Ever been homesick for somewhere you're not from?

I had a strange feeling when I first landed in Paris, and it actually took me a while to place it, but it was homesickness. For Asia. And it hasn't left me.

I had a strange feeling when I first landed in Paris, and it actually took me a while to place it, but it was homesickness. For Asia. And it hasn't left me.

It's a strange thing, feeling homesick for a place I'm not from. I love a lot about the US, but I rarely feel homesick for it, except maybe for driving down the coast to Big Sur, Pacific Ocean crashing against the cliffs below, gentle sun, winding roads…

I've been in Europe for about a month now. First Paris, then San Sebastián Spain (which is just the perfect seaside European town), now Barcelona. After being in Asia for 8 months, it's quite a culture shock.

What I realized when I landed in Paris was that I immediately started watching my back again. Not in any overwhelming way - the things we fear rarely happen - but there was this instant shift back to vigilance. Keep my wits up, make sure I don't walk down the wrong street at the wrong time, watch out for people who might cause trouble. It's just something I noticed because I hadn't had that feeling in almost a year.

In Asia, I wandered widely. Riding my motorbike in Hanoi, Bali, Saigon, getting intentionally lost for sometimes hours. Stopping at random restaurants, parking my bike and walking down dark alleys at 1am to check out a lake in the moonlight. I never felt like I needed to watch my back.

Here's what I experienced there: Streets hectic in a way I've never seen, but not aggressive. Just full of people each going about their day, allowing for people to make mistakes and not feeling the need to scream at them. When someone cuts you off in traffic, everyone just flows around it. No honking, no yelling, no road rage. I was in Asia for almost a year and I never once saw road rage. Not once.

Here's what I'm experiencing in Europe: Human shit on the street. People laying on their horn and sticking their head out the window yelling at someone. People jumping turnstiles in the subway. Cities that reek of urine. An underlying feeling that things could go wrong quickly, that there are people to watch out for.

It's not that their cities are all clean and tidy, or that these are perfect places. But there's this basic respect for the humanity of the other people sharing the space with you. They're not saccharine sweet friendly all the time, but there's this feeling like everyone's on the same team. Like they're looking out for each other, and they're looking out for you.

What happened to us that we stopped looking out for each other?

I don't know if this is just my perception, or if I was treated differently as an outsider, or if there's something fundamentally different about how these cultures approach community. All I know is what I experienced. And what I experienced was eight months of feeling like I could relax, like I was part of something, like strangers had my back.

I'm loving my time in Europe, but Asia feels like home.

Travel notes:

Spent a few weeks in San Sebastián eating pincos (like little tapas, my favorite was the most simple, just olives and anchovies on a stick soaked in oil…such an amazing flavor explosion), and drinking the local sparkling wine whose name I could never figure out how to pronounce. Met Carla for the first time in person (Filipina who lives in Spain who I found on Upwork), who's been helping me run forageSF for the last 2 years. We zoom every week but first time meeting face to face was really cool.

Since San Sebastián is so expensive (Europe generally has been a shock after 8 months in Asia, everything at least 10 sometimes 20 TIMES as expensive as I got used to), I stayed in a kind of boarding house, like a big apartment with rooms and shared bathrooms. I've felt like I've aged out of hostels, so been mostly Airbnb and hotels, but the shared space was really nice. Met some good people that I spent some time with, had some great conversations, really enjoyed it. Other than that I spent a lot of time at the beach, ate a lot of bread, just walked around. It's such a beautiful place. Just the most perfect ideal of what you think of a European seaside town. Perfect weather, azure sea, sailboats bobbing in the crescent bay while beautiful people dressed casual but somehow still so well, amble down the cobblestone walk.

Post San Sebastián I headed to Barcelona for a week, which was a very different place. More like NYC. Hot, crowded, smell of trash (which feels like the defining aroma of NYC in the summer for me), full beaches, lots of tourists filling up medieval palazzos (although in Spain I'm sure they're called something else). I really liked it. Lots of energy.

Now I'm on my way to Austria via Paris via Zurich via Salzburg to visit a friend. Zurich is clean, beautiful, expensive, perfect like it's out of a postcard or dollhouse. Like a mall recreation of a city. Very "nice," but for me it's nice in the way a mall is nice. Beautiful and not in the least interesting. I need some chaos to feel comfortable.