Arriving back at home from an extended vacation comes with a lot of mixed emotions. While there is excitement to be reunited with one’s beloved people and pets, as well as the comfort of one’s own home, there are other more complicated feelings. Knowing that after months of planning and anticipation, the big trip is now a memory instead of something to provide inspiration during trying days can be difficult.
It’s just hard.
In the less than 18 hours since I’ve been back on American soil, here are some of the things with which I find myself struggling…
The corner across the street from the hotel where I spent the night in Boston was an open air drug use site. When I first looked down on it, I assumed it must be a television or movie set because I simply could not imagine it was real. I’m not some naive woman who has never witnessed the street drug trade scene either. I grew up taking the bus back and forth to Port Authority in the 80s and I saw some shit, but this scene was horrific. Mid morning, the police and city workers essentially bulldozed the sidewalk, clearing everyone out, along with mounds of trash. Forty-five minutes later they were all back.
Since I wasn’t comfortable walking in this neighborhood (please don’t tell me again how “gritty” and “dangerous” Naples is), I Ubered to South Station to catch my train. When I say “train,” I do mean train because there’s only a single daily train from Boston to Albany. Unless I want to go via NYC, which if you know anything about geography, you know is absurd. I’ve only been to South Station a handful of times, but I feel pretty comfortable describing it as a hole.
It’s not impressive.
The trip from Boston to Albany by train takes 5+ hours. Driving the same distance takes approximately 3:20, which makes this ride a hard sell, I imagine, to most people. After taking trains all around Italy for the past 3.5 weeks, at speeds of up to 300 kph, it feels excruciating slow.
Planning ahead, I picked up something to eat for the trip from the nearby High Street Place Food Hall, which had been recommended by a former student (thanks, Lisette!) when I reached out to her for nearby suggestions. Once back in South Station, I grabbed a 1 liter bottle of water from one of the concessions and was shocked when it rang up at $4.39. Had I been in Rome I could have simply filled my reusable bottle from one of the nasoni at no cost – and eliminated the use of yet another single use plastic bottle.
I considered a cappuccino. The single cup of coffee I’d had at the hotel, in a paper cup, left me a little shy of my typical two cup daily intake. The price took my breath away – $4.95. No way I was spending $5+ for what promised to be a crappy cappuccino, especially after enjoying froth topped delights in Italy, with a filled to order cornetto on the side, for half that amount.
The paper cup for my coffee at the hotel, along with the paper plate and plastic utensils, was a stark contrast to the ceramic cups and plates on which I was served my meals in Italy. Unless you’re taking your drink away, in which case you are upcharged for the paper products, food and beverages are served in/on washable, reusable dishware.
Also of note is the commitment to recycling I witnessed. I know that adherence to recycling regulations is probably less than universal, but every place I stayed came with multiple bins to sort waste into paper, glass, plastic, metal and compost. When I had breakfast at the hotel my first morning back in the States, dumping everything into a single bin just felt so wrong. Can’t we do better?
I know that vacation isn’t reality and that the places I love to visit come with their own problems, even if I don’t see them, but each time I return to the country where I was born, it feels less like home. I’m going to focus on the positive, as I truly try to do, and do my best to concentrate on the best thing to have occurred in the U.S. during my time away – the fact that maybe, just maybe, the Democrats are going to finally eliminate the possibility of DJT ever being the leader of this country ever again.
DelSo 