporary state the way one drives through a patch of thick fog on the highway: mindfully, carefully, and with lights on. Right now I am focusing on creating a new life exactly the way I want it to be. But here comes Cinder-Beauty, just when I am feeling content, insisting that I am incomplete until I meet the Prince.

And then I start looking for him. In the grocery store, at the New Year’s Eve party, even in fictitious places and dreams. I recently read a memoir by a man I deeply admire. I read right up until the point that he met his wife-to-be, then I lost interest in the book.

Princess-projecting much?

So I’m printing a collage of all the Disney gals, folding it neatly into an envelope, and transporting it to South America when I embark on my journey there. At the moment of sunset on my 49th birthday, I shall shred her into pieces and burn them (in a fire-safe bowl of course.) And I shall do this in front of Pablo Neruda’s house, Chascona (“woman with tousled hair”, which is a version of what my last and greatest ex-love used to call me.) I may even read a piece of Neruda’s poetry at this ceremony-for-one.

I think Cinder-Beauty, with her last dying gasp, will appreciate all the romantic irony.

This time of year is painted with a rainbow of so many emotions: happiness and gratitude for what we have, sadness for the people and times that have passed, hope for the future, confusion and anxiety about…. Just what am I supposed to be feeling, anyway?

Most of us don’t have a Norman Rockwell existence. We don’t have an intact family of smiling people around our table. We have to patch together a crazy-quilt of people and location and food and presents and hope it all works out: that no one gets too drunk and maudlin, that the cute t-shirt we picked for the teenager is actually one she will like (or have the good grace to pretend to), that the ham/turkey/tofu loaf is neither undercooked and gross or overcooked and dry.

But those, of course, are the superficial things. The real meaning of Christmas (cue Charlie Brown music) is the one we make for ourselves. For some it is religious, celebrating the birth of Jesus. For others, spiritual without naming names. Some people love the accessories of Christmas: the decorations, the special food, and the presents. For some people Christmas is just another day.

For me, especially this year, Christmas is a time of gratitude and reflection. I’m homeless by choice, so there is no house to decorate and I rely on the goodwill of family and friends to give me a place to sleep. I’m single, and this is a hard time of year to be single. The diamond commercials (“what a great day to get engaged! Watch her eyes sparkle like the ring you slip on her finger!”) – cause me to cringe and turn the dial faster than the nasal ay-ay-ay that heralds the onset of a Britney Spears tune. Couples holding hands at the mall (or arguing at the mall) make me smile, then wince. I think of the Christmas my ex-husband passed out drunk and I put out all the presents myself, filling my own stocking (for he had forgotten to shop for me) with items from the pantry and linen closet so the kids wouldn’t doubt Santa. I think also of the lavish gifts from my post-divorce boyfriend who could, sadly, always open his wallet but never his heart. I know that being single is better than any of that.

So I look inside myself during this festive season. I banish the echoing sadness and focus on my beautiful grown daughters, my generous friends, the newfound reservoir of patience and compassion that I have discovered within.

I am neither happy nor sad. I am blanketed with a profound feeling of peace. I will pull my beloved children to me and enjoy the day, then be ever so glad it is over.

Until next year. (And who knows what next year will bring?)

Peace and Good Wishes -
Catnip

The Powers That Be have gifted me with many attributes, some of which I am profoundly grateful for, and others that I endure with a reluctant affection. I love my large breasts but I do wish I could remove them for certain activities, such as yoga and horseback riding.

But then my bubble butt would just stand out more.

As I approach my own yoga teacher training, I wonder: am I built for yoga? I’m not a young, lithe, boyish sylph of a girl. I’m voluptuous like a 40’s film star, and yoga has made me muscly on top of all that. I’m in my fourth decade of life. (The latter part of it!) And here’s the part that scares me:

I can’t do all the poses.

There. I said it. And I wonder if a teacher who can’t demonstrate a pose can really tell students how to do it without showing it? There are poses I rock at. There are some I just can’t do. Does it matter? Would it matter to me if I were taking my own class?

The teacher showing us King Pigeon could do it. So could another girl – young, blonde, and built like a dancer. I watched her, jealous, until she looked over at me and gave me a radiant smile. She was happy, and I was happy for her as I wobbled out of drunken pigeon.

