Home

Listening to Edward Sharpe's song "Home" that crones, "Home is wherever I'm with you," I realize that I'm lucky to have a loving family that gives me a home wherever we go.  And this is good, but there are times when I long for more.

I grew up near Atlanta with Ohioan parents of German, English, and Irish decent.  The most I know about my family is that my mother got my grandfather's red hair, freckles, and fiery temper, and that my father's grandfather floated on a raft down the river into Ohio from Canada.  How he got from Germany to Canada is a mystery to the family.

Throughout my childhood, my grandparents were mostly dead or estranged.  The one grandmother I had contact with was in a nursing home in Ohio, and when we did see her, the visits took place in a dark room where little conversation transpired.  Due to this lack of contact with extended family, my background is enigmatic to me.

After Atlanta I moved from city to city: Houston, Orlando, Jackson, and others.  I was blown around by school and jobs.  The more I moved, the harder it became to answer the question, "Where are you from?"  When people ask me that, what I really want to say is, "What is home?", like Arthur Dent in The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  His planet was recently blown up, and he was on board a stolen ship lost in the universe.  This is similar to the feeling that washes over me when people ask where my home is.  However, to be polite and avoid a long and awkward conversation, I pick the last place I lived.

Now I live in the Middle East with my small family.  Farthest from whatever concept of home I've ever had, I find myself searching for and trying to connect to some roots, any I can find.

Due to my German maiden name (Wilhelm), blonde hair, and large frame,  I've always felt the most connection to my German family.  Why did my grandparents leave Germany?  Why didn't they stay and give me a home, some roots, a real heritage?  Maybe for the same reasons why we keep moving our son around from place to place.  Every day he begs to go back to Texas, the place he calls home.  If we move back there will it be enough, or will he someday search for deeper roots, as well?

A benefit to living where we do now is that we are relatively close to Europe.  This summer I will go to Munich to drink its beer, hike its Alps, and hope for some mystic connection to "where my ancestors are from."

I have to think that there are many Americans who feel this way.  Most of our ancestors came from somewhere else.  We've adopted a somewhat homogenous American culture, and in many ways we're lucky to have that.  But for me, there's always been this ghost itch for some time-honored culture that remains in the place from where our ancestors fled.

And I find myself constantly searching for "a real home."  A place where I fit in, where the air feels right in my lungs, where the way people interact with each other makes sense.  I'm waiting to fall in love with it in the way that I fell in love with my husband.

I don't honestly expect to find this fictional place, but I do expect to find something.  Maybe myself, maybe some knowledge that every place is in some ways the same.  Whatever the outcome, I am lucky to have a family to go with me.  I know that wherever we "go back to" by choice or obligation, it will give me a place to call home when I'm asked, at least for now.

Singapore!

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, but I've just been busy living life, and it's felt just normal, nothing particularly blog-worthy.  However, we just returned from a family vacation in Singapore, and I want to share our experiences and photos with friends and family.

Day 1:

Our flight left around 11 PM, so we flew overnight and didn't sleep much on the plane.  The layover in Sri Lanka was interesting.  As I told Woody, I've never considered layovers an actual visit to the country . . . until our Sri Lanka layovers.  The first time a cafe lady tried to get Woody to illegally buy liquor for her.  The second time we both had creepy bathroom attendants beg us for money and stare me down strangely.  Of course, there was also the fact that our flight departed late and the airlines giving us bad information about when it would be ready.

Nevertheless, we eventually arrived in Singapore, and it was warm, rainy, and delightful.  We easily got a cab to our hotel.  Our cab driver was funky and friendly and gave us a tour as he drove.

It felt great to be in an Asian city again.  More accurately, it felt great to have a break from a Muslim country.  And Singapore is so funky that even the old ladies have purple mohawks.  Woody and I have pretty  much decided to return to the US in the summer of 2014 so that Griffin can have a stable place to grow up, learn what it means to be an American, and get to know his grandparents.  However, this city made us dream of retirement when we can live anywhere we want to.  We can see ourselves scooting around on the MRT and hanging out in the Hawker Centres eating duck satay.

On the day we arrived we had two separate very friendly encounters.  First was an older man on the subway who showed us how to buy tickets and even gave us advice for which stop would save us the most money.  The second time, an older woman approached us on the street and started talking to us about her son, her own travels, and suggestions for where could take Griffin while we were in Singapore.

Based on these people we met and others we observed, it seems like such a convenient place to retire because the city is so clean and easy to move around in.  Also, people move together politely and orderly, unlike Dubai where people push each other around in order to get where they're going.


