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We house and dog-sat in San Francisco in December for our friends Matt & Galina who took advantage of some work travel to Sydney to explore Australia and New Zealand. We lived in San Francisco for a year (and lived in Oakland as well) and fell in love with the city. It was so much fun to spend a month there. We caught up with lots of old friends – Mark and Leslie, Shannon and Damon, Kenny and Evelyn. We even saw Kathleen and Kelly, Portland friends who moved to Ohio who came to town over Christmas to visit their daughter. Sometimes social media is great for helping find those connections. And we had many visitors. Alex came down from Portland for a few days, then Aaron also came down from Portland. My (step) brother Steve and his partner Kate came through town and we headed over to his cousin Brett’s place for dinner. His parents Dave & Kathy drove in from Ripon to join us. My aunt and uncle, Anne and Brian, drove up from Carmel for a weekend and took us to see A Christmas Carol at the theater. (Thanks!) We were joined by my cousin Katie (their daughter) and her partner Cameron who live in Oakland. Travel is great and rewarding, but it was really nice to spend time with so many good friends and family.

Matt & Galina’s place is near AT&T Park (home of the SF Giants) is on the 16th (and top) floor of the building. It includes a deck and amazing views of the city. Like this:

Turning west for the sunset.

The deck even had a fire pit.

“Our” place was across the street from Mission Creek Park along Mission Bay. We walked the dogs here daily.

We should introduce the dogs! We dog-sat the odd couple of Dexter, an 11 year old Yellow Lab, and Sterling, a 7 year old Toy Poodle. We took them to Baker Beach a few times where they endlessly chased tennis balls up and down the beach.

We set out on a long walk along the bay towards our old North Beach neighborhood passing under the Bay Bridge along the way.

We lived a block from Coit Tower for a year. It’s at the top of Telegraph Hill in the northeast corner of the city. We climbed the steps from the Embarcadero.

Alcatraz.

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A view of the Bay Bridge.

We stopped by Greens Sports bar one day but unfortunately it was closed. We watched a bunch of March Madness games here and made some lifelong friends.

And here’s one of them, Kenny, along with his wife Evelyn. We got together for dinner in North Beach one night and later visited them for lunch in Moss Beach, just south of the city.

Seals on Moss Beach:

I planned ahead and shipped my clubs to Matt & Galina (thanks for storing them!) before we departed for Europe and Africa in September. I used to play a lot at Harding Park when we lived there. It was cheap for residents, though often in fairly rough shape. Since we left, it’s become TPC Harding Park and underwent a massive renovation that primarily removed trees from the property. The course has since hosted a Presidents Cup, one of the WGC Match Plays, and will host the PGA Championship in 2020. I got in a round there as well as several rounds at the renovated Corice Park South Course in Alameda and a round at Wente in Livermore with my friend Wally. Here’s a look across the 18th fairway at Harding Park.

This is San Francisco’s version of a “white” Christmas. (This was actually Christmas Eve.)

And here’s a few more shots from the deck. You can tell I loved the view!

London served as our gateway in and out of Europe for this leg. We’d found a really cheap ($200 each) one-way non-stop from Gatwick to Oakland that we will take on December 4th. We’ll be house and dog-sitting in San Francisco until the end of December.

We’ve been chasing the sun for over a year though Madrid and Barcelona were certainly more autumn-like temperatures. London was cooler yet. And rainy. So we didn’t venture out too much over our long weekend here and don’t have any pictures to show for it.

We did get together for dinner with our friends Tom and Val that we met while on safari in Africa five years ago. We had fun catching up with them over delicious Indian food. We walked to and from dinner that night mostly along the Thames. We went to a pub near Chelsea’s home stadium, Stamford Bridge, and we enjoyed a couple of pints while we watched them beat neighboring Fulham. We saw Bohemian Rhapsody which seemed like an appropriate thing to do in London. I enjoyed the movie – I’ve liked Queen’s music for years – and there were some tears shed towards the end.

We took a high-speed train from Madrid to Barcelona for our last week in Spain. We started exploring with a walk to the beach. We passed the Arc de Triomf.

A hill on the south side of the city gave a nice panoramic view.

The Olympic Stadium is on the hill on the south end of the city.

