It's been almost a month since I last posted, and what a crazy month it's been! I've come home from China, spent four whirlwind days in Boston, travelled in Jordan and Egypt with my family for sixteen days, spent another eight days in Boston, and now I'm in Vermont. I have so much to write about--leftover stories and thoughts from leaving China, impressions and experiences in Jordan and Egypt, feelings about being home in Boston, and hopes for the next seven weeks, which I will spend living up in Craftsbury, Vermont, where I am right now!
Let's start by travelling through time and space (oooh trippy) back to a month ago in Shanghai. My last week in Shanghai was so busy that it's basically a blur at this point. Predictably, I spent a lot of it rushing around saying goodbye to different people and to the city. CIEE did a great job facilitating discussions about re-entry and things to keep in mind when processing our experiences abroad. My goodbye weekend was dampened substantially by the sudden death of my host mom's grandmother; my fancy "goodbye lunch" at a nice restaurant ended up being just me and Judy, my ten year-old host sister, as my host parents both spent much of the weekend with my host mom's family. So that was a slightly different goodbye than I expected, and I was sad to have to say goodbye to my host mom at a time when she was clearly very upset. However, one highlight of those final days was my afternoon-long endeavor to bake a cake in our rice cooker, something I had promised Judy I would do at some point in my final month in Shanghai. I purchased Betty Crocker cake mix and frosting at Carrefour, the Western supermarket; with Judy's "help" I mixed up the cake mix, and poured it into the non-stick insert of our rice cooker. The struggle came when we (me, Judy, and my friend Katherine) couldn't figure out how to get the rice cooker on a high enough setting, so....cooking the cake took seven hours. Really, the cake only started cooking in the final hour, after my host dad came home and adjusted the setting for us. But once (finally) finished, the cake slid out of the rice cooker beautifully, I frosted it, and my host mom, my host dad, Judy, Katherine and I stood around our kitchen eating it. Afterwards, hopped up on sugar, Judy insisted we do a prolonged photo shoot, and I was happy enough to oblige, because now I have tons (read: literally hundreds) of really cute pictures of Judy. A wonderful way to spend my final evening in China!
Coming home to Boston wasn't really the jolting experience I thought it would be. In fact, I felt almost as though I had never left, which, while cliche, is really how I felt. I think this feeling might just be part of being on a gap year, as I left under much the same circumstances as I came back: I didn't come back to jump into classes or some other sort of intense experience, but instead resumed my schedule of cleaning my room, seeing friends, doing laundry, and packing, which had characterized my final days in Boston in August. Plus those four days at home (and in this case "at home" is merely a technical term, as I spent most of those four days running around Boston, Cambridge, and Milton....) were so incredibly crazy that I didn't really have time to feel anything except for exhaustion and happiness at being home and back with my friends and family.
And then, four days after coming home from Asia, I was off to the Middle East and Africa (Jordan and Egypt, to be specific) with my family! What a life I lead. There's obviously so much I could say about Jordan and Egypt, as it was a two week trip, and each day was packed with activities, ancient site visits, and opportunities for observations and learning moments. BUT I really don't have the energy or will to go through Jordan and Egypt in great detail. Or at least not as much detail as the trip deserves. Here are some choice thoughts/observations:
- Jordan is an absolutely beautiful and fascinating country. I really didn't expect to love Jordan as much as I did, thinking instead that it would be a sort of get in, see Petra, get out experience. In reality, we were only in the country for three days, but those three days were enough for me to know that I want to go back. The desert landscape is stunning, the ancient sites are fascinating and wonderfully preserved (specifically, we went to Jerash, an AMAZING Greek/Roman/Byzantine city that is probably the best preserved, most multi-faceted, most interesting Roman ruin I've ever seen, as well as Petra, the deservedly iconic necropolis and city carved into stone cliffs), the people are friendly, it's bustling but not chaotic (at least by Shanghai standards), the food is delicious. Of course, it helped that we stayed in jaw-dropping hotels and certainly didn't suffer (particularly during our day at a Dead Sea resort, probably the most luxurious hotel I've ever stayed in), but I would say that the good impression I got from Jordan wasn't just from the tourist stuff. It just seemed like an interesting, beautiful country, if complex and with its own problems, of course.
