The following excerpt was taken from a book written by an Italian author entitled Invisible Cities. It imagines a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan
...
I have been thinking a lot about my reasons for being here. What is the use of all my traveling? Sometimes I wonder why I do it. Its not that it is the easiest path to follow. It's difficult to try to become part of a family that doesn't speak your language. It can be time consuming to figure out a new city as you slowly forget about and are forgotten in your old city.
...
"What he (Marco Polo) sought was always something lying ahead, and even if it was a matter of the past it was a past that changed gradually as he advanced on his journey, because the traveller's past changes according to the route he has followed: not the immediate past, that is, to which each day that goes by adds a day, but the more remote past. Arriving at each new city, the traveller finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places."
...
Enough of random book quotations that you could care less about. Things here are continuing on with the same challenges. Not knowing the language, wondering exactly what the family expects, and trying to make some friends in a new place. I can't believe that I have been here for only three weeks. Or maybe that's a long time, I don't know. It's practically one month gone. I keep thinking about the U curve that I came to know so well at OIS. (I will think about the W curve later)
It seems I am tottering back and forth between the honeymoon and the hostility stage. The little guy celebrated his second birthday today. Tomorrow is the celebration complete with chocolate cake. It could be sufficiently boring for me since I do not speak French and that is what everyone will be speaking. I can't wait for my French lessons to start! I really should be more proactive and start trying to learn it on my own...but when I attempt to speak it the children just poke fun at me and that tends to be discouraging. I can hear the words in my head it is just that they don't want to jump out of my mouth.
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