Some views on the walk down the hill to the city.

There’s a famous fountain here, but it wasn’t on when we went by.

A couple of views from Park Güell, a park designed by Antoni Gaudi.

Speaking of Gaudi, we stopped by for a tour of the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. I suppose you’d call it his masterpiece. Constructions began in 1882, Gaudi took over the design a year later, and worked on it until his death in 1926. The current goal is to complete construction in 2026, 100 years after Gaudi’s death.

I learned that the word gaudy is derived from Gaudi, and I can see why. To me, it’s an awful-looking building on the outside.

But I found the inside stunning. The stained glass windows create incredible lighting, and the columns have an organic quality as they rise from the floor. They’re not all the same size; they’re not symmetrical. It’s like being in a forest.

A few views looking out after an elevator ride up.

We took a day trip from Barcelona to the mountain town of Montserrat, a Benedictine monk retreat. Monserrat is part of the Catalan Pre-Coastal Range. History says that shepherds saw a bright light descending from the sky in 880 AD and decided to build a monestery to capture the spirit.

After a couple of hours of train rides, you have this view just a short walk from the station.

We hiked through the small town and out on a trail winding along the side of the mountains.

We headed back to town and took a funicular up a few hundred more meters in elevation and hiked some more. The landscape and scenery were incredible.

Heading even further up!

Selfie at the top.

Heading back down to town on the funicular.

A final shot from the first change of trains further down the mountain from Montserrat.

Next up, Madrid. We enjoyed a week in the capital of Spain. Our AirBnB was just down the street from a lovely park surrounded by coffee shops and tapas bars.

When you’re walking along and see the Museo del Jamón, a stop is mandatory. And delicious.

The Plaza Mayor had a ton of work being done in preparation for the holidays.

Some impressive government buildings.

A stop for chocolate and churros at San Ginés, established in 1894.

The “center” of Spain is called kilometer 0. All road mileages (kilometerages?) in Spain start here.

A few shots from a beautiful urban park with lovely fall colors.

We took a train to the outskirts of Madrid and hiked through a park to a vantage point of the city.

A couple of evening shots.

Our last day trip in Morocco took us to Chefchaouen. On the drive out, we stopped at a vantage point over Sidi Chahed, a reservoir formed by a dam built in the 1990s.

Our first look at Chefchaoen.

The city is famous for it’s blue painted buildings and walls. We wandered through alleys.

We hiked to a vantage point above the city.

We headed back to the city and wandered through endless alleys full of shops. I may have become addicted to finding the perfect encapsulation in picture form of the beautiful city with my endless photos of the blue buildings. A sampling:

We took a day trip from Fez to see the Berber/Roman ruins at Volubilis. The city dates from the 3rd century BC and became part of the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. It peaked in the 2nd century AD and was essentially the southwest corner of the Roman Empire. The city fell to local tribes around 285 AD and was never retaken. It remained inhabited for another 700 years.

It’s remarkable to me what can survive for nearly 2000 years.

We continued on to the city of Meknes in the afternoon. It had a huge market, but the goods seemed really cheap with endless redundancy. We’d seen much better in Marrekech.

We took a quick flight from Marrakech to Fez to spend a few days there. Fez was surprisingly large, at least to me, and we drove through a modern cityscape on the way from the airport to the Médina (old city).

The gate near the area of the Médina in which we stayed.

On our way to dinner the first night, we had a little trouble finding the restaurant. Amid the concrete buildings and high walls the GPS on the phone can be pretty flakey. A local guy offered to help. And while we were probably less than 100 meters from the restaurant, he took us on a 15-minute walk through the winding alleys of the Médina. I was watching our progress on the phone GPS and could see he was just taking us in a big loop to make it seem like he’d had to take us a long way to find the restaurant. I gave him a little bit of money (I think about a dollar’s worth) and he was insulted and demanded more. Sorry, but we were right around the corner 15 minutes ago. Fortunately, we didn’t see him again.

The restaurant had stunning tile work (and delicious food).

The royal palace:

Though the gate near where we’re staying is also blue, this is Blue Gate.

A colorful street in the Médina:

Fez is famous for its leatherworks and tanneries.