I’ll keep trying, keep practicing. But I can’t change my body type, and I can’t rewind the clock to take away a decade or two. I am who I am as a yogi and as a woman. Yoga keeps me strong and flexible and sane. My love for the art and practice of yoga will shine through, I know.

Maybe I can just bring in a picture of King Pigeon? And if I see any Drunken ones, I’ll smile and understand.

Kids go through stuff. I myself was a member of a wanna-be punk rock gang of toughies in 1980. We dressed in black and wore safety pins in odd places. We spray-painted graffiti on the bike tunnels in Boulder. My crazy friend “Eagle” painted swastikas and the anarchy symbol; I wrote “Iggy Pop is God.” (Coincidentally I moved to NYC soon after, became lovers with my idol and found out he was cool and all that, but definitely not God… but that is the subject of another blog, perhaps!)

We must have been bragging about our misdeeds, for it got around. My boss at work was Jewish, and she took me aside and talked frankly about swastikas and their meaning, and what that symbolizes to people whose relatives went through the horrors of Auschwitz and concentration camps. A few friends and I went back to the tunnels and painted back over the symbols the next day.

Teenage years are a time to find ones identity. If you don’t do the expected and go straight to college, and you hang out with the same friends you had all through school, and none of those people are doing anything productive, either…well, some kids tend to look for trouble. Or at least they look for something to do, positive or negative. I get it. Some of us, not all, have been through similar things.

I hesitate to compare the punk rockers of the seventies and eighties with this new crop of white supremacy enthusiasts. For one thing, we rebelled against authority, the older generation, not our own. But the white supremacy movement singles out specific groups: ethnic groups with skin darker than theirs, gay men and women, and mostly people their own age. People who are, whether the 88 crowd likes it or not, their peers. The hardcore followers single these people out for hate crimes.

“American History X” is a movie my children have seen many times. Recently my daughter insisted I watch it. In it, a young man (Edward Norton) loses his dad, becomes uncontrollable, gets into white supremacy groups and associated hate crimes, and goes to prison. In prison he is raped and beaten, but eventually befriended by a black man. Meanwhile at home, his brother is following his path. I won’t give away the ending, but I find it disheartening that there is a moral (hate is bad) and kids who love this movie appear to ignore that fact and focus on the gnarly violent scenes (the very ones I closed my eyes through.) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120586/synopsis

I saw Moose and his family a few summers ago. He’s a neat kid, energetic, funny, and the family clown of four boys. I have no reason to believe he is involved in anything more harmful than tattooing questionable things on his body. But I’m scared for him.

I know someone who went through an unnecessary difficult path because he started out a bored rebel like Moose. My little friend Eagle moved to L.A.and got involved in the hardcore punk and heroin scene. He robbed twenty-nine banks, went to prison, and got out to raise his daughters alone after their heroin-addicted mother had abandoned them. He’s a tattoo artist now, and he’s clean. He still has the old glint in his eye and the frenetic rapid-fire speech pattern of the kid I once knew. But his eyes tell the story of a hard life; one he almost didn’t live to tell about. Last spring Eagle did a tattoo for me. A lotus blossom with a glowing Om above the flower. Buddhists believe the lotus is a symbol of tenacity, a flower that grows up from the muck to thrive and become beautiful despite the odds.

If Moose gets another tattoo, I hope he gets a lotus.

- Catnip

Last night a new friend (a fellow traveler) and I were talking about men we have loved, the ones who gotaway, and exes. We each opened up our laptops, our Facebook accounts, and our hearts for each other and showed pictures of the afore-mentioned men.

I am the kind of person who tries very hard not to harbor regrets; they are negative, unnecessary, and unhelpful. I will own up to mistakes I made. I will apologize to those I have wronged. I will try to fix errors, mend bridges, and make up for lost opportunities whenever possible.

I have never once regretted divorcing my husband. But seeing pictures of him, remarried to a woman 30 years his junior, even though she has her own issues, etc, really hurts. It pisses me off that I wasted all that time with him (let’s just check off my thirties as a lost decade, okay?) and that I am still traversing the world alone while he is remarried. It seems brutally unfair.

