It’s cruel that life is so short. One hundred years is hardly enough time to make a dent on our interests. I know that there are some people who think that life is too long and depressing and awful, but I have always loved living.
Monday: Why don’t you build on last week’s advice and experiment with other culinary delights than your usuals? Today my mission is to make David Lebovitz’s pink grapefruit marmelade that […]
Monday:Why don’t you you plan a trip to attend something that will surely go down in history books? It’s not always possible to plan for this as world events tend […]
My Spanish skills don’t come from laundry, they come from obsessively watching episodes of “La Reina del Sur.” If you want to talk about smuggling hashish to Spain from North Africa, I’m you guy. If you want to talk about the prison system, look no further. If you want to talk about the early hours of morning when the sunlight casts everything in a grey pall and it’s the moment that at some point in your life you’re sure you will pass on, well, I’m you guy. But if you want to talk about the different treatments for rayon….look elsewhere.
And most of all, I think, I would miss the courtyard of the apartment complex. It is, for me, my favorite place on Earth. I revel in the well with it’s aluminum roof, the bougainvillea that creeps along the crumbling enclosure walls, the potted plants that look as if they’ve been sat there for a hundred years, and the random animals and people that would come traipsing through. I’d miss sitting there at night, sipping tequila, looking at the stars which were oddly bright in that cosmopolitan place, thinking of how wonderful and marvelous life could be.
The gift shop was absolutely lame, which might have been the biggest let down of the day. Now that I think back on it, I’m not sure what I wanted? A pencil sharpener disguised as a tiny skull crusher? An impaling pyramid Christmas bauble? I suppose it’s for the best, though a good book would have been nice to keep on hand for research purposes.
Jessica once again decided that guacamole was the love of her life. She did so many peculiar things on this trip. Walking. Eating avocados. Walking willingly. Walking without arguing. Walking more than once in a day. It was absolutely wild.
If you’ve read more than one of these blog posts you’ll know my deep and true desire to be a hay farmer in rural Romania. (Don’t worry, there’s more on that coming up!) Oh there would be nothing more joyful than baling hay all day and thinking of nothing but hay. Hay, hay, hay! It’s not to be, but one of these summers I swear to you I’ll vanish into the night, turn up in Brașov, and then make my way to the countryside to train as a hay farmer. I’m quite serious.
And that really resonated profoundly for me. This is a topic that is rather hard to write about in our culture because there is no grey area or middle ground for patriotism. Either you love America or you’re likened to a terrorist. This isn’t fair because the more you grow to love something, the more cognizant you become of the flaws. Travel has allowed me to see my home nation with a different perspective, from afar and from the eyes of others around the world. When we let ourselves escape our comfort zone and throw ourselves into something new and out of the ordinary, we are capable of incredible realizations.
And then the city appeared. We were miles and miles from the heart of Mexico City, but the extreme edges were densely packed. It was wonderful to pick out the roads and soccer fields and parks and bigger homes. I barely dared to blink. And then we touched down and I felt the most extraordinary sense of calm. All of the tension that I have been carrying around with me lately melted into my pleather premium seat. I could breathe. I swear my back unclenched. I could have melted. It was divine.