A look out over the many different vats for dyeing the leather different colors.

We took a day trip from Marrekech to the Atlas Mountains. We first stopped for a 45-minute camel ride. The camels kneel for you to get on and stand up once you’re on. The back legs go up first so you’re pitched all the way forward. Hang on! Here’s Leena just after the camel finished standing up.

I had to grab a selfie a few minutes in.

The guides took our cameras for pictures during a stop. Of course, everyone’s checking their own phones/photos. Ha!

Some villages inhabited by Berbers along the road.

After driving for a couple of hours we spied the stunning Atlas Mountains.

We embarked on a waterfall hike.

This is the second-highest peak in Africa. You know the highest, right? (Kilimanjaro.)

OK, the waterfall was a bit underwhelming, but the hike was lovely.

Bonus waterfall tumbling across the dirt road we took down.

We stopped for a late lunch in this Berber village before driving back to Marrakech.

We’d talked about getting to Morocco on this leg and we found a cheap flight from Seville to Marrakech a few weeks back so we booked it.

Marrakech, the “red city”, is amazing. It’s a lot like cities in Asia with its narrow streets, endless markets, and crowds of people walking, riding motorbikes, pushing carts of goods, and sometimes even walking donkeys who are towing even larger carts of goods. Many of the streets are covered with tarps or trellises. Some are elaborate; some are makeshift. It provides shade to keep things cooler in the summer heat. It often feels like you’re walking through a tunnel.

The vibe is more relaxed that some of the Asian markets I’ve been through. Perhaps I’m just getting used to it. Shop owners are rarely aggressive with their pitches and almost always smile and let you move on after a simple “no thank you.” The markets have really wonderful and high-quality artisan goods. The leather work is great:  bags, wallets, belts, “poufs” (ottomans and/or small stools), and so on. The tin work that goes into lamps is beautiful. There are colorful and fragrant spice shops. There are areas with fruit stands and juices, plenty of street grills, sections with endless olives. There are lots and lots of clothes, most of them traditional Moroccan styles. Sure, there are a few with obvious brand counterfeits and T-shirts with silly sayings, but they’re not nearly as common as I’ve seen elsewhere.

The central area of Marrakech is the Medina, and it opens to a large square. You learn to avoid the men with snakes (the snakes are defanged). They charge money if you engage. You also need to avoid the men with monkeys. They’ve trained the monkeys to jump on your shoulder and not get off until you give them money. Many of the restaurants have upper-floor terraces to let you take in the view; very few buildings in Marrakech are more than three stories high.

Our flight from Seville arrived, and the flight crew announced the arrival as 22:20. Then they “corrected” themselves and said it was 21:20. The clocks in the airport, however, agreed with 22:20. Our phones updated to 21:20. A bit confusing! We found our ride after a two-hour line through immigration. We stayed in a Riad near the Medina. It’s a family home arranged around a small central courtyard and fountain. Breakfast was included each day between 9 and 11. We went down the next morning at 9:45 and learned that it was really 10:45. At least we didn’t miss breakfast! What’s going on with the time? Apparently, daylight savings time had started a few days earlier, but the government decided at the last minute (or perhaps after a few days of it) NOT to make the change. Software updates to our phones over the next couple of days gave us the “correct” time.

OK, how about some pictures? Spices:

Olives! We bought a medium jar for about two dollars. Green olives with harissa.

About to enjoy freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.

We toured the Secret Garden, a restored Islamic Garden hidden behind the walls of the Medina. The pictures of the restoration process were incredible. The mature palms are the only plants left from when the restoration started in 2011. The garden’s original water system was fully restored, including the fabrication of sections of terra cotta pipe. The garden opened after the restoration in 2016.

Wood carving.

The ceiling of the central gazebo.

We toured El Badi Palace, built in the 16th century by a Sultan.

Oh, check out Leena in the dress she bought at a shop in the Medina. It was a bit long, but lucky us, a tailor’s shop was right outside the door of our Riad. We’d been exchanging smiles and waves as we came and went with the owner. He happily hemmed the dress for just a few dollars and said that it was nice quality.

The Palace opens to a large courtyard with several main water features and gardens sunk in each corner.

A view from the Palace terrace.