However, I try to be a kind and forgiving woman. I am grateful to my ex for fathering two beautiful daughters. The fifteen years I was with him was a hellish journey in which I learned to be a stronger person while overlooking his addiction problems with tobacco, alcohol, and pornography. I stayed faithful in my marriage vows while he cheated. I know I wasn’t perfect. I know I didn’t stand up for my children and their happiness, let alone my own. I lived in a state of denial. I tend to place the blame for this on Walt Disney and the American cliché happy-ending movies. I thought marriage was forever, and when I realized I’d condemned myself to a waking nightmare, I tried other ways of enriching my life – going back to college, riding horses, making friends. I got by. When I discovered that my husband was sexually involved with his teenage niece (those hillbilly jokes are actually based in truth! Who knew?) I finally had an iron-clad excuse to end the marriage.

That was seven years ago. Bygones are bygones. I don’t wish him ill, nor do I feel I should. Ending the relationship was a happy thing for me, because I had stopped loving this man a very long time before our divorce. I have never doubted the decision. But I often wonder if I will ever get my turn at true, adult love? People say that these things come when you stop looking, but that just makes me want to look harder!

It’s possible that I’ve only really been in love once. For five years I was very much in love with a man who had all the qualities that my ex did not. I had entered into that relationship just six months after the divorce. Maybe the pain and confusion I am feeling now, finally single for the last year and a half, is all delayed processing.

I hate to admit that I am one of those dreaded women who just cannot be happily single. That can’t be me, can it? As a writer, I treasure alone time. I love my family and friends, and I don’t feel like I have to have a man by my side at all times. But I blossomed in so many ways after my marriage ended – emotionally, physically, sexually, and spiritually – and I want to share that with someone. At present I am traveling. I am learning more about life, about the world and my place in it. Maybe it’s not the time to meet someone special. Maybe it is the time to grow into the person who will be ready for the man who finally deserves me.

It’s difficult to be alone. It’s difficult to have a heart and soul that longs for a partner in life and feels empty without someone to share everything with. But I know I have to learn to be strong. I have to believe that love will be waiting for me, finally, when I am truly ready for it.

There are times when I despair, feeling that it is all an illusion and that I have nothing left in this life to look forward to. And that if there are good things to be had, that they will ring hollow because I will have no one to share them with. I sometimes fear that God – or the Powers That Be, whatever one might call them – is a cruel jokester, setting me up for wanting something in my life that I will never ever have and then watching me chase my tail so he can sit and laugh at me.

But sometimes I think I am just not ready, and that I shouldn’t compare my situation to someone else’s and I need to have faith. In my strong moments I know that I will be a hundred times happier when I finally find someone who can be a true partner to me than to have settled for something that isn’t right for me. In my weak moments….. well, that’s another story.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So yoga, in another language, should be able to deliver all the things it delivers at home. Right?

Since I am staying in Madrid for a while, I decided to sample one of the Bikram studios here. My Spanish is not perfect; it has to be slow so I understand, and everyone knows that the dialog in Bikram is rapid-fire, and it is even more so in Spanish!

The advantage of a scripted dialog and series of poses that never changes is that you already know what to do, even if you don’t understand every word. And you can always look at other students if you are confused. Instead of focusing on what the teacher is saying, I focused on my body and what I was feeling. I caught words that I knew and words that, because of the context, taught me new vocabulary.

Listening to your body, focusing on your breathing, and mindfully keeping track of the sequence makes for a different class. I am the first to admit that I have a wandering mind. I have gone into rabbit when it’s time for half-tortoise. I have rehearsed conversations, made shopping lists, wrote a resignation letter, and packed a suitcase. All in my head and all during yoga classes. But in this class I was able to focus the whole time! Okay, almost the whole time. And whether it was the language barrier or the fact that I haven’t practiced regularly (see: why the hell am I not doing yoga article), I was on-task.

I limped down the stairs and dragged myself through the shower. (It’s a nice spacious studio and facilities, by the way!)

“Estoy muerto!” I told the teacher afterwards. (“I’m dead!”) She smiled and asked if I would be back.

Of course I will. And if I have an opportunity to travel to other places where Bikram is spoken, in French, German, Russian, Chinese, -whatever!- I will try it again.

(previously published in elephantjournal

I was propositioned yesterday. And I love men – 99% of them – (even when it is purely for their entertainment value), so I was flattered. This man works construction for the host I am staying with in Spain, while I am here working at the horse barn. We met briefly yesterday and I was telling him about my trip and about my writing.

