Gene Memory: My Genes Have Come Home

It has been a whirlwind few days. I left Madrid on Thursday, leaving a very sad Magi behind and a lot of people that I had grown to love over my stay in Spain. It’s not hard to care about these people.

By virtue of economy, I flew from Madrid to Copenhagen and then to Frankfurt, changing hot, dusty Spain for wet, green Germany. I do not want to divulge the number of times I have been to Germany, but it has been enough that it has started to feel like home. As the plane descended, the green-fuzzed land came up to meet me. I exchanged one foreign language for another, and all of a sudden the words were very long. Bah, it figures that when I think I start understanding a language, the universe changes it on me. It was strange not hearing Spanish anymore.

Photograph taken through a rainy window in Worms, Germany.

Outside the largest Romanesque cathedral in the world in Speyer, Germany.

Children playing in the fields in Luxembourg.

After spending two nights in Germany, we headed towards Belgium, taking a quick detour through Luxembourg before landing in Brussels. I’m traveling with my parents, and we went to Church (to a French- and English-speaking LDS ward!) for sacrament meeting, and then afterwards my mother and I explored a little bit of Brussels. We went to the Grand Place, got some lunch, wandered around to the Cocoa and Chocolate Museum – which was not as exciting as it sounds because it had the quality of a fifth grade history exhibit – got a Belgian waffle and made a disaster of eating it, and then to the Belgian Royal Palace.

My mom in the Grand Place.

In front of the Mannekin-Pis.

Belgian waffle experience.

Grand Place - I also got a new camera! Can you kinda tell the difference?

I approve of the Belgian Royal Palace. Instead of being a stuffy museum like Versailles or Schonbrunn, it felt lived-in and like a home. Well, as much of a home as a gigantic historical state building made of marble can be. The ballroom was cozy and exquisite with a real parquet floor! I didn’t know what parquet was until yesterday (I would have just called it inlay, but I suppose that’s for colored materials inserted in wood). There was a modern, off-periwinkle room with a writing desk and comfy chairs and even an electric lamp. The cord wasn’t even hidden! Gasp, it was like we were in a real person’s office or living room!

Outside of the Royal Palace.

After the Royal Palace, it was time to head down to the train station, loaded with all of our baggage. I passed a few tense moments at the Customs office, waiting for my visa to be accepted, and then my parents and I were on to the train heading to the United Kingdom via underground tunnel. An uneventful hour and a quarter later, we surfaced in “Ye Merye Engelande” amidst swaying seas of grass, sleepy hills and gnarled, knowing trees. Though I have never been to England before, it felt familiar to me. If I go back five generations, I have family from this part of the world, and who knows how far they go back. Sitting on that train, an arcane part of my psyche, I felt I was coming home.

No more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home.