body is home - heart is still enroute

Back in Basel now with parents in tow - can have a bootcamp revenge of my own! ( Or at least I would if I could drag myself out of bed.) I am very happy to have them here with me in Basel but I feel quite melancholy about being back. It is as if my capacity to feel and sense the world around me has been dulled and all I want to do is sniff a bag of arabic cardoman coffee until my senses wake again.

It is really hot here too - in a sticky humid way. Yes. yes - I know Damascus was hotter but it was a dry heat and it was perfectly acceptable to spend one's hours in the hammam or eating Bakdash ice-cream. Here the western wheels of captialism spin round so everyone marches around doing what they 'must' looking very hot and bothered. (Hmm I think I better go and sniff some more coffee before I morph into scary, grumpy, post-holiday person - although i fear it is too late.)

Yesterday I took my parents to my old ladies' class at school. Dad got to be the much prized 'only' man and was a man of great charm to all the ladies ( much to the chagrin of mama - although i think she must also have been secretly proud as one must always be proud if one's sidekick behaves in a sporting manner in the public domain.) All the ladies were in a very chatty state - very happy to see I had returned - they have plans for me to marry a Swiss man so I stay and teach them ad infinitum. Not a plan I have embraced - it is very difficult to know where my Italian-Syrian-English blood belongs but I don't think Basel is its final desitination.

Here is a picture of Basel just for a bit of colour