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It finally happened, I finally made my trip the the Seoul airport, caught a plane and ended up back in America. Korea is done. I can hardly believe it. Chris met me at the airport and in the car on the way back to his apartment, he played his "America" mix CD that he burned, complete with Elvis's Star Spangled Banner, Neil Diamond's Coming to America, and popular fourth of July Marches. It's strange but great to be back in America. It's not like I've been living in Korea for twenty years. It's just that the difference between Korea and America is so stark, they seem like different planets. It's strange to me that despite how comfortable I became with Korea, America is my home. These are my people and my roots. It's the culture that I grew up with. I must say, it is absolute heaven to walk into an entire of books all in English. And go into a store or ask directions to people who speak English--well, Bostonian which is arguably 'wicked' different from English. Boston is such a soft city. I've been walking around drunk for four days. Today, I went to the hippest Borders on the planet, an old bank converted into a bookstore. It was complete with a vault, roman columns, decorated tiled ceilings--a work of art, really. I found a book called Boston Ghosts: true stories, sat down and read most of the book--seventy pages. As I left the store, meeting the gray afternoon, pregnant with impending rain, I could feel the history in this town, like running my fingers across the rough bark of an old tree. I admit: I began looking in the old, purple-tinted windows for signs of ghosts. Because like the book says, "Boston LOOKS haunted." I followed the paved-brick line of the freedom trail to the North end. I strolled through the old Italian neighborhoods and could almost taste the marinara that ran through these peoples veins. A pot-bellied old man sat lazily on a bench smoking a fat cigar as he watched his friend animate his discussion with boxing punches, "So I don' know if Ieem wronnga or iff Ieem wrieet." Two other men sat on the steps of an Italian grocery store and screamed amicably to each other in Italian. A middle-aged man in an expensive suit and a new hair cut is unabashedly hitting on the waitress in the espresso cafe, who says she is taking voice lessons and can't be older than nineteen. I walked by the harbor and an out-door fish market. I paused at the sharp smell of yesterdays fish, breathed in deep, and it reminded me of wonderful Korea. Then I hopped on the T and bobbed back to Chris's apartment. Boston. Boston--Scottro [2003-06-05]
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