“I’m writing about my travels in Spain,” I told him. “But sometimes I fear my book will be boring, because I am not having that many adventures.”

He gave me the look.(Ladies, you know exactly the one I mean!) “What kind of adventures are you looking for?” he asked. He went on to explain how he is not getting along with his live-in girlfriend, the unmarried version of “my wife doesn’t understand me and we no longer have sex”, I suppose. He asked for my phone number and asked if we could get together that evening. Now, mind you, there were no pretenses. He did not offer to wine and dine me and take me somewhere enchanting to trip the light fantastic. Nope. This was just about getting laid.

My first inclination was to say yes. Okay. Why not? (Believe me, my therapist and I are working hard on this one!) But then I thought,

“What’s in it for me?”

Flashback three paragraphs to my title: Sex is a Team Sport. I truly believe this. I am a girl who doesn’t pay much attention to sports, but I’ve seen enough to know that those guys (and girls) work hard to cooperate together, get the ball in the net, across the line, sneak the puck past the goalie, etc. I think sex is like this. There are only two on the team, but unless you know how your teammate throws, catches, blocks, or whatever, it is going to be tough to score. And the best teams have players who work in synchronicity to make the goal.

Now, back to sex. For a man, it’s easy: put the rocket in the socket and – boom – off it goes! Well, how in the world is that good sex for the woman? Answer: it’s not! And furthermore, he doesn’t care, because he really doesn’t care about her. For some men, like one of my dearest friends, pleasing women is an art. His score is based on how many times he can get a big “O” from his partner, whether she is a one-nighter or a long term love. But most men are not like this. So why would I, a woman who can appreciate the art (and sport) of sex when it’s done properly, say yes to someone who is offering nothing more than a quickie and a goodbye?

After a bit of reflection, I told my potential conquest no thanks. “Creo que no vale la pena.” (I don’t think it is worth the trouble.)

He shook his head, disappointed. “Your Spanish is pretty good,” he commented.

I went off with a smile to clean the stables.

PS – Before you say this essay seems redundant (see “Sex With A Moving Object”, published earlier this summer) please note that this is actually a follow-up to that essay. I had many people- mostly male – ask me “why not just have a fling on vacation?” This is my response!

The red earth, the colorful traditional dress, the persistent vendors and beggars – Marrakech is a city truly of another world!

I arrived here Saturday, went into the main square Sunday night to participate in the madness there, to a Berber flea market and village on Monday, and last night to an elaborate dinner and show at a palace-like setting that was like something out of Arabian Nights. Today, I will lounge by the pool in the Moroccan sun and write about some of my experiences: yes, finally! A true travel blog entry!

I am lucky to be staying in a large condo-style apartment with air conditioning. (Lucky because I was sick for two days and that would have been unbearable in one of the tiny rat-hole hostels I have been frequenting lately!) Nearby is a restaurant with friendly waiters, where the manager calls me “sweetheart” and brought me a flower when I came in, feverish, to sip tea.

Now that I am back in my usual form (insert big smile) I spent a day exploring the winding streets of the famous Souks: local markets where you can buy pottery, jewelry, leather good, spices, wood crafts, and many other wonderful things. The local hobby is bargaining: they begin with a price (often written out or punched into a calculator for clods like me whose French amounts to not much more than “Bon jour!”), and you counter with a price that you think you would like to pay – or a little lower, to leave room to haggle. From there it continues until you come to an agreement. Yesterday I was like a kid in a candy store; I lifted my previous “shopping embargo”, withdrew 1000 Dirham from the ATM (about $120) and gleefully bargained and spent and laughed and carried an over-stuffed tote through the streets with reckless abandon!

(One thing I feel obligated to mention is that one is always accosted by beggars and people wanting money. I’m sure this is typical of many tourist destinations where the locals are poor. There is always a hand extended. Any time you take a picture of someone, their hand goes out. You meet a new “friend” who gives you advice or directions, “Please sister, can you help me with some money?” I find it disheartening, but unavoidable.)

After shopping I ate with my new Malaysian friend at a local restaurant, one a cab driver took us to. Cab fares are dirt cheap here; we spent ten Dirham, a bit more than a dollar, to go to the restaurant. Everybody washes each other’s back: the cab driver walked us in and presented us like a prize and I’m sure he walked away with a “bonus” from the restaurant manager for bringing us in. When you enter this place you see a fountain strewn with rose petals. Colorful petals also decorate the tables. A duo of Berber musicians plays in the center: men in robes playing traditional instruments like the rebab, a one-stringed apparatus played with a curved bow.

