{"id":106,"date":"2011-07-22T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/?p=106"},"modified":"2019-08-19T15:31:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T15:31:18","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.izaakrubin.com\/travel\/world\/2011\/07\/22\/home\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m still trying to process the fact that I\u2019m home. It feels like things should have changed since I left, but everything and everyone is remarkably the same. It\u2019s been a bit emotionally confusing too. On the positive side, I\u2019m thrilled to see friends again, sleep in my own bed, and even wear my old clothes (I hadn\u2019t brought most of my favorite shirts and jeans, for fear of losing\/damaging them). It\u2019s also a relief to be in a familiar, comfortable place \u2013 I know how to find everything I need. Home is a glove that fits just right.<\/p>\n

But despite how excited I was to come home, I\u2019m sad that the trip is over \u2013 more so than I\u2019d anticipated. It\u2019s easy to look around at the same old familiar things and feel like the weight and the joy of this experience, which I\u2019ve carried around for the past three months, has just vanished; and now I\u2019m clutching on to nothing. What really cheers me up, however, are my notes. Aside from this blog, I\u2019ve been keeping a separate document of notes and thoughts about everything that happened on the trip \u2013 essentially a diary, now 113 pages long single-spaced. I just read through the part about New Zealand, and it made me smile. That early part of the trip seems like eons ago.<\/p>\n

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Dinner with my grandmother in NY<\/p><\/div>\n

So now it\u2019s time to finish this very, very long story. I flew back to the USA and straight into the arms of my grandmother, who lives in the NYC suburbia of New Jersey. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever felt as patriotic as I did that day \u2013 just seeing the American flag, even going through US customs\u2026 you couldn\u2019t wipe the smile off my face. And of course, coming home to grandma\u2019s house is about as comfy and cushy as it gets. She picked me up at the airport and took me back to a house fully stocked with gluten-free dairy-free foods and goodies. It doesn\u2019t get better than that.<\/p>\n

All my walking around Europe had left me with a sore little souvenir: a decently big blister on my tired right foot. The next morning, my grandmother and I went shopping for new socks and shoes; the old ones had seen much better days. In fact, once I had new socks in hand, my grandmother stole the old socks from me and threw them away. Comparing them to the new ones, it was pretty clear why: after a lot of wear and a lousy washing job in Nepal, my once-white socks were a murky gray\/purple color, with occasional pink highlights and holes in the heel.<\/p>\n

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At the Top of the Rock, with Leo<\/p><\/div>\n

That night, all decked out in new footwear, the two of us went into New York to see a performance of The War Horse at Lincoln Center. Leo, a good friend of mine from Stanford, joined us for dinner and the show; he used the ticket that would have been Abdulla\u2019s. Both the dinner and the show were very good \u2013 the puppetry of the giant horses (and the one comic-relief goose) is what really makes The War Horse exceptional.<\/p>\n

Sunday was even more low-key than Saturday. I slept in, soaked my foot in a bath of warm water and Epsom salts, and surfed the web. That evening we went over to visit and have dinner with two of my grandmother\u2019s closest friends: Bob and Joe, a gay couple who used to live next door to her. Bob is a 70-year-old retired businessman, and an avid gardener; Joe is a 60-year-old English professor, who owns about 160 pairs of leather pants. The four of us had a gay old time.<\/p>\n

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Lady Liberty<\/p><\/div>\n

On Monday I started to pick up the pace again, with a full day of sightseeing in New York. I took the bus from the mall near my grandmother\u2019s place out to the Port Authority in Manhattan. Leo met me there, and the two of us spent the day sightseeing around the city. After a quick walk through Times Square, we went up to the \u201cTop of the Rock\u201d (the top of Rockefeller Center) for a great 360-degree view of New York. We had lunch at a little place that specializes in tea and books (but also serves great food), and then walked up 5th Avenue and through Central Park. After taking the subway from 81st street, we got a look at Leo\u2019s old high school (Stuyvesant), Battery Park, and Ground Zero. The Freedom Tower (now called 1 WTC) is steadily growing, and is neighbored by what looks like a cross between a park and a construction site on the grounds of the old south tower. The whole area is extensively fenced off.<\/p>\n

