Kittens in Casablanca

I have sorely neglected my blog over the holidays. Come the New Year, I will be back to regularly scheduled blogging. Partly because the holidays will be over, and partly because I will be back in France with British guy and it's not going to take too long before he drags me on some blog-worthy adventure. I think he signed me up for a ski mountaineering race. I can't be sure. I try not to think about these things till it's too late to back out.

Speaking of adventures with British guy, here are a few photos of kittens in Casablanca to tide you over till next year.

We arrived in Casablanca after a night spent in El-Jadida. Happily, our hotel (unlike the previous night) was not infested with roaches. British guy checked while I hovered in the background ready to make a quick getaway if any were found. It was a nice hotel, if not strangely decorated. The doors to all the rooms were padded on both sides.

But the breakfast was good (always a plus in my book) and we had a balcony overlooking a bike repair shop. While watching the man tinker with one of the bikes, we suddenly noticed that the bikes were covered with...kittens.

With their mother hovering nearby, the kittens were having a field day bounding from the handlebars of one bike to the basket of another. 

See the one on the handlebars investigating everything? That's British guy. 

See the one safely sleeping on the mud guard of the back tire? That's me. 

Now, see the girl locked out of the hotel room because British guy thought it would be funny to lock her out on the balcony while she was watching kittens? That's me.

I'll be back to more regular posting soon.

In the meantime, here are some guest posts I did for The Purple Passport.

Café du Livre (Marrakech, Morocco)

Meze-merized in Istanbul (Istanbul, Turkey)

Soaking in the Flavors at Burma Superstar (San Francisco, California)

My favorite café in Montpellier

This past week British guy and I went down to Montpellier to visit his good friend, the Doctor. He has a name, but we call him the Doctor because...well, because he is a doctor.

At any rate, British guy was taking a two-day course so I spent my time wandering around and obsessively checking Twitter. I spotted Café Latitude while running errands with the Doctor and decided to spend the following morning there so I could scope out the place and catch up on some writing.

Café Latitude

I'm a sucker for a good café. I always have been. I blame my Northern California upbringing. In Northern California we take our coffee and our cafés very seriously. Just ask a group of resident San Franciscans for their opinion on the best café in town (Philz. In the Mission.). You'll be sure to incite a lively debate. Maybe some fist-fighting.

So I appreciate a good café, and as soon as I walked past Café Latitude, I knew it was going to be good. I got that warm, fuzzy feeling. (What? You guys don't get that when you find a nice place to have a cup of coffee?)

Café Latitude is the café that writers dream of. Open, airy, rustic. It's quiet and calm, but not without its local characters swinging by for their morning coffee and a political debate. As soon as I walk through the door I fall in love with the place. I track down the barista, order my café crème, grab a seat by the window and sit for two hours. I write. I stare out the window. I write some more. A man sits down next to me. "Bonjour," he says with a smile as he flicks open his newspaper. A couple sitting on the patio outside are sipping rosé as the morning sunshine filters through the trees. I glance at the clock. 11:00 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. I love France.

Here are a few photos.

The address is: 1 rue Ste-Croix. It's around the corner from the Cathedral, and just down the street from Don Peppino's. (One of the Doctor's favorite pizza joints in Montpellier. I haven't been, but he swears by it.) Basically if you find yourself in Montpellier and you don't go to Café Latitude, you will regret it. Go. We need more people in the world drinking rosé at 11:00 am. I should probably insert a "drink responsibly" caption here somewhere...

And speaking of cafés, check out my write-up of Stars & Bucks in Ramallah, West Bank on The Purple Passport. I'm a finalist in the Purple Passport writing contest. Voting starts soon...I'm just sayin'