Fire and Ice

I've been back in Monterrey now two weeks and while time seems to have stood still at the same time I still feel so much like an outsider in my own home city! It really is a feeling of 'neither here nor there' as I have been living in the UK for nearly 12 years now and a lot of the more practical things I've done I've only ever done over there, like buy a house, pay my bills, manage a bank account, shop for groceries, etc. So things I've never really noticed over here and take for granted in the UK - like direct debits - are practically unheard of here and it makes me wonder how people cope. So being here isn't just about how much better things are here (like food and weather) and there are lots of things that I've now noticed here that I only notice because I live in the UK and have experienced a different way. The biggest thing that is bugging me all the time is in terms of environmental awareness. Here in Mexico, like in the USA, environmental concern...

I've now spent nearly a week back home and, as always, it's a weird experience. On the one hand I'm back to the place where I was born and pretty much had all my growing up adventures so I should know it like the back of my hand... but it is a huge progressive city and of course a lot changes in a short time so there are many parts that I can barely recognize. I hadn't been back in 3 years and everything is so familiar yet so strange: roads that I know very well look nothing like I remember them but at the same time they take me to the same places. It's almost like a half-remembered dream. It is both fascinating and frustrating to find that what I remember is not quite right or was right but has changed so much that it isn't right anymore. The one thing that has remained unchanged are my friends: they are still here, still loving and still very much my friends. It has been amazing to catch up with old friends and, even thought we live thousands of miles apart, a...

I know some people out there will sympathize with this thought: is it possible to ever go back home? Of course we can all physically return to the place we consider home, but what I mean is, there are so many other things that make a place “home”, not just the physical, and often these things are so transitory that they aren’t there ever anymore. But the people that stayed behind, as it were, evolved slowly with these changes so they don’t notice anymore – but those of us that didn’t participate in these changes will of course notice and of course not like them. Because that means it isn’t “home” anymore. For example, I’ve been living in the UK nearly 10 years and all those things that one does as an adult (bank accounts, mortgages, home maintenance, etc) I’ve only done in the UK. I don't know how any of these things work back in Mexico. For instance, when I go back it always strikes me that people don’t have access to online banking, yet it’s something I just couldn’t live without...