Blog Title Yields No Charm

Day 13, Islamabad Pakistan, 29.5 degrees inside.
Smoggy.

The more I travel through Heathrow, the less I'm inclined to write a positive word about the airport. It's too big, too smoky, too spread out, too messy. And it's airline employees have not been kind in my seat assignments. I did get a bulkhead seat on the LHR-ISB leg, but some guy across the aisle got moved to the next compartment (World traveler Plus) because his seat was double-booked! Grrr. More than half of that compartment was empty during the flight. So, I've resolved to put my Canadian modesty aside and blatantly ask for an upgrade on my next flight in December.

That said, I'm here. Stopping in Finland essentially eliminated jetlag so I'm back to normal.

Pakistan has even begun to feel normal, though the contrasts between Canadian society and Pakistani are glaring. 6 years away is long enough to almost completely slip into the mindset that North American society is the global norm and worldvision adds are a made-for-tv movie designed to instill some guilt, or something.

But it's life here that's the global norm, crowded, hot and, in some senses, hopeless. And (many of) you and I certainly don't deserve more comfort, but we're obscenely lavished with it, living in North America. And the math works speaks for itself. 10Xconsumption = 10Xwaste generation = 10Xcomfort level. Yay!

You can see I'm having a bit of culture shock. There seems to be no cure.