The talk of the month among friends here in Maadi is currently “are you going ‘home’ this summer?” and “when are you leaving?" Most people we know will leave Cairo during the summer, and since the university contract we have includes 'home leave'; so will we.
Courtney is teaching this summer and won’t be able to go anywhere until the end of July, but the boys and I will leave early for Sweden on the 5th of July. In addition to visiting family and friends there, I’m planning on taking the boys hiking, to one of the theme parks (Legoland, Sommarland, the World of Astrid Lindgren), and hopefully we’ll be able to spend a few days on the beach. On the 26th of July, the boys and I will fly from Copenhagen to Frankfurt where we will board our plane to Chicago. Courtney will fly from Cairo that very same day, also to Frankfurt, and board the same flight with us. Although I'm sure the boys & I would have been fine on our own, I'm glad we're able to fly across the ocean together. We will then spend a hopefully blissful month in Northern Indiana, possibly drive down to Kentucky and St. Louis for a few days, and commence our return to Cairo toward the end of August. We will make a short stop for a few days in Boston on the way, to spend Labor Day weekend with some close old friends that we haven’t seen since we last were in the United States five years ago. That’s right; it has been five years!
The term ‘home leave’ is of course quite misleading. We've lived away from Sweden and the US so long now, that they hardly feel like home. When I go ‘home’ I feel like a tourist although with the impression that there’s something strangely, underlying familiar about most things. I can wander around grocery stores for hours, looking at products from my childhood, and study new additions that are strange but yet somehow make sense in the overall context. I obviously speak the language, yet I have trouble keeping up with conversations and discussions on television or around me.
Our trip naturally requires a lot of planning and preparation, and although I'm not as organized as my friend Mrs. Four, I've realized I need to start thinking things through. Where will we go exactly and when? What reservations need to be made? What do we bring to Sweden? What do we bring to the US? What will the weather be like? What will things cost? What do we want to buy there to bring back with us? Well, actually I already know the answer to that question: A LOT! Oh, all the things we miss here!
There's so much excitement surrounding this our first 'home leave', I'm afraid I might be enjoying the anticipation of it more than I will the actual trip.
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I saw a cartoon in one of those local expat mags that went something like, "You know you're an expat when ... you go 'home' for vacation."
We Fours actually do feel like we're going home this summer, but part of the reason we've been so planny (which, by the way, is one of the best adjectives ever) is because we're not staying with family or friends, so it's taken more work to get it all sorted out. We're pretty much making our families come to us.
When I went to London last December, I was worried that the trip could never live up to my expectations. But it did, and more. I think this summer will be much the same. We are SOO excited to get back to the States. And I do think it'll be great.
And your boys will have so much fun, seeing grandparents, seeing the US as big kids, and, really, probably having more unscheduled time with both of you than they have in a long time!
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