Travel the world and the seven seas

Near the top of my Must See TV list is The Amazing Race, the only reality show I could ever see myself doing. Except not, because, hello, it's on television. Also, I like taking showers every day and people like Boston Rob make me cry. So, yeah, maybe I'm not really cut out to be a Racer. But still. Reserving flights? I'm awesome. Navigating? I kick ass. Reading comprehension skills and following directions? My elementary school scrapbooks are full of certificates to prove my excellence in these areas. (And from the previous sentences, you can see that I also have a good-sized ego, a definite requirement for any respectable Racer.) So maybe flying scares the crap out of me and maybe I run a thirty-minute mile, but I could last until episode three, I know it.

So anyway, last night the Racers flew from Botswana to India. And, from the admittedly limited TV presentation of India, it appears that India is much like China with the terrifying cab rides, rickshaw drivers and hordes of people gathering around the Foreigners. Even the Detour made me think of China, with the pots of tea. I turned to Phillip, who is only midly entertained by reality television and was just avoiding his homework, and said, "I miss China!"

Now where, Internet, did THAT come from? Lest you forget, my time in China involved taking showers on top of the toilet, impossibly spicy food, interminably gray skies, constant staring and numerous homicide attempts by cab drivers. And to be honest, I didn't find China particularly beautiful. I know there are many beautiful places and sights in China, but downtown Xi'an is not one of them.

I miss Blondie, our insta-friend who, every night, sat between Phillip and me cracking up over back-to-back episodes of Scrubs on the little laptop monitor. I miss our students, whose conversation dated from the Old Testament as their English textbook was the Bible, and who teared up with me on our last day in Xi'an. I miss Kitty, Blondie's sophomore student, who still writes every once in a while to tell me about the current Chinese festival and to update me on Teacher Blondie. I miss spending 50 cents on a lunch I can't finish and a dollar on a taxi ride across town (although with those taxis, you get what you pay for). I miss the orphan babies I held for one afternoon. I miss Western pizza and Coronas that cost ten taxi rides at the High Fly pizzeria. I miss locking up my house for three weeks while I go sightseeing in the most foreign country I've ever visited. Phillip and I are pretty lucky, huh?

I miss Italy, too, although it's not the people I miss there. (Except my parents. I love my parents! Hi parents!) I lived in Sicily when I was eleven and twelve, and the smells and tastes and textures of Sicily always factor in when I think about what heaven is like. I lived in the Azores after that and maybe one day I will write about hiking over volcanic rocks and hurricane winds and going to a high school with two hundred students in grades seven through twelve. We moved back to Italy three years later, albeit northern Italy where the sun and smells are not quite so spectacular as my earlier experience. Occasionally something will taste like Italy or sound like Italy- try to stop the mopey when that happens.

Sometimes- and I KNOW this sounds stupid- I hate the fact that we have to have jobs and pay rent because it seriously interferes with my whole Seeing The World plan. You can get around this dilemma by choosing to work in a part of the world you have not yet seen, and Phillip and I were going that route for a while last year. We're not anymore- turns out Seattle isn't such a bad place to be. But I still think about teaching English in China or taking a year off to ride the trains around Europe. I'd like to see pyramids and elephants and South Pacific beaches and remnants of the Cold War. If someone decides to produce The Amazing Race on NPR, will they please call me up?