reverse culture shock

Aaaaand... I'm back in Canada. Halifax. It's... weird. But it's okay. I thought I'd be really upset when I had to leave India, but I was surprisingly okay with it. I am 100% sure that I am going back to India at some point in the not-too-too-distant future, so it didn't break my heart like I thought it might. I have so much left to see there. It will warrant multiple trips.

It is incredibly weird coming back to the winter though. And I've been experiencing culture shock in reverse, which I didn't anticipate. My flight home included a connection in New Jersey... when I got off the plane and people were wearing winter coats, it felt weird. When I got off the plane in Halifax and it was cold, it freaked me out. Since then I've just been wandering around thinking "Oh my god... Canada is so... empty. Where are all the people? Where is all the garbage?" Clean air feels weird. Drinking tap water feels wrong. I am so aware walking down the street that NOBODY is staring at me. I feel weird not being sexually harassed every 5 minutes.

My friend Lyndsay, who just came back from Brazil, was experiencing the same thing. She said, "Canada is like a big bubble of cleanliness and safety." And it's true. It's like being cut off from the real world. Everything is nice and happy over here. I appreciate Canada like I never have before. Except the cold. Oh my god. I am such a wimp.

My last day in India I took a boat out to Elephanta Island, which is like an hour's ride from Mumbai. There are some caves with big Hindu statue/carving things, and you can climb up a massive hill for a really pretty view of the island and the water, which I did. It was hot. It was gorgeous. It was full of monkeys. While I was up there, I was sitting down under a tree writing some postcards, and a couple of guys started to talk to me. I kind of blew them off, like I usually do. They sat a short distance away from me. After maybe 15 minutes, one of them came up to me, and said they had a gift - and then he gave me a picture of myself that the other guy had sketched while I was sitting there. I thought they were going to ask me for money, but they didn't. The guy was just an artist (he gave me his card with his website and everything) and had sketched me and gave me the pic. It was really cool. Nice to have a positive experience with strangers before I left. Although I followed that up with a bad but typical experience involving me yelling at a jerky taxi driver on the way to the airport, haha. I swear, next time I am in India I will be fluent in Hindi so my yelling will be more effective.

Anyway, now I am home and all is well. I celebrated my first day back in Canada by eating two massive bags of Doritos and watching 4 consecutive episodes of America's Next Top Model. I have spent the last few days driving my Mom and brother insane playing Hindi film soundtracks at high volumes. (Anyone who knew me at Second Cup can sympathize.) I don't really know what I am going to do with my life now... though it is looking extremely likely that I'll be moving to Korea within the next few months to start teaching English, since my debts are caving in on me and I don't have any other option.

I'll keep the blog alive, of course, but it'll likely be a bit less frequent and not as exciting until I actually get going somewhere again. Ohh, but I will post some more travel photos soon! I have yet to upload anything yet, I am being pretty lazy about that, but I will. I am sorry to everyone I have failed to keep in e-mail contact with over the last few months. I will try to get caught up on that too.

Oh and in other news, my former travel buddy Micah is still alive, or at least he was three days ago when I phoned him. He was in Goa, at a beach party. I am very jealous that I did not make it to Goa. Next time, for sure. Micah and I have resolved to go back and do South India sometime in the near-ish future... whenever that might be... who knows. Korea is not THAT far from India... hmmmm...