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Part of Your World

Part of Your World

justSEVAN Thursday, September 12, 2013

Jesus Pastie Eating Christ….getting settled is taking longer than expected.

I have built so many pieces of furniture in the last few days.

I don’t want to see a screwdriver again for a long time.

Haven’t had much of a chance to really explore London because I have been waiting for deliveries, or building, or unpacking, or putting things away. BUT – I have walked up and down the high street of my borough and I am in heaven.

I haven’t lived amongst people of my ilk since I left Kuwait. And although I lived in what is supposed to be a melting pot city (yeah, right), I never saw many of my peeps outside of Yemeni bodega owners.

But this place….this place.

Lebanese people everywhere. Restaurants, grocers, shisha bars.

Persian places galore.

Afgani.

Indian.

Polish.

Pubs.

I hear the languages of my childhood. The smells all remind me of my mom and aunt’s kitchen.

And the other day I almost broke down in the middle of an Iceland because they had Coco Pops on a shelf. I ate this religiously as a kid. And when I came to America the alternative – Chocolate Rice Krispies – was not a substitute. It paled in comparison. It has been 23 years since I’ve seen this. Everywhere I go see things from my life in Kuwait.

Aero bars, Cadbury flakes, Smarties, Mars, Lion, Ahmad Tea, Maggi in a bottle, Olive Oil in a Can.

Yes, I know you can find some of these things in New York. But in select specialty stores. I see this in every store I go into. It’s amazing.  It makes me happy.

However, I will say that some things take adjusting to:

  1. Hard Water….this does not mix well with Ethnic hair. I’m gonna have to start conditioning with Olive Oil.
  2. Bath Gel…you can really tell how the world differs from America when I wonder why all the bottles of shower Tempest or Becalmed?gel are so small. They are in actuality normal size – I am just used to the American notion of “normal” which is super-size to everyone else.
  3. Change…lord I have made a fool of myself twice now trying to figure out the denomination of the coins since the worth is not commensurate with size. It has been…hilarious.
  4. Cheers Mate…I have started saying thing. I tend to shift my speech depending on what group I am with, so I can feel the accent and idioms creep in. Today I think I straddled the line somewhere between Toronto and Minnesota while saying Cheers, mate.
  5. Rubbing Alcohol – 5 pharmacies later and I am convinced that this does not exist Oh, Socrates…in this country or if it does, it ain’t cheaper than 10 pounds. The last person I asked about it looked at me as if I had just ran over his cat and did the “drinking” motion. I thought he was joking and razzing me. Until I realized people use whiskey to disinfect. Right.
  6. The Weather…there is no figuring it out. So far every day has included: cold, chill, sun, rain, damp, warmth. How in the hell do you dress for this kind of weather?
  7. Fridges…again – American overabundance has not served me well. Fridges here are half what we are used to. But I realized this is because food goes bad faster here. Because it’s actually real food and not processed or chemicalized. WHAT a notion.
  8. The tube is cleaner. Nice. With padded seats. And no A/C. Fuck me hard. AND – the same damn philosophy ads from the NYC stations are here too.
  9. People are so….nice. No, really. They are. With the exception of one Eritrean shop girl who asked me if I was Lebanese then proceeded to tell me I don’t look enough like one, everyone is kind and respectful. Granted, I am dealing with a 2 mile stretch of land in a much larger city, but, this was definitely not my experience when I landed in NYC.

Next week the goal is to go around in the city. Explore. Find markets. Used bookstores. Go an relish in an old-ass Gothic cathedral. Eat a pastie. Have some damn good fish and chips.

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London, New York City

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Refugee. Immigrant. Polyglot. Wordsmith. Overwrought Playwright. Artist of Colour. Overly Educated. Underly paid. Challenging Dominant Culture Paradigms. Involuntary Nomad. Always Looking for ‘Home’. All Words My Own. All Thoughts My Own.  Smorgasbord of Logorrheic Madness.

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