Home?

I took a walk yesterday around one of those neighborhoods in Moscow
that makes you forget it's mostly a city of giant boulevards and jam-packed highways. It's near this giant church that everyone here thinks is really cheesy because it was made pretty recently, replacing a demolished, old, beautiful relic of Russian Orthodoxy that Stalin decided was a little too opium-like. But anyway, the neighborhood was quiet---legitimately, actually quiet---even though surrounded by one of Moscow's main thoroughfares (if you can call a ring-road a thoroughfare) and full of buildings that when I passed I thought, "Yes---if I could live there, maybe Moscow would be the place for me . . ."

Not that it ever really would be I think. But I've been telling various people lately that Russia has started to seem normal to me. I told one friend not comfortable, but familiar, and I think that's right---and when I think about the States, I get a little nervous, like it's a place that I would have to adapt to. I guess I've never been abroad as long as I have been now, so maybe this happens to everyone---maybe this is what all that "reverse culture shock" talk was about. Another friend (I don't know why I'm not using names, but I'm not and I'm not gonna, so there) was telling me the other day that he thinks he's traveled so much that new places don't shock him the way they used to---but I wonder what going back to the States will be like for him. Maybe normal. But probably not.

What kinds of things have become normal? A short list: sushi in non-Japanese restaurants, nine out of ten women wearing heels or knee-high boots (perhaps a statistical exaggeration), dust/dirt everywhere, metro cars that come every two minutes (at most during rush hour), "rye" bread that's not actually rye bread, really bad out-of-season produce, street food, beer restaurants, seeing people I know on the streets (that doesn't really happen in New York, right?), talking about the weather constantly

I could keep going. But I'll leave it at that for now. Anyway I suppose the "sut'" (essence, approximately) of this post is that familiarity seems to have pretty strong influence on people. I remember someone (brother?) telling me about a statistic that cites proximity as having an incredibly big role in ich people end up dating each other. Proximity! So am I falling in love with Moscow? I don't know. Am I beginning to feel more relaxed (okay, so maybe I could say "comfortable")? I think so. But is that just because I've spent nine months here now? Maybe this is all really obvious to everyone, but I still keep turning it over in my mind.

That said, I think I should probably move, after summer at least. Anyone have suggestions where??