Goodbye Adventures, Hello Routine

For the first time in my life, I think, I experienced culture shock. I am sitting at the Boston bus station and waiting for the Peter Pan bus to take me to Amherst, MA where I will transfer for the last time before reaching South Hadley.

For the last couple of months I visited so many places and gathered such vivid impressions that the stagnation I found here seems unbearable. As soon as I arrived I encountered the same tedious images -- same bald Customs Service employees at Logan airport who are not rude but can never be truly friendly; same disproportionally fat people eating huge amounts of McDonald's food; same monotonous voices coming out of the speakers to announce that there is a public parking available outside. No one is making eye contact except for the giggling Chinese ladies sitting behind the Fung Wah Bus line information desk. Right now the Magnificent Wind seems to be the only thing I have missed here.

I am experiencing this culture shock maybe because I headed back to the States with preconceived notions, or maybe because I am too weak to fight against the routine, or maybe because I am not in the best of moods. Whatever the reason, right there at the South Station in Boston I felt my soul slowly emptying.