Tag: french

Morocco Meanderings

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Can I live in this photo?

The final destination on my December mileage run was exotic Morocco. Think mosques and markets, merguez and tagines, deserts and beaches. An extra bonus for me was the chance to speak French, which is one of the official languages.

I violated rule #2 on this trip. I city hopped. I only spent two nights in each of Casablanca, Rabat, and Marakech. Here’s how each city treated me:

  • Casablanca – easing in
  • Rabat – spoiled in a Riad
  • Marrakech – marooned in the medina

Casablanca

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The walls of the medina

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Mileage Run

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I got a crazy idea last month. I decided to do a mileage run. I’m going to fly 40,000 miles in December. The goal is to keep my Platinum status, which requires 50,000 miles for the year.

Of course, I’ve already flown 50,000 miles this year. (That’s like flying around the world…twice.) But 10,000 of those miles counted for status. The rest were award tickets. Those tickets gave me luxurious first-class experiences, but they didn’t count toward frequent flyer status.

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In this week’s post:

  • My take on Platinum Status
  • What it takes
  • Where I’m going

Platinum Status

I almost regret ever getting status. Before having it, I just flew where I needed to when I needed to. And I just took whichever airline was cheapest. But now I’m hooked. I limit my search to American Airlines, without ever looking at the other sites. Maybe that’s a good thing. Too much choice often paralyzes people.

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Oktoberfest!

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Need I say more…?

I went to Oktoberfest! The real one in Munich!

I cannot describe how amazing it was to actually get a table on the first day! The energy was crazy. Waiters are carrying 12 liters of beer down the aisles. There’s a brass band in the middle of the tent, and people are all standing on the benches in lederhosen and dirndls.

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Biggest darn tent I’ve ever seen…

I was there with two friends who had never been either, so it was great to see their reactions. We found a table full of Swiss men in their twenties. With lederhosen, of course.

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Italian Language Eccentricities

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No actual meat

Mmm…Chocolate Salami

 

What fascinates me about languages is the complete differentness of them all. As the great linguist Steve Martin once said about the French, “They have a different word for everything!” I have a collector personality, so I want one of each of them. (“Get your first foreign language today, collect all 7,000!”). 1

Highlights (for those who don’t feel like reading the whole thing):

  • Italian doesn’t use the letter s to make things plural.
  • The s is used at the front of a word to mean the opposite.
  • There are 7 ways to say “the.” Seven!
  • Google is working on a brain USB port

It’s not a secret that I’m fluent in French, pretty good in Spanish, and have dabbled in Portuguese, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, Bengali, and Fon. (Yeah, that last one is a real language, spoken by about 2 million people in Africa and 25 returned peace corps volunteers when they’ve had too much to drink and start to reminisce about showing up at an African market and freaking out the locals with their authentic accents.) 2

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