Author: Natasha Regehr (Page 3 of 12)

Salaam!

June 25, 2019 / Natasha Regehr / 0 Comments

This boy.

He has redeemed this place for me.

A few weeks ago I had an unsavoury experience just outside my front door, which I then conflated with every other unsavoury experience I’ve ever had here, resulting in the uncomfortable feeling that Morocco and I have utterly failed each other. I wrote an eloquent, yet unpublishable blog post about the experience, and then started packing my bags for Canada.

And then I met this boy, and the man I assume to be his father.I was about 350 km from the mayhem of Casablanca in a perfectly-sized city called Tetouan. My cousin recommended it to me with the declaration that “there are few tourists for no good reason.” I had hoped to spend my final long weekend abroad in France, but when my plans to visit a friend fell through, I went against my own good judgment and booked a solo trip around the North of Morocco instead. No tour guide. No travel buddies. No guarantee. Just one last hurrah in this country that has hosted and haunted me for the last four years.

As intrepid as I am when jumping out of planes and zip-lining through the Alps, I was nervous about travelling alone in Morocco. But taking the taxi, the train, and the bus to Tetouan was easy. Easier than boarding a bus in Slovenia, that’s for sure. Finding my way to my riad in the ancient medina was also easy. Some guy walked me right to the entrance, without expecting compensation. I entered my darling blue room on the top floor and had a nap. Easy.

Then I went to the guy at the front desk and said, “I live in Casablanca. I am here to experience the opposite. I want to go for a walk in a peaceful, beautiful place. Where should I go?”

He wrote this word on a piece of paper, and I’m so glad he did. Partly because I could neither pronounce nor describe it, but mostly because it was where I began liking Morocco again.

Dear Mr. Ford

June 2, 2019 / Natasha Regehr / 0 Comments

The Honourable Doug Ford
Premier of the Province of Ontario
Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A1

May 31, 2019

Dear Mr. Ford,

I am writing in response to your request for feedback regarding your proposed changes to class sizes, as detailed in your “Class Size Consultation Guide” (March, 2019).

To begin, I thank you for providing the information in this guide and for inviting feedback from those you refer to alternately as “stakeholders” and “partners.” I wonder, however, exactly how you define these terms, and what they say about your priorities in this process. Who are your “stakeholders”? Who stands to benefit from the decisions outlined in this document? Whose opinions hold the most weight? Similarly, who are your “partners”? With whom are you demonstrating a cooperative stance in this discussion? We will return to these questions throughout my response to the Consultation Guide, as they are crucial to identifying the intentions underlying this policy.

Stone Soup: A Traveler’s Fare

May 17, 2019 / Natasha Regehr / 0 Comments

Do you know the story of Stone Soup? It’s a story of deception and manipulation, cleverly disguised as “sharing.” I had a little taste of it a few weeks ago on my return trip from Slovenia, and it’s a bitter brew indeed.

I didn’t miss the bus. The bus missed me. And now I am missing hundreds of Euros. It stings. Oh, it stings.

It started the previous week in Casablanca, when I decided to play it safe and reserve a 20-Euro bus from the airport in Venice to take me to my final destination in Ljubljana, Slovenia. All through the convenience of online booking. Only I never got a receipt. Or a confirmation of payment. Or a ticket. Nothing. Of course my credit card was still charged. Of course I immediately emailed the bus company. Of course I got no response.

When I landed in Venice the next day I immediately hooked myself up intravenously to the airport wifi, only to check my email and receive a message saying “Please send us your phone number. The bus driver does not have your name on his list.” Of course I responded immediately. Of course I received no further response. None. I lost a Euro to an Italian pay phone trying to dial a number that turned out to be out of service. I asked every possible person at the airport who might be able to direct me to the bus in question. No one had heard of it. No one.

I should have read the reviews…
The phantom bus stop

I stood in the rain for an hour waiting for the phantom bus that never came. Without an umbrella. And then I went inside and booked a second bus with another company. Waited in the airport for another three hours. Boarded the bus without incident, and arrived four hours later in Ljubljana, soaking wet but otherwise intact.

“It’s only 20 Euros,” I told myself. “It’s just money. Sometimes it goes away like that. You’re safe. You’re here. Get over it.”

I got over it. I economized in other unfortunate ways. I walked around in the rain all week instead of paying for taxis or transit passes. I ate oatmeal in my mini-airbnb instead of staying in hotels and dining in Slovenian restaurants. I did not buy jewelry or pretty porcelain mugs at the market. Only a flimsy orange umbrella and a rainhat. To enhance my daily walks in the rain. Without rainboots.

“Just take a taxi,” my mom said. “Just buy some rainboots,” my mom said. “You can do that, you know.” No I can’t. I can’t.

One week later, I thanked myself for having booked my 5am bus ticket back to Venice with a reliable, reputable bus company that I’d used many times before.

I did not exactly arrive 15 minutes early, as the ticket suggested, but I was five minutes early. I ran. In the rain. Through the puddles. My shoes were flooded. The bus was waiting.

4:55am: “Is this the bus to Venice?”

“No.”

Oh no… did it take the liberty of leaving 15 minutes early?

Another bus pulled up.

4:58am: “Is this the bus to Venice?”

“No.”

A third bus pulled up. One of the many cities flashing on its banner was “Venezia.” Oh, thank heavens.

5:02am: “Is this the bus to Venice?”

“?????” (unintelligible muttering)

“Venice? Marco Polo Airport?”

“No. Next bus.”

“Really? This bus isn’t going to Venice?”

“No. Next bus.”

But the “next bus” never came.