We ordered a fixed-price lunch to share (120 Dirham) and received a wonderful “Moroccan salad”, a beautiful platter of delights displayed on lettuce leaf petals, with the ubiquitous salty green and black olives in the center. There was a type of potato salad, a stewed eggplant one (my favorite!), a salsa-like salad with tomato and onion, and one with red and green peppers. We were served round loaves of crusty bread, and the terra cotta tagine (typical Moroccan cone-shaped cooking dish) contained beef cooked with lemon and spices. I ordered a cold local beer. Perfect! We lounged on the pillows of the banquet – there are always pillows! – and awaited our dessert, a plate of melon and grapes. As I drank my second beer and sucked the sweet grape juice from my fingers, I noticed a sign directly across the street: Hammam. I bid my friend “au revoir” and go to check it out.

A hammam is something I have been wanting to try. The word “hammam” means spreader of warmth. This traditional version of a Turkish bath and massage is on the Must-Do list in Marrakech. I chose a combination of hammam (steam bath and scrub), clay body wrap, and massage with special oils. The whole treatment took about an hour. I relaxed in the reception area and they brought me tea. The whole room was pink: pink couches with pink pillows (one, inexplicably, has Betty Boop on it!), pink paintings of typical arched doorways in the markets and robed men walking, all with a pink cast of light upon them, and even a pink “stained glass” (plastic) window bathing the reception area in rosy glow.

I undressed and was given a paper bikini bottom (very un-sexy!) to wear. I walked half-naked to the steam bath area, where the attendant unrolled a mat on a marble slab of a table and asked me to lie down. She took bowls of warm water and doused my body, then washed me with black soap. She put a stiff exfoliating mitt on her hand and scrubbed my entire body, then rinsed me with more bowls of water. After this, she brought in a bowl of watery mud and covered me with a terra-cotta-ish coating. I lay in the steamy room while, covered in mud. When the attendant returned, she gestured for me to stand under the shower, where she washed me off and shampooed my hair with an aromatic almond-honey shampoo. This brings up childhood memories of bath-time, my daddy washing my hair (he was quite the scrubber!) and I am purring, a contented and clean kitty. The attendant helped me into a terrycloth robe, and once outside the steam bath, I stepped into slippers and proceed into the massage cubicles. The massage is nice (of course!) with golden aromatic oils kneaded into my body. Hopefully, dear reader, you have had massages before, so I will not go on with this description. In summary, though, it was a wonderful experience and well worth 250 Dirham.

In the evening, I got ready for “Fantazia”, the dinner show with an Arabian horse display for entertainment. This is arranged by the hotel, and they shuttled us out to the location, which is about twenty minutes outside of town. We unloaded and walk toward the palace-like structure. A double line of men on horseback pose regally for pictures with the throngs of attendees (us) and then extend their hands for money. At the door of the place is a huge cobra fountain, two stories high! – with glowing eyes. Inside there are displays of traditional wedding dress from different parts of Morocco. This is set within a labyrinth of man-made red caves, complete with stalactites and stalagmites, which made me laugh. It was just like Casa Bonita! And in a sense, it is the same idea: a restaurant based on entertainment. Dinner was served in huge, open air tents with wandering musicians and singers banding loudly on drums walking through the restaurant as we ate Moroccan soup, roast lamb, couscous, and fruit. I fed the wandering cat and stashed some mandarins in my bag for later.

After dinner the show was a spectacular event: a belly dancer gyrating on a float, horseman doing acrobatics as their Arabian steeds cantered in circles around the arena, a magic carpet flying overhead, and ending with fireworks.

Today, I feel fortunate to bask in the sun by our quiet pool. Tonight I will head out into the man square – a veritable zoo of wandering tourists, vendors, beggars, monkey-handlers, snake charmers, fresh-air restaurants in rows, competing for each and every customer, musicians…. Almost anything you can think of. The souks at night are supposed to be wild, as well. I guess I will find out!

Reporting to you from colorful Marrkech  (and on my way to Fez, Rabat, and the famous Casablanca!) – Catnip