something i can't define : ]

I can't shake the fact that I resemble a deer or Ben Franklin in like, 80% of photographs. Or the fact that my fingertips hurt in a way fingertips should not hurt. Regardless, I'm in one of those weird moods where I know that I should be asleep and not writing... especially since I have nothing good to be writing about. I mean, I guess I could reiterate my point that my birthday is always a letdown, but I've been saying that for weeks now. I could blab on and on about how my friends, sisters and family have been the only reason I have not thrown myself into traffic (even though some of them are the reason I would feel that urge at all). I'm going to abstain from doing all of that and fall back on what is probably my favorite subject to write about- going places that are not here.
Today my uncle showed me 300-some pictures from his and my grandma's recent trip to South America. At first, I wondered why my grandma, someone who thinks that her homeland of Greece is flawless and doesn't realize it is a third world country much like the rest of the world, would go to South America. Or my uncle, who, upon arriving in Turkey for the first time two summers ago did not leave the ship except to take pictures of the Royal Caribbean ship coming into the port next to us. I, on the other hand was almost sold away to marry some Turkish man in exchange for camels and a rug or two. Before I completely lose track of why it's so strange to me that my elderly relatives were in South America, let me elaborate. My grandmother is eighty four years old, talks to strangers, and refers to anyone hispanic as "espanols," as though they would not guess that she was referring to them in a particularly unappreciative sense. All of this being said, she is a sweet woman and a die-hard lover of all things Chicago. She has season tickets to the Cubs and the Bears, and gets around better than most 40 year olds. My uncle is at least twenty years younger than my grandmother, his sister, and does not have his driver's license. The two of them combined are quite the pair. So, imagine my grandma and uncle in South America.
Think about how many people you even know that have been to South America even. Exactly. I want to go there. Any unpleasant situation I am put in, I am almost always thinking of what exotic location I would rather be at. 9am on Tuesday rolls around and I'm staggering across the quad to my math lab. I would rather be jet-lagged and sleepless at 4am in London than listening to someone whose first language is obviously not English try and teach me word problems. I am stuck in traffic on 294, what else is new. I would much rather be back in the mixed traffic of bikes, cars, animals and buses in Beijing than stuck in my own car. I can go on and on, but I feel like that would be redundant. The outcome to any unpleasant situation is that I'd rather be doing it somewhere new. I love Chicago, to the point where I play Kanye's "Homecoming" every time I come back to the city after a long time. To me, there is nothing like driving down the back roads of Lake County or watching the sunset over the lake. As much as I could see myself anywhere but here, I can see myself in Chicago forever. Maybe it's like I need to go away to find out where I truly belong.
From what I've already experienced, I can take a part of whatever distant city I'm visiting and bring it back home with me. A part of my heart will always be somewhere in Greece, lost somewhere between the Parthenon and the caldera of Santorini, but in place of that missing piece, there is something more. Upon leaving Greece, I found something to identify with. I think I truly learned to appreciate spending time with myself in San Antonio, and I found identity in a gift shop in Edinburgh, Scotland. Jamaica taught me that you can wake up in paradise and find that your entire world has been changed and will never be the same ever again, but if you stick together, you can make it through just about anything. Somewhere in between Michigan and Wisconsin, I learned that when no one else seems to be there for me, I will always have my best friend, and that it is always a good idea to go to the bathroom while still in civilization. In a Norwegian fjord, I learned how to breathe for the first time.
From Dubai, I want to experience and appreciate a culture I otherwise do not agree with. I expect Bali to teach me serenity, and in Cairo I want to feel infinite. I want to read a French newspaper in a cafe on the Seine River. I'd like to understand what the words meant, but it's not completely mandatory. I'd like for tourists to stop me and ask for directions in Istanbul. I'll speak Greek to anyone and everyone I meet in Thessaloniki. I want to drive from Chicago to Los Angeles without feeling any particular regard to time. I want to watch the sun rise over Sydney and watch it set from Santiago.
I want so much out of life. Now that the haze of the past few weeks has dissipated, I feel like I can finally see where I am headed again. My God, it feels so good to see again.