Sometimes Things Go Away Like That

May 13, 2019 / Natasha Regehr / 1 Comment

For those of you who may be dreaming of an exotic life of travel and adventure, here’s a little reality check. Written a few weeks before my recent trip to Slovenia, it chronicles some of the more maddening aspects of international living.

So they’ve imaged a black hole. It’s a staggering accomplishment, according to those who know.

I will now attempt to image for you the black hole that was my Saturday morning.

It started last week when I tried to pay for a few things in dirhams instead of dollars. Big things, like a course at the French Institute and a plane ticket to Venice.

You see, ex-pats in Morocco are limited in the amount of money they can send out of the country in any given year, and as I don’t want to exceed this limit before it’s time to send my last paycheque home, I am trying to make big purchases using the local currency instead of my Canadian credit card whenever possible.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

I tried to pay for two things online using my Moroccan bank card. It took multiple restarts, emails, and pleas for help, and in the end I did not succeed. All went well until the very last of many agonizing steps: I was supposed to receive a security code from the bank by SMS to complete my transaction, but the magic numbers never arrived. (Side note: This is not unusual. SMS confirmations from Uber, Airbnb, and various other enterprises have also been sucked into the black hole before they ever reach my Moroccan phone. This is why I keep using other people’s numbers to do things that should be easy).

In this way, several hours were lost to the void before the day even started. The only thing I could do, I was told, was go to the bank. Any branch. Just go. They would know what to do.

So that was the first thing on my list of things to do this Saturday morning. Then, I could come home, make my two online purchases, and my life would be complete.

BAHAHAHAHAHAH.

Common sense reeled me in. Exactly how likely is it that the bank would be able to instantly remedy this situation? If you’ve dealt with Moroccan banks, you already know the answer: highly unlikely. Therefore, it is always wise to have a back-up plan.

In a normal world, I would return from the bank, try to make the transactions, and then consider alternate courses of action if necessary. But in Morocco, one must be wily. One must think ahead. Way ahead. Kind of like this:

I can pay for the course and the plane ticket in dirhams if I go into the city and pay in person. If I drive to the French Institute at 9am, the traffic will still be bearable. I can then pay for my course, walk the 15 minutes to the Air Arabia office, buy my plane ticket, walk back to the French Institute, and drive home. It should only take a couple hours.

Upon minimal reflection, I decided to make Plan B my Plan A, and make the trip to the bank a side errand. In this way, I would be certain to make my purchases in one day, and getting the annoying SMS issue fixed would just be the icing on the cake.

Step 1: Drive to the French Institute. Check. It wasn’t even awful. Waze actually found me a tolerable route. There was parking. There was no line-up at the cashier. All went eerily well.

Step 2: Walk to the Air Arabia office. Check.

Step 3: Pay for plane ticket.

And here is where the day began to fall apart.

Look After You Leap

May 8, 2019 / Natasha Regehr / 2 Comments

“Are you going to give me instructions?” I asked.

“Yes, of course! But the less you know, the better!” he replied.

I suppose there is some truth in that. It’s best not to think about all the things that could go wrong when you leap from an airplane with 4000 metres of nothingness between you and planet Earth.

Here are the things no one told me before I signed the 14 waivers required to make the jump:

Places

May 3, 2019 / Natasha Regehr / 1 Comment

I love the idea of Places.

There are just so very many of them. Inner Places, outer Places, upper Places, lower Places. Even those of us who collect Places can never hope to find them all.

You think you know a Place, until you see it from the sky. And then you think you know the sky, until you’re falling through it. How the sky feels in an airplane, in a free-fall, in the cushion of a parachute; how the river feels beneath a bridge, beneath a raft, above your head; how a mountain feels, within, without, above, below; there are oh so many Places. Did you know that every Place has a verticality?

The Ides of March

March 16, 2019 / Natasha Regehr / 0 Comments

Here we are in the Ides of March, and it’s the Ides of Ex-pat Angst.

It’s the season where many among us who live abroad have decided to move on, but now find the abyss of the unknown gaping before us.

It was not an abyss six months ago, when horizons were broad and sunny, possibilities were endless, and we were itching for a change. Whether it’s our insatiable wanderlust, or the inescapable pull homeward to our roots, or (in most cases), a combination of the two, we are people on the move, and it’s time to go.

Remote (out of) Control

October 28, 2018 / Natasha Regehr / 1 Comment

Do you like the idea of going to remote places? If not, you will find this piece quite funny. You will roll your eyes a lot, and wonder why I’m like this. You will also spend the next few minutes thanking the merciful heavens that you did not join me on this vacation.

If, however, you do like the idea of going to remote places, this post might be just what you have been waiting for. I, on your behalf, will visit a remote place, and tell you all about it. And then you will laugh, roll your eyes, and think twice about your own vacation preferences. Continue reading

Do Not Enter

September 13, 2018 / Natasha Regehr / 1 Comment

Three years ago I had a disastrous encounter with a maestro who shall not be named. It would not be a stretch to say that there were elements of trauma to that evening. Before you go any further, you should probably read the amusing, but heart-wrenching account of my first audition experience in Casablanca.

Now, three years later, I did the unthinkable thing, and repeated the experience. Same never-ending round-about. Same obscure church entrance. Same ghastly maestro. Same everything. But not the same me. Continue reading

Author: Natasha Regehr (Page 3 of 12)

Salaam!

Like this:

Dear Mr. Ford

Like this:

Stone Soup: A Traveler’s Fare

Like this:

Sometimes Things Go Away Like That

Like this:

Look After You Leap

Like this:

Places

Like this:

The Ides of March

Like this:

Remote (out of) Control

Like this:

Welcome!

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Recent Posts

Pages

Categories

Archives

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Welcome!

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Recent Posts

Pages

Categories

Archives