Later in the afternoon, Leo and I took the (free) Staten Island Ferry out to the borough and back, which gave us some good views of the Statue of Liberty. Unsurprisingly, it\u2019s a lot smaller than I remembered it \u2013 I\u2019d last seen it when I was about 8. Once we were back in Manhattan, the two of us grabbed dinner near the Port Authority and said goodbye; I took the bus back to NJ and Leo took the subway back to Brooklyn. It was great to see him again.<\/p>\n

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Bourbon Street<\/p><\/div>\n

The next morning, for the second-to-last time, I packed up my things and went back to the airport. A couple hours later, I was walking down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I\u2019ve got to say, Bourbon Street is actually pretty darn gross. It\u2019s got what I now affectionately call \u201cKhao San Road smell\u201d \u2013 that, er, delightful mix of body excrements and food. Instead of food stands and ping-pong shows, Bourbon Street is lined with daiquiri bars (for $9, get a to-go cup the size of your head, full of alcohol \u2013 there are no open container laws) and really sleazy strip-tease joints. It\u2019s always Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street. During my three days there I saw two parades, the floats being full of old out-of-towners sipping daiquiris or hurricanes, spilling beads out onto the ground. When your town\u2019s claim-to-fame is a big party, I guess you might as well throw it all year long.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d scoped out a few of the main attractions in town, and on Wednesday I set out to see them. First stop was Jackson Square and its accompanying St. Louis Cathedral. Unsurprisingly, Jackson Square features a large statue of Andrew Jackson on a horse (one of my favorite presidents, and the man on the $20). After lunch, I visited the Beauregard-Keyes House, which once belonged to General Beauregard of the confederate army. I was the lone visitor at the house, and got shown around by a large man with a grand old southern drawl. Of note in the house: a mammoth dollhouse, owned by Mrs. Keyes (who later owned and restored the house); a confederate flag, which the guide made a point of noting was politically incorrect; and some dolls dressed in KKK outfits, which the guide assured me were not actually KKK outfits\u2026 just outfits that looks similar\u2026\u2026 It was an interesting, albeit slightly uncomfortably southern, tour.<\/p>\n

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Haitian zombie whip<\/p><\/div>\n

The next stop captured a whole different side to New Orleans: the world\u2019s only Voodoo Museum. The two dimly-lit rooms are chock full of Voodoo paraphernalia, everything from tables of Voodoo dolls, to a genuine Haitian zombie whip, to a portrait of Marie Laveaux, the Voodoo Queen. I was most fascinated by the description of how people were turned into zombies: a person was first given a potion that completely paralyzed them, but left them alive and alert. They were then buried alive, dug out several hours later, and given an antidote. The result was a soul-shattered, traumatized and \u201ceasily manipulated\u201d person: a zombie.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d planned on taking a streetcar ride through the Garden District later that afternoon, but after coming back to my room for a quick rest, I couldn\u2019t bring myself to get up and do it. I ended up watching TV for a few hours (my justification: it was a truly American activity), and then went out for dinner at a pub on Bourbon Street. I figured I\u2019d have a drink and, per the waitress\u2019 recommendation, wound up with a hurricane: a massive glass full of rum and red food coloring. I downed the whole thing with dinner, and stumbled drunkenly back into the endless Mardi Gras. I\u2019d hoped to then go see a live jazz performance at Preservation Hall, just around the corner, but the line was already spilling around the block. Given what I\u2019d heard about the limited space inside, I opted to take my drunk head home instead.<\/p>\n

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Holding a baby alligator<\/p><\/div>\n

