Goodbye, Ansan. Everything is in flux.

I now sit in Incheon airport, one hour before my flight boards.

I'm happy to get back to friends in Zurich, but I'm curious how the city will feel. Last summer when I went to Madrid, the moment I got off the plane I felt more comfortable than in Zurich simply from being in a more familiar language. I hadn't expected that, and it showed me how not-completely-at-home I felt in Zurich. After another 8 months in Switzerland followed by 2 months here, I'm curious how Zurich will feel in comparison to Korea - much more comfortable or not. I certainly look forward to Zurich, but in the reserved way that comes with the knowledge that my time there is coming to an end. Two months is short.

Oh so familiar...

I've been in the States for 11 days now. I leave in five more. The first couple days back felt awfully surreal. Riding the L through Chicago, hearing the CTA announcements on the speakers, seeing the city bounce past me on the less-than-perfect red and brown line rails... it almost felt like watching a movie I knew well but hadn't seen in a long time. It didn't quite feel I was actually there. The most instantly obvious difference was the ambiance of being surrounded by native English speakers and the signage and advertising aimed at them (us). It all normalized quickly after meeting with more and more friends and seeing the familiar places of my not-so-distant past.

I got to visit a truly wonderful number of people, and will visit a couple more still.

Last night we went to Goshen to see a performance by Garrison Keillor. It was everything you'd hope it would be. The show started with the audience, well accustomed to his styling of Lake Wobegon, waiting breathlessly for the cue that he had begun being funny. The first few laughs were hopeful more than earnest. Normally the performer needs to warm up and relax for the show to be enjoyable. This time, it wasn't until the audience relaxed a few minutes in that we found a more natural cadence at which to laugh. You could almost hear the expectation in the pre-laugh silence - "The next line will be a good one, I'm sure of it!" His mammoth reputation preceded him, and it took a short time for the audience to get over their giddiness to truly enjoy the show. Keillor closed by saying that what our country/the world needs now is gratitude. "Gratitude is the cure." And to choose to be cheerful. Not happy (because who really knows what that means), but cheerful.

I don't know what to try to process next. So many different strains of thought have positively flown through my head during the intermittent quiet moments of this trip - thoughts of the future, the past, Midwestern sensibility and humor, motivation, biking, sickness and death... everything really. I can only hope that some portion of the ideas I'd like to mull around come back so I can spend some proper time with them and get them down on paper.

Back East

The West is now a thing of the past. After three days of zero productivity/activity in Archbold, I'm ready for my train ride (which leaves at 3:00am tonight/tomorrow morning), which will carry me out to my last chunk of cycling for the summer - a 5 day, 270 mile ride with MCC in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Beyond spending days on end in a house and not biking, it's strange here because it's green and it rains. Haven't gotten much of that this summer. It has been graciously cool, though, barely touching 80 F during the day.

Well, I leave Archbold in about 6 1/2 hours, I guess I should pack. Isn't really anything else to say. Here's a sunrise.