Traipsing across North Africa

International travel is so much more and less than it's cracked up to be.  For example, guidebooks don't really get across the magic that happens when you communicate with your waiter in 4 different languages and end up with pizza at a restaurant or when you can only use sign language to buy fresh peas at the farmer's market.  They don't tell you about how wonderfully hospitable people are and the way you laugh so hard when you're trying to copy their Arabic pronunciations, failing miserably.  There are doors here that are intricately carved and bordered by colored tiles, and spices the color of.. well, we don't have anything that color!

There is, however, a side of travel that guidebooks don't talk about.  Sometimes you get sick.  That can taint your plans a little.  Listening all day to a language you can't understand is exhausting, especially for a girl whose love of language is as strong as mine.  It is the way I connect with people, celebrate, express myself.  To be on a little English island is harder than I thought.  There is no country music here, no running trails, and no tacos.  I live out of a suitcase and eat out most days.

Now, if there were tacos, running trails and country music, it wouldn't be North Africa.  I wouldn't want it to be different.  The difference makes it interesting, but it also makes you appreciate home that much more.  Wanderlust is so romantic and exotic (and contagious) but when all's said and done, there's no place like home.

Enjoying North Africa (and listening to a little Christmas music from back home on her ipod),

Little Miss Sunshine