This is, apparently, my penultimate full day of smoking - so I've endeavoured to make sure my lungs are fully charged for the onslaught that will be giving up on Tuesday.

Hm.

Up relatively early and out and about doing a few more tourist bits and pieces. We took in one of the old palaces which was doubtless wonderful in its prime but has sadly been neglected a little bit. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful sight and my imagination managed to gloss over most of the decay.

On day five of commando, Hilde found a place to have laundry done so we've bagged everything up and she'll be off first thing in the morning to have everything washed. It's stupidly cheap - something like 2dh (12p) an item. I'm sure that's not as cheap as it could be if we looked hard.

The other party who split off from us earlier ended up getting slightly lost and having youths throw stones at them. Remarkable! Would've been interesting to experience that but I'm sure it was really quite terrifying. They ended up getting a taxi back to the hotel somewhat promptly.

I bought hair gel and managed to avert a potential crisis by finding an adaptor to alow me to recharge my toothbrush. I thought for a while I might have to use a manual one!

We ate in Ali's again in the evening and feasted well. I paid for it with a card so I'm sure I'll see millions of unauthorised transactions going through that shortly. I've kept the receipt; it seems prudent.

Tomorrow will be the last day of the year, so I suppose I'll have to think if I've actually managed to achieve anything. I've done some groovy travelling, so that's a good start. The Jamaa El Fna is bound to be heaving and the hotels have filled up noticeably. I think we'll have to book our bus tickets to the Sahara tomorrow to be sure of getting a place on a bus - probably with random poultry on our laps - on Tuesday morning. That will be so cool.

Sent some more postcards.

Brian and I had another chat about where I should travel to next. India sounds like a cool place to go and I've just made contact with cutesie Oxford James again who's off shortly to travel round there. I might see if I can tie up with him or something - if it's imminent. It'd be nice to have a proper travel round India without a) being 12 and b) hurling everywhere. Three months or so would be needed to make sure it was all taken in so I'll have to think about it quite seriously. The alternative is to carry on as I am now until about August (like this year) then head for the hills. It's a big world and I'm sure I'd never have enough time to take it all in.