When I first decided to go to Peru within a week of returning from Italy, I thought it would be a good idea to spend the week in between back in the states.  It seemed the culture shock of first-world Italy might be a little much next to the unfamiliarity of third-world Peru.  But Portland, my home base, is on the other side of the country from my entry point on the East Coast, and I’d be traveling with a friend from Atlanta, so I thought I’d spend some time there.  In the South.

Now, I know that some of you are saying, “Atlanta’s not the South!”  Well, it is.  For someone from Portland, it’s the South.  I like Atlanta, but it might have been less of a shock to head directly to Peru, where the language difference would have alerted my brain that I was, indeed, in a different country/culture.  Spending a week in a place that looked and sounded somewhat familiar was just enough to make me feel like I was losing my mind.  I spent time searching for the gayness that I’d missed so desperately over the last month, and finding fried food

Stone Mountain

and slow-talking hospitality.

Total strangers put me up in their beautiful guest-house.  Amazing.

I even found some of the gayness, too.

But that just contributed to the feeling of being constantly off-balance.  I could read the menus, but couldn’t anticipate the constantly fried preparations.  I could navigate the nature hikes, but couldn’t absorb the confederate flags along the trail.  I still don’t know if it’s good or bad etiquette to take pictures of confederate monuments, or if there’s a reason to put fois gras in a milkshake.  Anyone?  Anyone?