So far, I love it here. The neighborhood where I am staying is beautiful and the house I am living in is gorgeous. The weather has been pleasant over the past three days, the duration of my stay so far. I’m generally feeling happy, awkward, bemused, or sleepy at any given time of the day.

I went out walking yesterday and I loved it. I was trying to see if I could get to a certain shop I had eyed from the car when I first got “home.” But of course I had to act smart and try to find a shortcut and I ended up walking 30 minutes in the wrong direction. You can trust I would do something like that, right? Well I didn’t feel bad at all, actually I enjoyed the walk tremendously. I love walking alone but I never get to do that in our neighborhood in Amman — it’s just not walking material.

So you can say that I found out that not all roads lead to Rome (or home).

I went to the Bronx today. It was so interesting to observe the racial texture of the people there. So many people spoke in what sounded like Spanish to my inexperienced ears, and there was a majority of African-Americans. I also saw a number of veiled African-American women, and a couple of veiled women who seemed Arab.

At least Arabs and Muslims here say Assalamu Alaikom when they see other Arabs or Muslims. Back in Michigan in 2005 seldom did they interact or even smile to me, it was so strange and offensive really. But anyway, the people in the Bronx looked very exotic. Many had tattoos and piercings, and most were overweight. The place was heavy, the people didn’t smile, and I got sad vibes all over. Oh and many drivers, male and female, had really loud music blasting through the air from their cars. It was strange, I had never seen anything like that in Royal Oak. Honestly, I was relieved when I left the area, but I’m going back some time. Later.

My next step is to memorize the walking route to the station so I can really milk my time here. I will keep you posted on that, but for now you can check out some select shots I took of my surroundings:

New York

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Explorator. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.