This morning I discovered Google Street View. It' 8:07 a.m. and for the last 30 minutes I've been sitting at the computer, jaw slack and amazed while I cruise through the streets of downtown Juneau, Alaska. I've already snooped around Miami, and I am about to head to Alabama, because I've never seen it before and don't even have any pre-conceived notions about what Alabama looks like.

It happened a few days ago. In the morning, while I was tearing through my closet, pulling out fistfuls of T-shirts and trying ton pair after pair of jeans, flinging scarves, shoes, belts all over my bedroom the thought entered my brain: I have nothing to wear! I should buy something new.

Now comes the part where I have to start practicing self-restraint. Up until now this Challenge has been easy, but suddenly, as if I were a light bulb happily turned off, I have been very much switched on...

Notes on a Shopping Mall at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday

I have just been to the twilight zone and back, and it is called the mall at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday.

A coworker and I were sent to the Apple store in the local mall so we could begin some training on our shiny new MacBook Pros, and our class began at 8 a.m. There is a surprising amount of activity in a shopping mall at 8 a.m., and it is an especially curious sight for a girl who is committed to not shopping. I think it strengthened my resolve while I do this Challenge (although so far the Challenge as been quite easy for me since all my time is taken up with work, Spouse and friends).

At 8 a.m. the light coming through the mall skylights is pale blue and reflects off of the shiny white marble floors. Construction workers (who have already been up and working for hours) trot back and forth with tools and clatter around while installing up a new facade on the Williams-Sonoma store. Two teenage boys in hard hats clean windows with squeegees. Senior Citizens, wearing sweats, Keds, and "walk for life" name tags stroll in small groups around the halls. Puffy-eyed young mothers with strollers and toddlers and coffee cups in hand sit on benches, staring bleakly into space. Teenagers hang out in front of the coffee stand, jittery and casting longing, hormone-filled glances at each other. This is all at 8 a.m.!

The Apple store was bustling with adults sitting on tall barstools, watching their instructors. It was cozy and quiet, and I was happy to sit and concentrate on learning the many-faces of Keynote for an hour and a half. After our class was over, we walked out at about 9:45 a.m. Shops were open, people were shopping. The halls had now filled with more mothers pushing strollers and dragging toddlers, looking sleepy, looking bored. My coworker and I discussed the strangeness of the mall at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday in June. He was even more baffled than me...

Challenged

So far the Challenge is going well. I've been at it for a few days and I have had fewer shopping urges than I thought I would, probably due to the fact that I have kept busy and not become bored. My best buddy Katie is joining me, and her enthusiastic support has been an enormous help, although I must say, I think she is completely insane. Amongst her Challenges she included quitting beer. QUITTING BEER! I think that's taking it a little too far. Since this will undoubtedly reduce her quality of life and I feel bad for her I told her I would...cut back on beer. For emotional support.

I had a Red Hook summer ale with dinner last night. Delicious. Fortunately, I don't think she reads my blog very often.

I have made my own lunch and taken it to work every so far this week. The experience is not rewarding, especially at 7 a.m. when I had trying to rub sleep out of my eyes and spoon stinky tuna fish on my sandwich before showering, but at least it's inexpensive and I can carry the Spouse's tin spaceship lunch box to work.

I have also made a good effort to cook dinner, and in fact, since I won't be shopping while the Spouse is working late tomorrow I will be having friends over for some comfort food and conversation.

So far it's working out quite well!

Here is my inspired lists of things that make me happy this morning (in no particular order and for no particular reason):
1. "Au Fond Du Temple Saint" from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers (Les Pecheurs de Perles)
2. Homemade yogurt with honey
3. Ripe tomatoes (I appreciate even more since I can't eat them until the salmonella scare is over)
4. Stress-free work days
5. Warm sweaters for record cold and wet June days (second coldest June in our state history!)
6. Good conversation with the Spouse

Don't ask me why I have decided to do this - it certainly wasn't anything that I heard recently on the radio or read in a magazine or on the internet, but I want to try something called The Challenge, or Buy Nothing Day...except I am going to try it out for a few months. Some people do it for 6 months, some for an entire year. I think I shall try it until August and see what happens. Parameters: I will still purchase toiletries (only necessary ones like toothpaste and soap, etc.), socks and underwear from stores, and, of course, food. Since we are also in the middle of a remodel, and currently have holes in our chipped-painted drywall and jagged gaps in our stained carpet that reveal the cement underneath, I need a dispensation from materials for our home improvement, but they will be construction-related only.

What can I purchase? Second-hand only. If I want to read a book I will get off of my backside and walk to the library, two blocks away, that I have never used. If I need a new shirt I can buy one at Value Village as a need instead of a novelty. Same goes for useless trinkets, which I have started acquiring in number. The Spouse, who chases the trinkets away like they are rodents or cockroaches, is very excited about my challenge, although he loftily declared that he doesn't need such frivolous games because he is already an idea non-consumer. I decided to keep my mouth shut about the two Xboxes in our living room, although I couldn't' help taking a jab at the three-foot tall carpet-dryer that is currently clogging up our storage unit.

I'll post occasionally about my progress/lack of progress. If anyone has tried and failed, tried and succeeded, or thinks this is crazy, I'd like to hear about it!!

