New comfort zone: officially created.

Currently sitting in the airport in Doha, Qatar, on my way to South Korea. I still have some catching up to do for Egypt posts, but time for a reflective post, anyway!

I was actually supposed to leave Egypt last weekend, a couple days after the language course finished, but I just was not ready. So much of my time had been taken up by the course and work [my own fault for volunteering even when my boss said I didn't have to - but hey, more travel funds] that I hadn't really had time to see enough of the city/country or hang out with friends enough or get enough sleep [8:30 a.m. four days a week! I know that's not as bad as some people have it in the real world, but I'm just noooot used to that]. Something in me was just yelling, "Nooooooo, I don't wanna go yet!!!" I changed my flight, decided to completely take off work until August, and felt much better.

I still had some personal things to take care of, especially figuring out stuff for Asia, but with no school and no work, I felt a huge weight drop from my shoulders and could relax a lot more. I used the free week to go to the beach, spend an afternoon in Alexandria, watch World Cup games with CouchSurfers, celebrate the birthday of a friend from school, and more. Still didn't get much sleep, though - I really need to work on that!

If I had left last weekend, I really would've felt that I was leaving much too early, that I hadn't experienced nearly enough or spent enough time with people. Today, even though I was sad to go and am already planning when I can come back, I felt ready to move on to the next leg of the trip.

The very first night I was in Cairo, in a run-down hotel after a sketchy experience with a cab driver my first time in a country where I didn't know the language or anyone living there, I posted on facebook that I was very far outside my comfort zone. Since then, I've learned some of the language [enough to give directions to the taxi driver - or at least make him chuckle when I point left but say "right"], met some great people [both Egyptian and foreign], and fallen in love with Cairo and Egypt as a whole. It ended up being everything I could have asked for.

That first night, I also wrote that I had a month to create a new comfort zone...and that is exactly what happened. Beautiful experience.

I can't wait to go back.