paris = meh. CAKE in paris = WAHOOOOOOO!!!!!

i had been counting down for months for this.

it was everything i hoped it'd be.

when i bought my ticket, i was planning on going alone, because you see, cake isn't something you share with just anyone. i'd enjoy it more by myself than with someone who didn't appreciate their genius. imagine my surprise when i found out that my new friend, tim (not that tim) did in fact appreciate their genius AND had proven it by seeing them in concert once before. (true, not as hard core as my 4 previous concerts, because jeez, he has a life.) plus, i thought it would be good to have tim along so he could take pictures like this.


we walked around and looked at the sacre coeur, the arc de triomphe, the eiffel tower, notre dame, blah, blah, blah,
(check out my toupee)but really i was just killing time until cake (and also looking for a bathroom). tim loves paris, though, and was very excited to be back. he has a fancy camera.



my camera is not so fancy.

and then FINALLY it was time.


unfortunately, tim forgot his fancy camera so this is all we got.

but boy, was it a great show. they sang all the favorites (let's be honest, most songs are my favorites) plus some from the new album. and it was as exciting as the first time i saw them over 12 years ago. john pleased the crowd with his dry wit. (actually, i'm not sure his dry wit translates into french.) vince tickled our sensibilities with his trumpet solos. i sang and danced my heart out. sweetpagene was one happy little bear cub.

also, i bought this t.i'd wear it every single day if i thought people wouldn't notice.

ps. guess who will be playing in zurich on july 5 and milan on july 6? yes, cake.
and guess who is so lame that she intends to go to both shows? yes, sweetpagene.
and guess who is invited to come along? yes, you. (especially you, robin.)

marrakech makes me sick.

the end of february brought the first trip of the new year...to morocco!

how exotic! how romantic!

the weather was perfect, the food was out of this world, and christine and i giggled our heads off for 3 days (which sarah and julia did not find amusing). and we did something i'd always wanted to do: ride in a hot air balloon! it was rather expensive, but spending currencies of poorer countries is always a bit like playing with monopoly money. 2000 dirham? no problem, it's probably only about 5 bucks! (turns out it was 200. oh well.)

i'm helping the guys set up. they didn't actually solicit my help, but i was too excited to just stand there and watch.

this is how we take off. really. i was practicing my "we're all gonna die!!!!!" face.
i was on the quest for the perfect tajine. no overpriced fancy city tajine for me. mine came from this middle-of-nowhere tajine stand. it has cracks and chips and no pretty paint, but it's the real deal. and it only cost 30 dirham. what a bargain shopper. (read: cheapskate)

i was kind of afraid he'd bite me, but he was the gentlest camel i've ever hugged.

and we got henna tattoos (all that sunshine was messing with my brain.) which were cool for the first day and then after that looked like we had some sort of contagious skin disease. more than once i looked at my arm and panicked, thinking i was dying.

djemaa el fna market in marrakech. there were snake charmers and monkey trainers, but i wasn't about to pay for a picture of them.
we stayed in a beautiful riad, whose romance was heightened by the rose petals on the bed. just the mood i was going for with my 3 female colleagues. when one of our trips fell through, our riad manager, mohammed, offered to take us to the atlas mountains to meet his family on their sheep farm. we went. and we rode some donkeys. and the "ass" jokes were abundant. the ride was so long we wondered if our donkey drivers were taking us off to be sold in the moroccan sex trade. nope, it was just one long ass ride.

right after i snapped this picture, this guy accidentally dumped all that mint tea all over the place.

inside the berber carpet shop where, much to sarah's embarrassment, i asked, "how much for the flying ones?"

oh yeah, and i got food poisoning (at least that's what i tell people, i probably just ate too much.) that was the best part, because all that eating and i didn't put on an ounce. hurray for morocco!