t-minus one month til re-entry

two nights ago i went out to dinner to celebrate my 5 month anniversary of being on the road. the ethnic food of the moment in budapest is apparently indian, so i obliged. two hours later, in the fetal position in my bed, i reveled in india. it tastes good going down, oh so good. but just wait.

now i am sitting on the floor of a packed coffee house. yesterday i found out i got into depaul. the thought of it still makes me feel a bit giddy inside. sometimes in the past 5 months i've woken up in the morning with an unnerving feeling of panic. one worry broke the dam and opened the floodgate to let each insecurity and inevitability in. but now the knowledge that i will be a student, a role i actually know how to inhabit, gives me some footing in the present. funny how the future can do that.

now i return to the also-comfortable habit of procrastinating the single thing on my to do list. today, in a sea of people getting on the metro, i heard a girl speaking english. i froze and almost ran into someone. i wanted to eavesdrop, listen, overhear. it was so foreign, this intimate connection forged with a stranger. the free entertainment of eavesdropping. what's going to happen to me when i get home? when i would rather shut it out for the romantic cacophony of exoticism? when i'll long to return to the world of courtney amidst thousands or millions of others. where i am a child, dependent on kind strangers, void of responsibility, floating.

perhaps the most interesting aspect of returning home after spending the majority of the past 3 years away will be finding the fittingness. that's always the question, i guess. you know when you bought a fish for a tank? you never put it directly into the tank. you left it in the little plastic sack, submerged it in the tank and then opened the sack and let it out after like 20 minutes. that's how the fish finds the fit. but how the hell do we do it? in a way i thought traveling for 6 months would do it. to an extent, it has. however, it's also created a world where i am even more firmly an outsider to everything. i've thought about loneliness, and i think what it really is is when no one can fully understand your experiences. in a way, that's fine. as long as i don't expect anyone to. maybe that's the biggest thing i've gained. comfort with solitude.

time in my sack, looking at the other side, has made me wonder what i will be like when i emerge. will i keep the new habits or will i return to u.s. laziness where i would go days without walking further than to the car (that's mainly in the winter, but still)? somehow, it's all more exciting than frightening. it's like a conscious fresh start. but, for now, i am going to revel in my last moments in the plastic. looking in.

blizzard in belgrade, thanksgiving in sarajevo

hi,i'mcourtneyitaughtataninternationalschoolinindiafortwoyears.yeah,i'mtravelingforsixmonthsonmywaybacktotheunitedstates wherehaveibeenwell,ididsomehikinginthemountainsinasia,thenontobhutan,morehikinginnepal,tibet,ghana,andnowturkeywhereamigoingnextwell,afterserbia,ontobosnia,morocco,spain.yeah,it'sbeengreatexcitinglifeenrichingblahblahblahblah.lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala. it's just filler. over the past months i've had this conversation countless times. it's the conversation that establishes the basis for any real communication. and the monotony of the conversation i could recite without thought single-handedly fostered some introversion in my generally extroverted demeanor. during each introductory conversation, i held in the back of my mind the rememberance that there are people in this world who know me and don't need the 5 minute speil. for that reason, arriving in mussoorie, ghana and serbia have all been like coming home.
waking up in the morning with ethan singing songs, jamie and i cutting veggies and fruit for breakfast and drinking coffee brings me back almost 2 years to the days of yore at mt. hermon. we picked up like cogs in a well-oiled machine, talking politics, literature and other dorky topics while we are pizza on a river barge the first night. last saturday we awoke to a blizzard that didn't abate until monday, cancelling belgrade international school and fostering snow hikes, sledding, "ghetto" skiing (on beer crate handles), snowman building and kuvino vino (hot, spiced wine) consumption. on monday night we staged a belgrade thanksgiving blowout, complete with a christmas tree, homeade pumpkin pie, rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and the charlie brown christmas.