The boat ride from Tarifa, Spain, to Tanger, Morocco only takes about 30 minutes. 30 minutes is enough time to cook a few cups of white rice, or to watch a sitcomm, or to have your teeth cleaned at the dentists. But between Tarifa and Tanger 30 minutes is enough time to travel from one world into a completely different one.

The Spouse and I planned to hire a guide when we arrived in Morocco, but could never agree on what exactly we were looking for (I was anti-guide, he was pro-guide). We never actually hired one, but probably just because we were too timid. Our taxi took us to the hotel that I had emailed the night before (the never received the email) and since the room wasn´t ready we left our bags and wandered the streets.

Although Tanger is 30 minutes directly south of Spain, it is in a more reasonable time zone, and is thus two hours behind Tarifa. When we hit the streets it was 8 a.m. on Friday, the holy day, and very little was happening. We struck out for the Medina, which was quite close to where we were staying. As we walked down the steps into the market area just outside the grand socco familiar scents and sounds came to me - things that I hadn´t experienced since I was living in Asia. The market smelled like raw meat - new and old - and dust, and rotting vegetables and overripe fruit, sweat, tumeric, paprika, urine, and more dust. Men were unloading trucks of live chickens, boxes of apricots, crates of socks and electronics and slippers and silver jewelry. All along the market were coffee houses with dim florescent lights and rusty tables. Everywhere there was activity, noise, and chaos.

When we reached the grand socco, which is relly just a roundabout with a fountain, a small old man with only a few teeth and a wool cap on his head kindly offered in broken English to be our guide. In his hand he held a tin cup and two fresh, still-bleeding ckicken feet. We said no as politely as we could several dozen times until he left and walked through the arched gate into the Medina.

The streets in the Medina are low and narrow. The buildings overhang some of the small alleys, so they are less like streets and more like tunnels. This makes sense considering the heat, but since there were no maps of the medina available at the tourist office and our guide book shows the heart of the old town as a blank spot, they can be a little frightening when one is lost in the evening, and we were lost often. We wandered for several hours, visited a museum, and then tried to find a place to eat, which proved to be our biggest challenge.

On almost every block there were large, dimly lit coffee shops with men drinking cups of coffee or strong, minty tea. The men sat in these shops and watched the world go past. They also watched me go past, and it was uncomfortable and menacing. Jordan was hungry but I refused to go inside one of those rooms full of stares, and I was convinced that they would refuse to let me inside if I tried. We searched for a restaurant that had another woman sitting in it but never found one. Eventually, we discovered a women´s shelter with a restaurant inside. The courtyard was packed full of laughing, chattering French men and women, with their heads uncovered, enjoying each other´s company and good conversation. Quite different from the leering men in the street cafes. We ate tagines full of couscous, chicken, and steamed vegetables, scented with raisins and cinnamon.

I could write more but that would make this post too long. I could talk about the fact that the shadows were full of skinny, pathetic cats and kitens...but no dogs. I could write about the little boy with sad eyes who the Spouse and I saw being beaten by two older men in the street, or about the long stretch of beach where families strolled slowly in the evening, or the Moroccan man with the Brooklyn accent who pestered us for blocks offering us evening from restaurant advice to drugs, or about how the white buildings turn tangering and purple when the sun sets in the evenings.

We were very anxious to leave Morocco the next morning, and were on the first boat away. We understand that Tangier is the armpit of Morocco - a dirty, dangerous, unpleasant border town. We were told that the further you go intot he country the more wonderful it gets, which I believe. I don´t judge the country or the people on my one-day experience. We simply didn´t have time to do those things, and so instead we made our way back to Tarifa where, since I hadn´t eaten any food after the women´s shelter the previous morning, we immediately headed for a restaurant, and watched men and women and children all enjoying each other´s company with totally new eyes.

After saying goodbye to the lovely couple at the Hostal Luna in Marbella, the Spouse and I hit the road and headed for Tarifa, a little white gem on the very southern tip of Spain. Tarifa reminded me of Pai, in Thailand. It´s laid back, sleepy, and people there know how to have fun. Because the wind tears through the straight of Gibraltar between Spain and Africa, kiteboarders from around the world converge on Tarifa for its persistently breezy weather. Thus the town feels similar to any other surf town, except that unlike most surf town this one stares at Morocco all day and is surrounded by stone walls and monuments paying homage to Guzman el Bueno.

On our first night in Tarifa we saw signs advertising a free flamenco performance. We found the cafe where the band was playing on some steps near a small plaza. The cafe was too full of people for us so we sat outside and listened to a very young male flamenco singer, a small band, and several girls keeping compas (there were no dancers). A small crowd gathered outside on the steps with us, including a rathered tall, disheveled gentleman and his little dog that cowered around with its tail between its legs. The man heard the music, straightened up, lifted his arms in the air, and began to dance. He snaped his fingers and stomped his feet, still in their flip-flop sandals, and he spun so hard that his crack pipe flew from his bag and clattered on the ground. No matter. He put it away with great ceremony, removed his dirty sandals and secured them under his bag so they wouldn´t be stolen, straightened up proudly, and tried again. He wasn´t terribly steady on his feet and eventually stumbled. The crowd laughed and he bowed. The Spouse and I watched for a while and then decided to leave before the police came to investigate the proliforation of drugs that suddenly appeared on all sides of us.

The next day we woke up and dawn and boarded a boat for Morocco.