| | Dear Xanga,
I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that "home" usually feels most like the place that I last lived at, and rarely like a place of present tense.
When I first left this most recent home of nearly 2 years, I went to Cairo, and had a lovely time. I saw pyramids (and went in one), I went to an Egyptian soccer game (which was ca-raazy), and I ate kosheri. It didn't even feel like I'd really left home, I guess because it was still African and Arab all at once, which is what home felt like these last 2 years.
I then went to Beirut, and saw the Mediterranean Sea for the first time in my life (although in Istanbul I'd been quite close). I spent a day in the mountains, and several days in the city. I went to Baalbek and saw the most impressive Roman ruins in the world. I saw a couple of movies in the theater and had Coca-Cola from the fountain for the first time in too long. I watched about 15 episodes of Arrested Development at my friends' apartment there. It was like returning to the West without quite leaving the East behind.
Then I came to Paris. I saw the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre (and most of what it holds), and my favorite thing was the Musee d'Orsay. I didn't see everything there was to see, but I had a few very Parisian picnics by the Seine in spite of all the coldness and I got caught up on LOST thanks to the blisteringly high-speed internet in my friend's flat. It has been a wonderful time, but in this leg of my travels I have said goodbye to nearly all remnants of the East which have pervaded my life these last 2 years, and it was as if I re-entered the West starting with the very roots of the Enlightenment as displayed on so many buildings and monuments in this fair city.
Tomorrow I will leave for London. I've seen the last very familiar faces until I arrive in Arkansas again. The rest of my travels will be conducted in English, a language in which I haven't been immersed for almost 2 years. Almost everyone who understands this period of my life is getting farther away, and it's not that I don't want to return home or give other people the chance to understand... but I hate having to leave so much and so many people behind.
Anyway, that is where I am now.
Peace,
John
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| | Posted 2/23/2009 5:28 PM - 58 Views - 8 eProps - 6 comments
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