This is part 3 of my 2022 journey. We pick up when I head back to North America after my failed move to India, which I wrote about here.
August to October - SF, Wisconsin, Toronto
In August I flew to SF for a wedding, very similar to the trip I’d made almost exactly a year before, for a different cousin’s wedding in the same town of Carmel by the Sea.
It was a short, packed trip. I got there a few days before my family, and met friends before they arrived. Afterwards, I babysat Indra ( my nephew), celebrated his first rakhi, and took a trip to Tahoe with my mum.
It was my first cousin who was getting married. He and his sister had grew up in the US, and so it was only occasionally that we had met growing up. It had been a long time since all of us had met, probably ten years.
After the wedding, I couldn’t head to Toronto right away - I was still waiting for my subletter to move out. And so I spent the next 3 weeks in Wisconsin, with my brother and his family, and my mom. It was the first time I’d visited my brother after they’d moved from New York. Even now as I write, my head drops from the grief of not having that city anymore.
Wisconsin was quiet, wholesome, and full of nature. Although almost fall, we still had some sunny days. I did lots of yoga, took calls from the back porch, and mowed the lawn every three days to keep the grass short enough to please the landlords.
I still had work to figure out - although I’d gotten into a consulting company, I still needed to find a client. It was a bit of a struggle to figure it out, but eventually I got an interview, and eventually a full time contracting gig. After a year and half of struggling alone to build something, it was huge relief to have an income. :)
I spent the rest of the time hanging out with my nephew, Indra, saw Moana 3 or 4 times, washed the dishes most nights as my share of the chores, and re-read almost all the Harry Potter books.
The three weeks went by in a snap, and it came time to head home, to Toronto.
Toronto - Diwali, Swimming, Working
Back in Toronto with Diwali approaching, and it was time for parties! The weeks leading up to Diwali saw 3 or 4 gatherings a week, a real treat in a city with small apartments and where you have to do everything from shopping to cleaning up yourself.
There were other nice developments too - after 10 years of living in Toronto, I finally found a good swimming club walking distance from home. We met 4 times a week, with a 75-minute workout each time. Just thinking about it puts the biggest smile on my face.
I started work after weeks of delays, and those first few months, I found work insufferably slow. I had to adjust from the independence and insane pace of startups, to the slower and somewhat stifling nature of corporate work.
But I found ways to amuse myself. I discovered karaoke around this time - singing and dancing felt like such a deep rooted way to bond with others. I also began learning how to sketch, picked up the guitar again, and spent an embarrassing amount of time playing FIFA with my flatmate.
I settled into some kind of routine in Toronto - swimming, hosting, doing creative projects, and little bits of work. But as we got deeper into fall I began dreading the thought of winter in Toronto, and started plotting my escape.
November - Middle East, India
One afternoon, as I sat at my desk in the living room, my phone rang. It was a friend, calling to ask if I wanted to go to Egypt and Jordan. It seemed she had booked a trip with someone who dropped out at the last moment on the advice of their astrologer.
She did a good job selling me on the history of region, asking me when I’d ever go to the middle east. I had some time, some money, and no plans to look forward to. I said yes on the call, and 20 minutes later had my tickets.
We met briefly in Montreal to plan the trip, and also I think to work out if we could travel together for a week and not kill each other. That went well, and in mid November I left for Egypt.
In Cairo we saw the Giza pyramids, the Cairo museum, and took a long walk along the Khan-e-Khalili. We stayed in a nice hotel nestled in a decrepit apartment building in downtown Cairo, a 10 minute walk from Tahrir Square.
One evening we went to the Cafe Riche, whose walls were adorned by pictures of many Egyptian writers and poets who had frequented it, and which had served as a refuge during the 2011 protests. There we met a poet, who smoked many cigarettes, and lived in the desert, and wrote. We were both enamored with her.
Jordan felt very different from Egypt - cleaner, safer, newer. We drove into Amman in the late evening. Our windows were down, the air clean and warm, cheesy pop music on the radio. We stayed in another really sweet hotel, and the pretty receptionist made us an early breakfast before we left for Petra the next morning.