after ethan and i patroned "grill uno" and consumed the "inevitable" gigantic beef patty, we took a snoring, freezing, boiling overnight bus to sarajevo on thanksgiving. sarajevo and belgrade are both cities i could not get my head around until visiting them. the site of the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand by a serb in sarajevo, resulting in world war i. the sites of two of the most recent confirmations of ethnic cleansing. and the dying battles of yugoslavia/ "a greater serbia" involving serbs, bosnians, croats, muslims, catholics and orthodox christians. countries where people my age lived through a war whose mark is still made clear in the bombed-out skeletons and bullet-pocked exteriors of buildings.

during a tour of sarajevo we heard tales of the almost-four-year seige of sarajevo from our twenty-three year old tour guide- men who left the city to fight against the bosnians returning post-war, sniper alley, civilians darting across streets to avoid fire, underground tunnels burrowing to the airport to move supplies, 5 euros for a single egg, a grenade exploding on her pregnant mother in her backyard (but who was only slightly injured), the two million books burnt in the bosnian national library, whole cemetaries dedicated to the 1992 and 1993 deaths of muslims in mostar, bosnia. but, despite everything, as seems to be the consistent case, the people remain kind, helpful and friendly in the face of the worst possible scenarios. men play chess with gigantic pieces in a sarajevo square. a rowdy cigarette-smoking crowd forms around the two players, yelling advice at every turn. others greet us and chat in whatever english they grasp.


somehow the sadness of the war in the 90s is heightened by the fact that sarajevo was home to the olympics in 1984. jamie, ethan and i spent a day skiing at jahorina, the site of olympic skiing events.
the mountains and countryside in bosnia are incredible. and of course, the skiing is outstanding. driving to mostar from jahorina we happened upon the shell of a building on the hill. against the warnings of the lonely planet (which we only read later) we walked through the crumbling structure. we found geometry and physics equations in the walls and graffitti of jesus on the cross on others. houses like these were typically used to denote the bosnian serb enemy lines and inhabited by snipers who fired at sarajevo below. as i left the building on the dilapatated stairway, i happened upon this little tree, rising out of the rubble. take from it what is to be taken. hopefully that's hope.










oh! also, thanks to jamie and ethan for a fab time in the east side (of europe, that is). you two are the craziest cats i know. i only aspire to your greatness.

turkish d-lite, as easy as abc

ataturk, the founder of the modern turkish republic, whose photo is hanging out apartment windows, adorning street lamps and boats all over the country

baklava (almost worth being obese for) and backgammon

cay (tea) served in dainty little glasses

doner kebabs at every turn and driving a scooter around the moon-esque landscape of cappadocia

eating home-cooked-by-mama 5 course meals in hostels and samples of everything in the egyptian bazaar

flames that inexplicably rise out of the rocks at olimpos and fishermen on the galata bridge in istanbul

gentle and wonderful turkish women, when i could find them (mobility isn’t exactly fundamental here)
hiking along the aegean sea

istanbul. one city two continents and a lot of awesome food, museums, byzantine art, churches, history, architecture, istiklal caddesi (a pedestrian street with a trolley that runs its length) and culture

just the most intense patriotism ever

kilims—traditional turkish rugs

lots of stray cats instead of the requisite stray dogs of the developing world. somehow it gives the world an air of mystery rather than an air of well, dog shit

mountains that rise out of the sea

norda, the brawny turkish woman who scrubbed my naked body clean as i lay on the smooth marble of a hamam (bath house)

old men drinking cay, gossipping and playing backgammon all day

produce like i’ve never seen. olives, oranges, apples, tangerines, melon, grapes, cherries, cheese, everything! that tastes like the freshness incarnate. oh, and food in general. obviously


quaint cities neighborhoods villages hostels

republic day fireworks over the bosphorous

starbucks (sorry). swimming in the mediterranean isn’t half bad, either. nor is sleeping in a treehouse

the call to prayer echoing all over town and turkish coffee, both of which really grow on you

unnervingly awesome and other-worldly cappadocian landscape


very lovely turkish porchsitting women who invited me for turkish coffee
wine tasting in a greek village. who knew melon and pomegranate wine were so freakin’ delicious

