worldly
creature comforts
i have become far too comfortable with life in the west and take much for granted. perhaps it isn’t a matter of west-is-best so much as it is the correlates of life here. as i settle back in to life in the us after two weeks in europe, i find myself revisiting some of my old thoughts on what makes a home.
you see, over the last few weeks, i leapfrogged from zurich to london to edinburgh to manchester to berlin to datça to istanbul. although i was mostly visiting friends, i also spent a lot of time with myself, or with strangers1, and considering whether i could live in these various cities.
when i returned to san francisco, i found myself hit with something that i had forgotten about during my time abroad: the smell of urine in the streets and the culturally enforced need to mind my own business at cafes.
maybe it’s time for a new adventure.
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it is markedly un-american to solicit conversation from strangers at a cafe, or a restaurant, or a river. but generally accepted by europeans. ↩