I got a late start the next day, ate lunch, and then started a half-day tour of the Louisiana swamps and bayous. There were a mere three of us on the bus \u2013 myself and a middle-aged couple from Staten Island \u2013 who drove out to Jean Lafitte\u2019s Swamp Tours and joined a larger group for the swamp cruise. The timing ended up being perfect; just as we got on the boat, rain started to pour. I actually think it added to the swampy ambiance; combined with the alligators, pelicans, and old shacks, it felt like we got a more true bayou experience. The only unwelcome bit was the lightning, what with our floating along in a tin boat\u2026 but even that added to the drama of it all. The rain stopped just minutes before we got off the boat, of course, and by the late afternoon we were back in the French Quarter.<\/p>\n

That evening I had an unusual experience at dinner. After I\u2019d gotten my food, the waitress told me that there was a girl in the restaurant who thought I was cute \u2013 she wanted to know if I minded her coming over to say hi. The right answer would have been \u201cwell actually I\u2019m gay\u2026\u201d but I was apprehensive about admitting anything like that while in the south; I said OK. But nobody appeared, to my relief \u2013 I finished eating and asked for the bill. A different waitress brought the check, which came with a little note: \u201cif you should need company while you\u2019re here\u2026 [phone number] <3 Lisa\u201d. Oh boy. I paid and left. But before I got half way down the block, Lisa came running after me: it was the other waitress who had handed me the bill (and the note\u2026 duh). We exchanged names and shared a few seconds of extreme awkwardness, before I finally just \u201ccame out\u201d with it and told her the truth. She handled it gracefully, and that ended that. I\u2019ve kept her note as a souvenir.<\/p>\n

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Preservation Hall<\/p><\/div>\n

I walked, briskly, straight from dinner to Preservation Hall. I got there much earlier this time, and ended up being the first one in line. During my 45-minute wait I got to know the people behind me: an older couple from Shreveport, and their Parisian exchange student, JM. JM and I had a good time talking about everything from my trip, to Paris, to Stanford, and we all sat together and enjoyed the jazz performance. It was a great way to cap off the last full day of this immense trip.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t get much sleep that night \u2013 partially because my head was too full of thoughts, and partially because I had to get up at 4am to catch my flight. By 7am I was already in-flight to San Francisco, and by 10am (CA time) I was home. Truly unbelievable! My parents, who are up in Canada at the moment, left me a surprise in my room: a welcome home banner, and 16 pictures of myself hanging from a string running around my room. One from each country I visited. I cried.<\/p>\n

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I’m home!<\/p><\/div>\n

103 days and over 34,000 miles later, I\u2019ve come all the way around and back to the exact same spot. My dog is still sitting there on the lawn. My friends haven\u2019t changed a bit. The people who care about me still really care about me; the ones who don\u2019t, still don\u2019t. Everything is objectively the same, but the usual old things all have a new freshness to them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m finding that it\u2019s hard to talk about the experience as a whole. Do I feel like I\u2019m a \u201cdifferent person\u201d? What was my \u201cfavorite moment\u201d? I don\u2019t know how to answer these questions. I feel like eventually, I\u2019ll come up with stock answers that will form just because I\u2019ve said them so many times. All my \u201canswers\u201d so far just sound like canned platitudes. They don\u2019t feel true.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s what is true. I got to spend a lot of time with myself, and just myself, especially after Abdulla left. I don\u2019t want to make any statements about what I \u201clearned\u201d from this, but I do feel like I know the person in my head better than I did before.<\/p>\n

Another truth: I have 113 pages worth of notes and about 8,500 pictures and videos that unlock my memories of this trip. Those memories are a series of stories and experiences, some of them incredible, some of them mundane, but all completely irreplaceable. They\u2019re the precious gems that I carry around in my head. And right now, they feel more valuable than anything in the world.<\/p>\n

For the very last time, I\u2019ll close with some assorted tidbits:<\/p>\n