Travel

Katja and I spend the last few days in Marrakesh. We were looking for a cheap holiday in a not too cold country and Morocco was pretty much the only choice. The flight to Morocco was with Ryan Air. I already knew how much I hate them, but they confirmed it again. We stayed at a small hotel Riad Alksar in the Medina. A Riad is a house with a courtyard and the rooms build around it. It doesn’t have any large windows to the outside. The area of the hotel is pretty poor with the exception of a handful of similar hotels. The hotel has eight rooms and each of these would usually house a family. Our host was very nice and the hotel clean and with a minimal design. One of the perks is the roof terrace, which we used a lot to chill and for breakfast. Because we didn’t have too much time, we spend most of it shopping in the Souks, visiting a few of the palaces and enjoying the food market at night. The food was very good and I can only recommend it to everyone. The most amazing thing was how friendly everyone is in Marrakesh. You get hassled once in a while by people trying to sell you various rubbish, but they leave you alone after you said “no” twice. Everyone was helpful and I never felt like I should have to worry about pick pockets or similar. Very different from the situation in Barcelona. But pictures speak more than a thousand words, so have a look…

One of the traditions of celebrating the New Year (besides getting drunk and making a fool of yourself) are of course the resolutions for the next twelve months. So here are mine: loose weight as a rule this always have to come first and I don’t want to be the one breaking it. As I think I am eating healthy enough and I am probably not going to be able to change much of it this has to be achieved with more exercise, so more cycling and the gym. I will also reduce the amount of alcohol I consume. use my motorcycle more I haven’t used it at all in 2008, which is a pity. Every time I do use it I get a smile on my face. It also means that it will be better maintained and keep the traffic wardens happy, which towed Cats scooter because it was not moved for eight days. It doesn’t make much sense to use it in Barcelona though, so I will have to do some weekend trips. sort out my music collection I already started deleting all my mp3s where I don’t know the origin and started ripping all my CDs again. Next step will be the organising the mp3s I got through podcasts or from mix bootlegs. And the last will be digitizing my audio tapes, which will probably take the rest of the year. travel somewhere new Two trips are already planned to Laax and Amsterdam, but these are old favourites and I want to see some new places. Maybe a motorcycle trip to the south of France or Italy or a city break to somewhere else in Europe. do more programming As with the motorcycle this always brings a smile to my face and I just don’t do it enough. I have started some small projects at home now and I am trying to get more in Fedora, though my first simple package submission is going extremely slow. I also have to spend more time on Python to learn faster. I think five resolutions are probably enough, maybe one last one: I should use this blog more often.