The Things I Miss

Its been 7 weeks since I left home. I've been in Santa Rosa for a month now. Yesterday and today I talked on the phone with a lot of people in the States and it got me thinking about the little luxuries at home that I am only now beginning to appreciate. Here are some of my thoughts from today:

I really miss...

1. Good beer. Like a good chilled Hefeweizen in a thick glass cup with a lemon slice...and that little water ring it leaves on the hard, dark wooden table at the bar. Or not-so-slowly savoring a Red Tail Ale out of the bottle; that bubbly feeling between my throat and my chest as it goes down. A Mirror Pond in that great big glass they serve it in at the Red Room would be great right now.
   
2. Good beer in good company. I miss hanging out with the people I love and drinking beers together, talking, laughing, feeling comfortable in my surroundings and in my own skin. Between the language barrier, culture barrier, and the relatively short amount of time I will be here, I know it will be hard to make good friends here. For now, the only person I really truly like and get along with is Sarah, my housemate. John is just too different from me, and I am currently annoyed with our Honduran friend Cid. This isn't to say that there aren't any fun people here. There definitely are, and I met some really awesome people last night at a party. But the language barrier definitely makes things difficult. I'm workin on it though...
3. Walking around Chicago. I really miss walking around the city, going to restaurants and bars that are familiar, looking at the pretty buildings, feeling the lake wind on my face, passing under the el tracks when a train is going by overhead. I miss the familiarness of the city. I even miss seeing all those preppy midwestern boys, with their old baseball hats, striped polo shirts, khaki shorts, and adidas shoes. I miss BEING in a big city where there is always something to do and new people to meet. Its pretty small here. I miss the skyline and the tall buildings, the greeness of the Chicago River, the solemn grayness of the lake, seeing the Sears tower every day...
   
4. Boys. Though its probably a good thing for me to get a little break from boys and dating and what have you, I so dearly miss being able to go to a bar and find a cute guy to flirt with. Its definitely not a new realization, to me or anyone else, that this is quite an enjoyable past time of mine. And I can't do it here and I miss it. A lot. Because of the cultural difference, I am really not attracted to guys my age here anyway. There is too much machismo and I find it really unattractive. The higher classes have a little less of it, but still, it's there. Also, most people here are short. I still keep to my 6 foot tall rule :)
5. All those little convenient things. Clothes dryers, manicures, organized driving and roads, things happening mostly on time, clean streets, air conditioning, always having running water, always having hot water, always having electricity, safety (in cars, on the street, in the house, in what we eat...), grocery stores with EVERYTHING you could possibly want, the fact that we have billboards for advertisements and not trucks that drive all around town with a loud speaker blaring out advertisements, the efficiency of most everything in the States, smoking weed and easily being able to buy it!, sinks with hot water, being able to drink the water out of the tap, use it to cook with, use it to brush my teeth with, being able to throw toilet paper in the toilet!, aveeno facewash, car horns being used rarely (funny, right as I typed that, a car started honking right outside my window, this is always happening), Comcast On Demand, having a shower head, being able to use a credit card everywhere, knowing instinctively what is culturally acceptable and just being familiar with my culture in general...the list goes on.
6. Starbuck's. Yes. I really truly, madly, deeply miss my tall soy vanilla latte from Starbucks in the morning. Even though I have AMAZING Honduran coffee, probably some of the best coffee in the world, I still want my Starbucks.
7. My friends and my family.
   

Now, I'm not complaining about my life here. For every thing that I miss from home, there is something about Santa Rosa and Honduras that I love and that we don't have in the U.S. And also, we live lavishly here. Most Hondurans, and the American volunteers here as well, don't have electricity ever (and thus no refrigeration), a lot of the time don't have running water, never have hot water, only have one grocery store in town, etc. Thats the real third world, and I don't live in it. I'm pretty fortunate in my situation here and the on and off electricity and hot water, the noise, the little inconveniences I wasn't used to, I'm accustomed to all of it now, and it doesn't bother me most of the time. Its just part of life here. But, it has definitely made me appreciate my life in the U.S. that was free of all these little inconveniences.

What I wouldn't give right now for a 6 pack of Red Tail Ale, and be chillin in Chicago with Jon, Alec, Maddie and Mikey. Or to be in California at Yosef and Rebecca's house with Shawna, Doron, Nick, Megan, Brigette, Raquel, Willa, Julien, Arie, and Faryn, sitting by the pool at night, looking at the stars and breathing in that fresh mountain air in silence...or maybe it would be mostly silent and Shawna would be laughing.