City of Blinding Lights

I love how my best friend calls at the most inopportune moments.

I actually have something to blog about now, though.

I'm ready to explain more of the Philly trip, as I've finally come to terms with my conclusions.

On the trip I took everything differently, mostly because I was raised in an urban culture. I did not grow up in a white, suburban culture. It's just strange for me that all my neighbors here are white and that everyone speaks perfect, unaccented English. It's also weird that everyone here is pretty well-off and lives in detached...err, mansion-type houses with huge lawns.
Anyways. I took the whole urban culture and setting a lot differently than everyone else on the trip. I was not surprised at the condition of kensington. When Lindsay said how "terrible" it was that people had to hear the El going past every few minutes, I wanted to scream. Because truthfully, you block it out after a week or so. You just don't notice it.
At one point, Kurt mentioned that the city is so "segregated." Translation: West Philly is black, North Philly is Hispanic, et cetera. truthfully, though, I don't see it as segregated. When people immigrated here, they set up ethnic enclaves. In New York everyone knows that Jackson Heights is Latino, Howard Beach is Italian, and Jamaica is African American; no one thinks anything of it. It's not segregation; it's the way things are. When we saw how people on the block would sit on their stoops and talk to each other and had an amazing sense of community, my heart broke. I want that. I miss that.
Basically, I felt so at home on the trip. And that bothered me. I'm not supposed to feel at home there. I'm supposed to be shocked, right?

Wrong.

My heart's been torn apart since that trip. But I've reached a conclusion.

I'm moving back to Queens someday.

For good.