Posts tagged home

I think I had my first episode of being truly homesick today. But, even if I could snap my fingers and go back, I don’t know where I would go.
There is nowhere that feels as much as home as my backpack anymore. I have memories of past lives.. I guess that’s what I miss; they are comfortable, familiar ideas. Going “back” is not a place, but a time. But even though they offer me comfort, I would not trade living them again for living my life as it is now. Perhaps what I feel is not homesickness, but merely discomfort.

Part of it came from loneliness. A bigger part came from a realization of yet a deeper level of “oh shit, I actually left and my life is completely different now”. Before, it was just about the fact that I actually did it. Now, it is the understanding that this is something permanent.

It’s dumb, but part of that realization came from my experience today with trying to find a decent internet connection here. After that post, I went to the mall and talked to a guy at the Globe store (a local telecom/broadband provider) and found out more bad news. Then I went to a so-called “mexican” restaurant that had a disappointingly local menu. Stupid small things can be tremendous.

Arrived safely in Palawan. Uneventful flight. Delayed 1 hour only because of air traffic control, not because of the weather.

At the airport I met four people in a group together: one from Peoria/Pekin, one from Chicago, one from Champaign and one from Beardstown. Eight thousand miles and the first people I talk to in a strange place are all from Illinois and towns that I’m familiar with. Beardstown is about one hour away from Springfield, my hometown.

I won a prize on the plane! I was flying Cebu Pacific. They played a game near the end of the flight where they called out an object and whoever held up the object first won. I got the last of the three prizes for holding up my sandals which I had taken off at the beginning of the flight in order to stretch more easily in my seat.

We boarded the plane outdoors in the rain in Manila and outdoors in good weather in Palawan. Missed the typhoon. The airport here is surrounded by dense jungle. There are no taxis at the airport, only tricycles. It’s truly an island town; it reminds me of the Florida Keys. I’m in the wilderness already and I haven’t even left the city.

I’m writing from inside my hotel right now. $30 USD/night. Dinner was $2.80 USD

Interstate highways
Low air and water pollution
Fall weather and scenery in Illinois
Tacos everywhere I go in Texas

my old high school