San Francisco Dinner
I'm on vacation in the States at the moment and am currently in San Francisco visiting my brother. Aside from sometimes feeling like I'm going to get mugged (a strange thing is: in the Middle East I never feel like I'm going to get mugged, so being back in the US and worrying about these things is certainly a new feeling), being in San Francisco is pleasant. The weather's great: hot for San Francisco, but, with temperatures in the 80s, to me it feels amazing.
Tonight I met up with a college friend, Arthur, for dinner. We went to a pub/brewery in the Haight for dinner and talked about what we're doing, what we plan to do, and a little bit about politics. He told me that, out of all the people he knows from college, I'm probably doing the most interesting things, leading the most interesting life.
That's certainly a very flattering thing to hear and I like to think that, for the most part, I'm leading the life I want to live, which makes me happy. Earlier this week a friend of mine said to me that he believes in living abroad every opportunity you get. I guess I have, without even thinking about it, lived that school of thought.
There are things that I love about living abroad: learning about different cultures, learning languages, and meeting people from just about everywhere. I miss things like going to concerts and eating Mexican food for lunch and Thai food for dinner and family and eating meals with friends I've known for more than two years.
But Arthur asked me something that I found really interesting. He asked me if I find it difficult not living around friends I've known for years. And I realized that maybe it's not always so difficult. I have one or two really good friends in Doha and I've only been there five months. I've only known one of my best friends in London, a guy who's one of my best friends period, just over a year and a half, and we only lived in the same city about five months. But we know each other so well it's like we've known each other for decades.
Every time I move I think I'm never going to find as good friends as I've made in the past. And I'm constantly proven wrong. After feeling I had no friends in Doha just a month or so ago, I suddenly realize that I do have some. Moving so much is difficult but it's not so difficult that I want to stop living abroad. Not just yet.
Earthquake Zone
I was fast asleep in San Francisco this morning when I felt my bed shaking, so I woke up. I had a brief thought that I might have felt an earthquake but thought, 'Well, I don't actually know what an earthquake feels like; I'm sure I was just dreaming that I felt my bed shake.' So I went back to sleep.
Then at dinner tonight my brother's girlfriend mentioned how strong the earthquake this morning had been! So I actually did feel an earthquake. How strange, especially considering how close I was to feeling a major earthquake in Indonesia just a few weeks ago. I'm feeling very lucky to have missed the earthquake in Java by just a few days and to have experienced just a small earthquake in San Francisco.
Where is Home?
The problem with moving around so much is that you start to have a lot of homes. Or possibly none at all. Sitting here in my apartment in Doha, I think that this place certainly doesn't feel like home. After all my longing for some permanence last year while I was in Syria, here I am in permanent limbo in Doha. I'm working for a network that isn't yet on air and I know I don't like this city, so there's nothing permanent about this situation.
Today while driving home I started to think that, despite my thoughts that Pittsburgh, Chicago, London, Damascus, and most parts of Germany feel like home, maybe my home isn't actually a place. Maybe my home is wherever my friends are. Seeing my friend Avi in Jakarta felt like being at home. Maybe the reason I feel so at home in Chicago isn't necessarily because I've lived there but because I have such good friends there and I always feel so comfortable with them. Maybe the reason why I feel so at home in San Francisco, even though I've never lived there, is because my brother is there and seeing him feels like home.
I sometimes think that living in Doha will never feel like home, but maybe it will, if I find really good friends here. Maybe one day I'll look back and think that Doha felt like home, if only for a little while, because of people here.
Stowaway
There was a cat in my car yesterday. It crawled under the hood from underneath and got itself wedged underneath the engine and near the wheel. One of the guys who
washes cars at work pointed it out (he heard a meowing sound) in the morning and I thought it was simply beneath the car. Not so. When I stopped off at a shop near our offices at the villa in the afternoon some guys ran out of the shop when they heard the meowing. They said 'You have a cat in your car!' I popped the hood and almost threw up when I saw a little cat's face poking out from near the wheel.
The shop guys and I tried to get it out but it wouldn't come out (dumb cat! it was definitely over 100 degrees yesterday; why did it crawl into my hot, hot NEW car?), so the guys suggested I take it to a gas station. I drove across the street to the gas station next to the Nissan dealership, as I figured I could get the dealership to look at it if the guys at the gas station couldn't help me. Driving across the street of course meant a ten minute drive down to a nearby roundabout and back because of all the construction.
I got to the gas station, jumped out of the car saying, 'There's a cat in my car! There's a cat in my car!' in both Arabic and English, and realized the meowing had stopped. After getting many puzzled looks from the gas station attendants, who surely thought I was crazy, I finally found a mechanic who seemed to understand the problem. One of the guys at the garage looked under my car and assured me that the cat was gone. Somewhere on the way to the garage, perhaps when I hit a speed bump, that cat had fallen out of my car. Yes, terrible, I know, but I also feel lucky
that the cat didn't die in my car. So, I returned to work, my car cat-free, late for my meeting because of the cat. Yes, I heart Doha.
Indonesia
I decided to go to Indonesia for my birthday. Why not? I'm closer to Indonesia here than I would be in the US, it was only slightly more expensive than a flight to Turkey, and I have a good friend there I wanted to visit. It was my 29th birthday and I wanted to treat myself to a great vacation for it. I thought I'd live up to the idea of being single and fabulous; being able to jet off to Indonesia on somewhat of a whim is pretty fabulous, I think.
