Morocco: Our First Hot Air Balloon Ride

Greetings from Morocco, where we are on a 3-week journey through a large part of the country, which will be fuel for many future posts. This is our second Muslim-majority country, and we already have seen many differences between here and Malaysia. We have little knowledge about Morocco’s history and are learning a lot along the way.

Rather than our usual “introductory” post, we are starting with something special – our first hot air balloon ride. When we were in Cappadocia, Turkey in 1994, we had just finished law school and didn’t have the money for such an adventure. We booked a balloon excursion in 2004 while in Stockholm, but the weather didn’t cooperate and it was cancelled. It turns out that Marrakech, where we started this trip, is one of the best places in the world for hot air ballooning. So, after wanting to float for more than 20 years, we finally did so this week.

We were glad the weather cooperated and that we didn’t book the 6 am pick-up, opting for 7 am, as the morning was gray and cloudy obscuring the sunrise. The balloon site was about 35 minutes north of the city and coffee/tea and croissants were available upon arrival. The company flew 12 balloons twice that morning and had quite a professional operation.

We climbed aboard our balloon and met our pilot, Elias, who was super friendly and kindly answered all our questions, in between firing and steering the balloon.

There were 16 total passengers in the basket, and it was exciting to see all the other balloons.

We slowly started ascending skyward. Considering the hazy morning, we didn’t know what to expect. We entered the cloud cover, no longer able to see the ground, and then rose above the clouds where the sun was shining brightly. The quiet beauty took our breath and fear away. It was extraordinary, especially seeing the other balloons emerging out of the clouds. We even saw the shadow of our balloon below.

We enjoyed the views as we rotated 360 degrees and as we drifted toward the snow-covered Atlas Mountains.

The landing process was interesting. The ground below is mostly farm and grazing land, so the landowners prefer the balloons avoid their crops. A farmer was grazing his sheep and goats as we came in and Elias had to work with the changing winds to try to land close to the road and in an uncultivated spot, which he achieved, and we didn’t even feel the landing. As we were on the second and last ride, we were able to watch them pack everything up before heading back for a full breakfast.

We highly recommend taking a float if you get the opportunity. Albuquerque, NM is the best spot in the US. We truly enjoyed the experience.

More from Morocco soon,

Shana & Jeff

In the Name of Science: My Second Experience as a Figurative Guinea Pig

For the past three weeks or so I have been participating in a scientific study at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language. A friend who also participated told me about the BCBL’s need for native English speakers who could competently type, and I figured “why not?” After a quick typing test, which I passed, and confirming that my dental fillings would not interfere with the technology being used, I became the last needed participant (so far). (Jeff figured he wouldn’t pass the typing test, and his permanent retainer probably would have ruled him out anyway.)

So, what did I get myself into with my decision to volunteer? Spending about 20-30 minutes getting wired up to be analyzed by a MEG (magnetoencephalography) device. Then spending a bit more than an hour attached to and in the machine typing 256 mundane sentences while unable to see what I was typing and not looking at the keyboard. Here’s what that looked like:

During each of 10 sessions, I would listen to the sentences but would not start typing them until I was prompted to do so, which required memorization. While the sentences generally made sense, they were often oddly stated or had unusual syntax (e.g., The girl standing behind you is not my sister). I did several double sessions to avoid having to repeat the setup process so many times, which was more efficient, but also tiring. After my tenth session, they also performed an MRI, which was far more tolerable than I had imagined.

The study is part of an effort to evaluate how the brain decodes language and is an example of a promising scientific use of AI. Here’s an excerpt from a summary of the study so far:

To explore how the brain transforms thoughts into intricate sequences of motor actions, we used AI to help interpret the MEG signals while participants typed sentences. By taking 1,000 snapshots of the brain every second, we can pinpoint the precise moment where thoughts are turned into words, syllables, and even individual letters. Our study shows that the brain generates a sequence of representations that start from the most abstract level of representations—the meaning of a sentence—and progressively transform them into a myriad of actions, such as the actual finger movement on the keyboard.

Here’s a link to the quoted article, in case you are interested: https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-research-human-communication/  I’m told they can see my typing mistakes in my brain before the finger hits the keyboard!

The experience overall was a positive one as the lab specialist I worked with was super nice and it confirmed I still have an ability to focus when required to do so. Because the study is being conducted in English, I spoke English while at the BCBL, which was a bit odd as we almost always speak Spanish outside of our apartment. And it was likely more constructive than my prior experience participating in a vaccine trial during COVID (https://vinoconvino.blogspot.com/search?q=vaccine+trial).

Other than that, we have been back to our routine here after our unexpected trip to the US in January. Our efforts to help Jeff’s Mom adjust to her new life continue as well. We are looking forward to a three-week trip to Morocco that starts soon.

Before I go, here’s a photo from another fun local experience, Lilaton 2026 – San Sebastian’s women’s 5K race, which I did with my friend Connie on March 1:

Happy trails,

Shana