- Stuff is really old in Egypt. Duh, you say? Yes, of course I'm stating the obvious. But it's true! And it's incredible to see it, even if it's a fact that you've been aware of since first grade. 5000 year old wooden boats! 5000 year old pyramids! 3000 year old temple complexes! 3000 year old tombs! Those numbers are CRAZY. And it's crazy to be standing inside a temple or pyramid or looking at a perfectly preserved 5000 year-old wooden boat and think about HOW MANY YEARS THAT IS. AH.
- Fun story: After climbing inside the biggest of the Great Pyramids on Christmas Day (a difficult and athletic feat, let me add), my siblings, cousins and I found ourselves, eventually, in the chamber that at one point held the pharaoh's sarcophagus. It's now empty, and very dark, and very tall, and very echo-y, located as it is in the center of a massive pyramid. Inside this room, we found not only ourselves and the stone box that once held the sarcophagus, but a friendly middle-aged Egyptian man who I can confidently label insane. In the best possible way of course. Upon entering the center chamber of the pyramid, I, obviously, began acting like a zombie-mummy, lifting my arms out in front of me and making moaning sounds, which, obviously, echoed quite satisfactorily. Our new pyramid-dwelling Egyptian friend got very excited when I started doing this, and began doing the same bizarre motion and sound. Then, he changed to different fun Egyptian-inspired dance moves (classics such as Walk Like an Egyptian, as well as the Egyptian Shuffle--a sort of mummy bunny hop, an original creation, I'm sure--the Egyptian Congo Line, and the Egyptian Macarana--think the Macarena, but mummified) and very explicitly encouraged us to copy him. We did this for about two minutes, even joining him in his congo line, until we decided it was time to go. But even as we left, our Egyptian friend persisted, running in front of us and showing us even cooler dance moves he had up his sleeve. Such a nice man. Such a nice, pyramid-dwelling insane man. My guess is that the insane asylum from which he most certainly escaped doesn't think to look for him there. But they should. He's nutso.
- Columns are cool. The Greeks and Romans are known for their columns, but the Egyptians should get some credit, too. I loved taking pictures of all the beautiful, massive, carved columns in the ancient temples we visited.
- Ancient Egypt is incredibly removed from Modern Egypt. In China, Ancient and Modern still feel incredibly connected, and even with all the upheaval of the last two hundred years, you can still feel the weight of thousands of years of cultural heritage in modern Chinese culture and life. In Egypt, on the other hand, Ancient Egypt feels much more like part of European history--as its story, as it's told in museums, seems to be peopled as much by characters with names like Tutankhamun and Hatshepsut as it is by characters with names like Jean, John, and Johann--than Egyptian history. Maybe because the ancient sites have become almost entirely tourist attractions, with very few native Egyptians visitors (in contrast to ancient sites in China, which often have many Chinese tourists there as well as foreigners), and maybe because Egypt feels like such a Muslim/Coptic/Arab/Turk-formed country at this point, but it doesn't feel when you're there like Ancient Egypt bears any connection at all with Modern Egypt. This cultural/historic separation also emphasized how isolated we were as tourists from Modern Egypt; unlike my incredibly immersive experience in China, I don't feel like I got much of a glimpse at all of everyday life in Egypt, nor could I tell you any more now about how Egyptians feel/look at the world than I could before I went there. Example: I didn't realize Cairo had a metro until we were driving in our private van to the airport to fly home.
- I love hummus. And baba ganoush. We knew these things before we went, but still. Worth noting?
- Religion is obviously really important in both Jordan and Egypt, but it was by no means as omnipresent/overpowering as I expected (re: being more immersed in ancient Egypt than modern Egypt). I learned more about what roles Amun, Osiris, Isis, etc, played in people's lives/psyches than the role Allah plays today...but all the more reason to go back, right? And I don't want this to come across as grousing, because it's not. I LOVED learning about Ancient Egypt. It was just a huge departure from my experience in China.
OK I think that's enough about that, for now. SO, what am I up to now, you might be wondering? Well, I'm currently happily settled into my grandmother's house in Vermont, where I'll be cross-country skiing and waitressing (the official activities) as well as sleeping, reading, watching movies, photography-ing, cooking, and doing yoga (unofficial activities) through February. I've been up here for four days and I'm SO HAPPY to be surrounded by nature and outside. It's beautiful up here, and I really missed it this fall so it's lovely to be back. I will certainly keep updating, never fear! Because even though I'm back in Eastern Standard Time, the gap year adventures never end! Muahhaha.
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