There is nothing I love more than morning time. When the sun has just risen (I usually can't get up in time to see it actually rise) and most people are still asleep. Some of my favorite memories of my time in Oaxaca are of mornings: I would get up and do my run down and around a local park as the sun was rising, come home, shower, eat a big breakfast, and walk to school. I'd always arrive at school 30 minutes early in order to drink my coffee and read or write or just sit before people showed up. Last fall I did my best to come up with a tradition similar, except that I replaced the morning run, breakfast and coffee tradition with writing my capstone- and it was actually pretty pleasant.
In Greece I've been staying up pretty late, which makes it hard to get up so early (unless we have one of our excursions). This morning my body woke up to a sliver of the sun peeking through the window. I've now come downstairs and checked my emails, looked on facebook, etc. I have to admit, this morning tradition is beautiful looking out on an endless sea, hearing a few Greek words in casual conversation at the table across from me. But I'm snapped back to reality seeing women sweeping and mopping the floors, and am reminded that all this beauty that I am enjoying happens because of someone's labor. The woman cleaning smiles nicely at me through the window. I wonder if she enjoys the morning time as much as I do.
Katie the Greek enjoys a good life. This of course is a fantasized version of what Greek life is. I have my meals cooked for me, I sit in one of the loveliest dining rooms over the sea, I spend my days reading and looking at beautiful things. Nonetheless I have found the people and the environment very accommodating and kind to me. I don't know how my life would be different if I decided like Basil to move here and spend my life in a city or a village somewhere other than where I currently call "home." Sometimes I watch the show, International House Hunters and I remember someone telling me that all these older folks who buy homes in other countries in "paradise" only end up staying for about three years, and then move back to wherever they came from. This could be because they don't fully "integrate" or build and join communities in their new homes. Their primary reason for coming home seems to be that after a few years, no one comes to visit and they miss their communities and families. Far be it from me to generalize the experience of people who move across borders, but it seems to me that we can idealize life in lots of places ("roads paved with gold," "siestas and fiestas!" for example) sometimes. Certainly I have loved my time in Greece, but whether or not I could move across the world like Basil did is another question. In some ways it's terrifying, and in others, liberating. For now, I am enjoying Greece and this experience... especially on beautiful, warm, gentle mornings like this one, on the sea.
In Greece I've been staying up pretty late, which makes it hard to get up so early (unless we have one of our excursions). This morning my body woke up to a sliver of the sun peeking through the window. I've now come downstairs and checked my emails, looked on facebook, etc. I have to admit, this morning tradition is beautiful looking out on an endless sea, hearing a few Greek words in casual conversation at the table across from me. But I'm snapped back to reality seeing women sweeping and mopping the floors, and am reminded that all this beauty that I am enjoying happens because of someone's labor. The woman cleaning smiles nicely at me through the window. I wonder if she enjoys the morning time as much as I do.
Katie the Greek enjoys a good life. This of course is a fantasized version of what Greek life is. I have my meals cooked for me, I sit in one of the loveliest dining rooms over the sea, I spend my days reading and looking at beautiful things. Nonetheless I have found the people and the environment very accommodating and kind to me. I don't know how my life would be different if I decided like Basil to move here and spend my life in a city or a village somewhere other than where I currently call "home." Sometimes I watch the show, International House Hunters and I remember someone telling me that all these older folks who buy homes in other countries in "paradise" only end up staying for about three years, and then move back to wherever they came from. This could be because they don't fully "integrate" or build and join communities in their new homes. Their primary reason for coming home seems to be that after a few years, no one comes to visit and they miss their communities and families. Far be it from me to generalize the experience of people who move across borders, but it seems to me that we can idealize life in lots of places ("roads paved with gold," "siestas and fiestas!" for example) sometimes. Certainly I have loved my time in Greece, but whether or not I could move across the world like Basil did is another question. In some ways it's terrifying, and in others, liberating. For now, I am enjoying Greece and this experience... especially on beautiful, warm, gentle mornings like this one, on the sea.
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