(no subject)
Thank you everyone who was sending good vibes/prayers/whatever. Although yesterday was stressful, everything just somehow seemed to fall into place. Things are worked out with my passport, I was able to catch my last ride to the other side of the country, and I'm now home with my family.
Yesterday night, before leaving the airport, I was told once-and-a-half that I didn't look like I was from around here. (That first time doesn't count, though, because the young african-american man followed up with a shrugging 'yeah, me neither'.) The next day, I heard it roughly four more times, and managed to haggle a taxi-cab from twenty seven dollars to five. Then I was on my flight and on my way home.
I don't know what to say about being home again. The house is the same size I remember it, but the stores all seem smaller, the aisles narrower, and the people slower than I remembered. The last point reminded me of a speech I'd heard over youtube about different countries having different senses of time and different pacings for people at certain public activities, like clerks in grocery stores and the like. I told this to a friend of mine in the States, once, and tried to show him what I remembered the average sidewalk walking pace was while we crossed the street. It was so stressful to try that by the time we'd gone a handfull of feet down the sidewalk I actually felt as though I'd just jumped out from in front of a screeching car. I also felt guilty, thinking I'd exagerrated the slowness of the pace. Now I'm suddenly not so sure I did.
I don't know what else I want to write. It's stressful, here, but I'd rather talk about it with people that might actually answer back, instead of telling stories to the great void.
Yesterday night, before leaving the airport, I was told once-and-a-half that I didn't look like I was from around here. (That first time doesn't count, though, because the young african-american man followed up with a shrugging 'yeah, me neither'.) The next day, I heard it roughly four more times, and managed to haggle a taxi-cab from twenty seven dollars to five. Then I was on my flight and on my way home.
I don't know what to say about being home again. The house is the same size I remember it, but the stores all seem smaller, the aisles narrower, and the people slower than I remembered. The last point reminded me of a speech I'd heard over youtube about different countries having different senses of time and different pacings for people at certain public activities, like clerks in grocery stores and the like. I told this to a friend of mine in the States, once, and tried to show him what I remembered the average sidewalk walking pace was while we crossed the street. It was so stressful to try that by the time we'd gone a handfull of feet down the sidewalk I actually felt as though I'd just jumped out from in front of a screeching car. I also felt guilty, thinking I'd exagerrated the slowness of the pace. Now I'm suddenly not so sure I did.
I don't know what else I want to write. It's stressful, here, but I'd rather talk about it with people that might actually answer back, instead of telling stories to the great void.