We took the old highway south, and arrived only after dark. Petra is accessed through a long, narrow canyon, and at night they’d lit this path with thousands of candles. For an hour we walked under a clear night sky, quietly, in another time. There was a sound and light show, but I only remember the hot tea they served, and that moonless, candle lit night.
We spent another day in Petra, and then after a stop in Amman we went to Jerash.
Omg, Jerash.
The entrance to the historical patch of the city is a gate built for the Roman Emperor Hadrian, after which there are temples to Zeus and Athena, a beautiful columned plaza, and a hippodrome. It was my first time seeing Roman ruins, and after half an hour I still thought that’s all there was.
But as we walked along the street, things started to change. We saw buildings made by the Byzantines in the 600s, the Mamalukes in the 1200s, by the Crusaders and the Ummayids in the middle ages, all the way till 1920s with an Ottoman garrison. I had read all of this history only through books, and although I knew the romans were 2000 years ago and the ottomans a 100, in my mind I had never appreciated the length of time that had elapsed between the two.
But standing on the main street in Jerash, looking at two thousand years of civilization in a single sweep, I felt all that history, the sheer weight of all of those people who had come before, the incomprehensible timeline of all those events.
December - Delhi, Barcelona
I came back to India after Jordan. My mom was having surgery and I wanted to be home, for her, and for me. The surgery went well, but the recovery took time.
In mid December there was a pre-wedding party in Barcelona but I wanted my mom to be completely okay before I decided. Most of my friends assumed I wasn’t coming but thankfully a week before one of them decided to call and check. My mom was okay, but I was still conflicted about traveling all that way for just a weekend. In the end I gave myself a few extra days in Barcelona, and bought tickets.
Barcelona
We were celebrating a friend and his partner, and spent 4 days going for elaborate meals, bar crawls, and watching the finals of the football world cup. I had never been to Spain or Europe with a big group, and I got to spend lots of quality time with my high school friends. With them around, Barcelona felt very much like home.
One unexpected highlight the was Sagrada Familia. I had seen pictures and honestly found it kind of ugly. Why should a building that looks like meting wax be under construction for 100 year? I was not enthused.
The tide turned as we entered, and I read the plaque describing the exterior sculptures. And then we entered the cathedral. For three hours, I grew only more overwhelmed by intricate beauty of that building. Each column, each staircase, each window was unique and seemed to have demanded a lifetime of work. After a point I gave up trying to process or understand the building, and just gazed at it in rapture. I think that’s what Gaudi was going for.
The museum underneath Sagrada told its story. How Gaudi came to the project midway, how he gradually changed the structure, the models he made, the way he thought of each exacting, excruciating detail. It struck me then that he was more than an architect - he was a kind of messiah.
Only planting his vision deep into the hearts of Barcelona could have led people to working on his dream for nearly a hundred years after his death . The boldness, the audacity of his plans are so large I can scarcely understand them, let alone think that big myself.
It changed in my mind the very bounds of what one person can do, the limits of what one can dream.
On our 3rd evening in Barcelona I started feeling unwell. I was feverish and exhausted, and tested positive for the flu. I slept through the last day of festivities and as everyone else prepared to fly out, I was faced with being very sick and very much alone in that foreign city. :(
A friend from London offered to stay back two or three times, despite being without a phone because of pickpockets, and having another trip soon after. Although I couldn’t accept, I was left speechless with gratitude for the offer. It made me feel a lot less alone, and made those last days bearable.
After they all left, I managed to get out of bed long enough to move from the airbnb to a hotel. I got a kettle from reception and spent the next two days in bed watching Netflix. I saw the new season of Emily in Paris, and the first three seasons of Gilmore Girls, and no more of Barcelona.
Last week of the year - Delhi
I was feeling better by the time I flew back to India, in time for Christmas. The last week in Delhi was busy and festive - lots of people were back for the winter break, and at home we were preparing for Divam and Cassie and Indra’s arrival in early Jan.
New years was wonderful - lots of friends were in town, people were getting married, and news of impending arrivals was breaking. It was a hopeful end, and a hopeful start.
Thanks for reading! It has been a gargantuan but super fun task to write this recap, and only your encouragement keeps me going 🙂❤️😘
Till next time,
Avec l’amour,
Devansh
Paris, May 23rd 2023