Poverty and an Announcement

Most of you may not know this, but as you all know, this mortgage is eating my lunch. Every afternoon, my mortgage leans over my shoulder and says, "You gonna finish that?" and before I can say, "Yes, I am", it's already speared what I was about to eat with its fork and shoved it in its gaping maw, and it chews on it with cheeks puffing out, looking at me the whole time with this self-satisfied grin on its face, while my eyes fill up with tears of frustration and helplessness and hunger.

In terms of numbers rather than strained metaphors, my mortgage is about 150% of what I was paying in rent at my last apartment. Which is why I've cut back to the utter lack of social life that I have now.

Now I could have allowed myself more money any time I wanted to. All I had to do was ask the feddle gubbmunt to withhold less money out of my paycheck. Since I'll get to take advantage of that rad mortgage deduction, and closing cost deductions, and a whole bunch of other things, I'll end up owing quite a bit less in taxes than I did last year.

But I didn't do that. I instead tightened the belt. Because I wanted to save money. Now, before anyone says otherwise, yes, I know that saving money in the form of overpaying in taxes is probably the most stupid way I could go about saving money. But unlike other forms of savings, like a savings account, a sock under the bed, a money market fund, this form of saving money will actually work. That money is gone for good and I can't get it back until next spring, no matter how much I think I need it. Whereas every other kind of savings I've ever tried, I always decide that I need the money right now, and it gets spent.

So, I have a pile of money coming to me next spring. And with this money, me and the Cub are going on a trip. And as of this weekend, we now know where we're going. The plan was, I would suggest three locations, and the Cub would suggest three locations, and we'd draw a name out of a hat.

So, out of the choices of Turkey, India, and Spain/Morocco (J's choices) and Australia, Japan, and Chile (the Cub's choices), we drew... [drumroll] Spain and Morocco!

This is where you, my loyal reader(s) come in.

I don't know crap about crap about Spain or Morocco. I mean, other than generic stuff, like history, chief export, etc. What I don't know is important stuff, like what's something to do with a twelve year old in tow in Spain and Morocco? (Obviously the 12 year old eliminates the primary recreation activity in Morocco, but I'm sure there are other things to do.) Maybe stuff other than what I might read in Lonely Planet. And does anyone know of a couch or floor we could sleep on?

This is what the comments are there for, so get to it people. Even if it's to say, "I don't know crap either, but I hear it's nice over there." We'll be there a week or so. Any help is always appreciated.