Here's Singpore from our hotel balcony:

As you can see, it has some amazing buildings.  I found that I didn't really take many pictures on this trip because most of what there was to see was modern buildings. 

Day 2:

On Day 2 we went to Chinatown, Little India, and a Night Safari at night.  I didn't take any pictures in Chinatown because it didn't really seem that different than Taiwan when we lived there, so nothing really stood out to me.  

Little India was pretty quiet during the day, but I got a couple of pictures:

Below I'm enjoying a refreshing citrus soda after a long, hot morning of walking.  It was exactly what I was hoping to find, and, as you can tell, I was pretty happy about it:

At night a bus picked us up and took us to a park next to the zoo for a night safari.  I didn't get many pictures because it was obviously dark, and we couldn't use a flash because it would hurt the nocturnal animals.  However, one of the tram turned out:

This night safari was really cool.  We took a tram through the rainforest and stopped periodically to walk through and view different animals.  My favorite was a Giant Indian Red Flying Squirrel.  We were about four feet away from creatures like this:

We were also inches away from giant fruit bats.  They were hanging all around us at one point, and we didn't realize it until our eyes adjusted to the light (or should I say dark):

There were so many other amazing nocturnal animals.  I wish I could remember them all.  Also, it was just generally a beautiful place.  There was a still-as-a-mirror lake that was surrounded by trees and reflected the stars.  It was lovely and peaceful.

Day 3:

On the third day we took a bus across the river to Malaysia and went to LegoLand.  Our Singapore trip, in general, was the most "touristy" trip we've ever taken.  Never in my life have I been a fan of guided tours, but this time it worked out well for us.  It's so easy because you let other people do the planning, scheduling, and driving, and we saw things we never would've otherwise seen.

On the bus we met a nice family from Hong Kong who had a boy around the same age as Griffin.  They said they liked Singapore better than Hong Kong because of the pollution.  We added this info to our running mental list of the best cities in the world to live in.  We were curious about Hong Kong, but after hearing this comparison, we rest assured that Singapore could remain in our top five.

After an hour or so and the immigration stops, we made it to LegoLand.  If you can believe it, Malaysia is even more humid and hot than Singapore.  However, it was green, hilly, and beautiful.

Griffin loves gears, so he was very happy about these giant gears:

Griffin actually got a Lego driving license and drove on this track.  He did great!  He never crashed, and he parked it back where they said to.

A mini lego Singapore:

The lego villages were amazing.

The train ride was a highlight:

 The plane ride was also a highlight:

Despite constantly reapplying sunscreen, we all got farmer's tans that day.  It was the closest to the equator we've ever been, and we underestimated how hot the sun was.  

Griffin had a great time, and he wants to go back to LegoLand.  Luckily, he's close enough to turning 6 that he was able to do everything.  Most of the rides had a cut-off at six, so I would recommend to other families to wait until your children are 6; there's not much to do for kids younger than that.

Day 4:

The day before, when we were in line for the Legoland bus, Griffin spotted a "Duck truck."  It's a truck that is also a boat.  I signed us up for a Duck Boat tour the morning of Day 4.

We saw lots of landmarks on the boat cruise.  On the right is Marina Sands, and on the left is the famous Art museum of Singapore.  After the tour, we walked over and saw a lego exhibit.  Unfortunately, my camera died, so I couldn't get any pictures.

 This is the famous merlion that Singapore is named after:

After the boat tour, we rode on the famous Singapore flyer:

On a clear day, supposedly you can see all of Singapore and some of Malaysia.  Our day was a bit cloudy, however.  This was also after my camera died.

After the flyer, we walked down below and explored the pretty little park beneath it:

Day 5:

On Day 5 we flew home.  We didn't leave until 3:00 in the afternoon, but thanks to some bad weather in Dubai (who's ever heard of a dust thunderstorm, anyway?!), the shady Sri Lankan airlines rerouted us to Abu Dhabi where they let us sit on the runway for over 4 hours.  Luckily, someone who knew that it was illegal to keep people on a plane for more than 3 hours called the cops.  Immediately after that we were rushed home to Dubai.  A trip that was supposed to end around 10:00 at night instead lasted until 5 AM the next morning.  We came home exhausted and very happy to see our beds and kitty.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip to Singapore.  It was the refreshing break that we needed.  Singapore is lovely.  Look for us there in about 35 years donning purple mohawks and eating bowls of laksa and duck satay.

Stay tuned for my solo trip to Munich in June, and then in July/August for our Scandinavian vacation where my mom will join us.  :)