Small traveling delights

I always know I've ventured outside of the sterilized Western world when I am greeted at the airport with a lungful of foreign air - air pungent with cigarette smoke and mingled with the aromas of cooking food. I love that smell. It means adventure and new thrills await.

I love that feeling of walking through those glass airport doors, having no idea what the air outside will feel like and no context to anticipate it. Will it be hot? Windy? Humid? Rainy? No matter what it is, after the hours of breathing recycled air on the plane, anything feels freeing and exotic.

I love how when I arrive in a new place at night, like we did in Jordan that first night, and travel to the hotel in the velvety dark, throwing open the window curtains in the bright light of morning becomes an adventure, a childishly delightful reveal that our eyes drink in thirstily.

I love how the first eating experience in a foreign culture is a grand adventure in good humor and daring, and I love the feeling I get when I try something entirely new with a grin and gritted teeth and end up liking it - a lot. I even love when I get a mouthful of something odd and unpalatable, because we can tell the story later and giggle over the memory.

I love speaking those first hesitating syllables in a new language, always trying to learn a few words just to be polite, and wishing my mouth formed the sounds easier. I love the absence of eavesdropping, where a person having a loud conversation on their cell phone isn't bothersome because the words are a lilting flow of nonsense to my ears.

Most of all, I love that feeling of connectedness and the commonality of the human experience. Jordanian women coo over baby clothes. Israeli women decorate their homes. Palestinians pick up children from preschool and marvel over their crayon artwork.

We're all the same, really.

Deep down.

No matter where we are.