xylophone is like the only word that begins with an x. and i haven't seen a xylophone since africa

you whoever you are who dropped everything to give me directions or walk me to my destination

ze nargileh (waterpipe/ hookah)

meanderings from a cold bus in turkey

this has all been too quantitative lately for my qualitative mind.
“this could be the very minute i’m aware i’m alive. all these places feel like home. with a name i’ve never chosen i can make my first steps. as a child of 25.”
i like the world of rainstrewn bus windows where reality is blurred and billboards are more plausibly magical fountains.
there’s nothing more isolating than walking down a street and not understanding a single word around you. and sometimes there’s nothing more wonderful.
the traveler’s life for me has been at once oddly empowering and occasionally reminiscent of changing junior high schools midyear. feeling more confident than ever and wanting to fit in to the latest hostel crowd. and developing confidence is the only reasonable alternative.
“i am on a lonely road and i am traveling. looking for something what could it be?”
somehow traveling has made me simultaneously the most patient version of myself and the most irritable.
“we will never change by relocating. things will always follow us until we decide to change ourselves.”
only a few things have made me cry tears of happiness in the past 6 months and one of them was a starbucks caramel latte.
nothing fosters thought like moving vehicles.
“i like the peace in the backseat. i don’t have to drive. i don’t have to speak. i can watch the countryside and i can fall asleep…”
for a long time i understood the world through a deficiency mindset. whatever i did seemed to be defined by what was not. if i meant to run 5 miles i didn’t focus on the completed 4 miles but the unfinished uno. it’s broken. why does it take so much more effort to revel in what we are and what we’re becoming and stop comparing ourselves to everyone else?
i’m not used to living in a way that isn’t shared with someone. where not every notable event is shared over dinner coffee a walk. where things are only defined by the telling of them.
“together’s not always better but it’s better in the end.”
persistent traveling is like being in a perpetual child-like state. nothing comes easily and assistance from others is essential.
“he allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
it’s still hard for me to not to be a traveler obsessed with capturing each moment for later consumption. a photo a souvenir.
loneliness seems to be the absence of another fully understanding one’s reality. moving about alone makes loneliness almost inherent. the reality that we are all alone and the no one will ever fully understand another’s experience becomes more and more apparent. when you try to make your home everywhere your home is also nowhere.
sometimes i used to get jealous of the people who worked in airports, not the travelers. i imagined them getting off work and walking to their car in the parking lot. getting in and going home to their families and friends. it would be nice. this is the deficiency mode, too. wanting the opposite of what we have rather than reveling in what is.
i forgot to think for myself because i was so afraid of being abandoned. this is like a simulation in free thinking and decision making.
really everything just feels MORE strongly. the spectrum of emotions is lengthened allowing for more radical extremes. there’s less to soften the blows. less noise to cover emotions. no one to divert to.
and it’s all so selfish. and cliché.
“everything we do is judged. we mostly get it wrong. oh well.”

soul mate needed!

looking for a ticket to america? a submissive woman to be yours? an easy woman similar to those you’ve seen in american movies? well, my friends. you’re in luck. because the next man who catcalls me on the street, proposes marriage, throws rocks at me to garner my attention, offers a lower price in exchange for a sexual act or offers a free drink is going to be my long lost lover boy. that’s right. i need you.

you were right. i had idealized love. thinking that love is a partnership. bollocks. your idea of ownership is much more appealing. thinking i’d meet my husband at university or in some sharerd activity was silly. my love will be found in the dirt roads of an african village or in the alleys of an istanbul bazaar. thinking that i didn’t like being harassed on the street… what a ridiculous notion! i was too closed-minded. though i’ve been born and bred with a degree of female empowement and turkey ranks 120 of 128 countries in gender equality, i think we will make it. sure. i could live in this indian village forever though i’m not hindu and can’t understand a word you’re saying. we don’t speak the same language? how can such a menial thing stand in the way of eternal love? we were meant to be, baby. the green light is on. the love train is about to leave the station. let’s roll.