Recently I had a re-education. Back in the former USSR after a two year absence. Many things have changed, many things have stayed the same. It is so BIG! When living in one of the smallest countries in the world, or walking the crowded streets of Southeast Asia where the masses of people press in all the time, you can quickly forget that there are places in the world that have almost unlimited space.
It gives a sense of peace, that is less related to the absence of conflict and more related to the fact that you can be alone very easily. There is a profound sense of peace that comes from this wide open spread-out-BIG amount of space. It feels simple, non-complex, straightforward . . . until you try to navigate the local transportation, or the police station or the state orphanage, or the bank. Then you find a complexity that completely overwhelms you. This is the "wall of bureaucracy that every Slavic person in the former USSR fears and has deep pride in, all at the same time.
It just frustrates ex-pats. Deep deep frustration. Unimaginable frustration that only those who have survived it can grasp. I have climbed that "wall" many times in the past . . . now I generally pay other people to navigate it.
Finally, there is the air. I should have left my contacts at home. I must have had to take them out 40 times in three days. The dust in the air, the constant breeze blowing off of the Black Sea, yet dry as the desert . . . contact lens hell. Ja, its good to be back, for a visit.,
