It's true, you know. Well, maybe you don't, but I do. I've been there. Winter, 1984. It wasn't very cold, considering it was winter. But little details mean little, and I have bigger fish to fry (oh, Daddy would be so mad). You see, I was traveling through the Spanish countryside; a barren wasteland for the most part, similar to southern California but with capable drivers and better wine. I had just escaped from Austria, an episode of my life best forgotten. Then again, most of my life is best forgotten. I have always found that one looks upon the sky and the beauties of life much clearer without the muddled experience of adulthood jading their no longer innocent eyes.

But enough lamentation. There is time enough for that when I am dead, or at least older. For now, reflection on this one true experience must begin to spill upon the page, or all will be lost. Well, this piece won't make any sense, anyway.

So I was in Barcelona. I had just arrived to the metropolis when the first of a number of random coincidences occurred. I discovered, after failing miserably to converse in German, partially causing my hasty retreat from Vienna in lieu of a violent expulsion, that I could speak Spanish fluently. I can't now, and I haven't been able to at any other time in my life. But, for some bizarre reason, I could speak perfect Spanish, and in the proper dialect as well. Strange, for some, but perfectly logical for me. My life has been riddled with such synchronicities, usually revolving around fish, much like this one.

To expound upon this further: my father, followers of my earlier chronicles will already realize, was a bit of a nutter. As well as being a hater of animals, he had a weird obsession with fish. Not a fascination, or an eager interest; more along the lines of how McCarthy felt about communists. My father believed that fish ruled the world and were the cause of any and all evil in it, and that they should not only be eliminated, but utilized for any and all applicable purpose, to show them their true place. A bit disconcerting, believe you me, and it took a while for me to realize that he was indeed a whacko. A whacko who was on to something, perhaps. But still a whacko.

But I digress. Synchronicity, as I have come to believe, abounds, for coincidences have proven themselves to me to be a fiction of sorts, a neo-religious attempt to explain the misunderstood, our own god of the weird. Much like earlier religions believed that their gods ruled over everything from war and love, basic human caused events, to storms and crop growth, we believe that our little god, coincidence, explains those things which we just can't categorize. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction; a simple explanation, perhaps, but no less relevant than chaos theory or string theory in explaining the importance of "random" events. You see, the laws of causality are not for us to comprehend. Things happen for a reason, but not one which can be explained in any human language.

Fish know, though.

At any rate, Barcelona is a beautiful city, even in winter. You don't tend to get the snow capped buildings and covered sidewalks, but you do get a large number of friendly people drinking to excess at all hours. Come to think of it, you get that any time of the year in Barcelona; it's just that they're dressed a little bit warmer in winter. I partook of the delights of several Tapas bars to wile away the long-ish nighttime hours, and rented a Vespa the following morning, determined to make my way to the coastal town of Villanueva y Geltrú. It was there I was to meet Fangu, the 4 foot thai transvestite contortionist who was to be my guide to Morocco and, as it was to turn out, a much more spiritual journey...

But that would come later. First I