Mattopia Jones

Uncertainty Can Be a Guiding Light

3 April 2008

For me, nothing tops the "Good God, what the Hell have I done?" feeling of complete and utter uncertainty, a borderline discombobulation when I arrive in a totally foreign location. It's so excellent to have absolutely no idea of where to even begin. Yikeabees.

I've had the blessing of that completely disoriented, totally phuqued feeling on a number of occasions now.

There was that time I arrived in Krakow, Poland, with the butt-frickin' frigidity of the black-as-pitch January night there to greet me, along with a guy best described as Norman Bates.

It was also highly amusing to arrive in Bratislava, Czech Republic, with all the Cyrillic signs meaning absolutely nothing to me. (So where is the exit - the sortie, the uitgang, the salida - anyway?)

Of course, there was the aforementioned trip to Morocco, which featured four full days of "what the Hell?" moments. And the Kazakhstan episode has already been fairly well documented.

More recently, the U2 Vertigo tour afforded me that refreshing sensation when I arrived in San Sebastian, Spain, located in the northern Basque region, where the local dialetic is a far cry from traditional Spanish. Thanks to a derth of maps, I had absolutely no idea where I was in relation to anything when I stepped outside the train station, but the flyers taped to the lampposts spoke a universal language: Somebody had U2 tickets for sale. Yeah, baby, it's all right, it's all right.

Actually, now that I think about it, the first time I ever felt that oddly exciting sensation was when arrived in London for the very first time and the train pulled into Victoria Station. Yeah, they speak "English" there, but it was like stepping into some sort of timewarp and taking my first look at their fantastically classic-styled taxis was a jaw-dropping moment of absolutely giddy delight.

In the midst of that trip, I went on a group bus tour to Paris with some fellow students and, when we got the green light to go off on our own, I really went off on my own and experienced Paris one-on-one. That particular mini-adventure was in-part spurred on by "girl problems" and a need to pull myself away from yet another crush.

That was my first major, solo foreign language experience aside from crossing the Mexico border back during a spring break trip during college.

But that's digressing too much.

Arriving in Egypt can now be added to this rarefied list.

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