Botswana, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Gambia, Mozambique, Guadaloupe, Brazil, Iran, Egypt, Nigeria, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, India, Jordan, and countless others, then Europe

For as long as I could remember,

I wanted to visit  Europe.

I dreamed of visiting the Eiffel Tower

and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel  in Paris,

                                                                 Buckingham Palace in London

The National Archeological Museum in Athens Greece,

or The Colosseum,  in Rome Italy.

but then I moved to Maryland/ Washington DC

and being surrounded by people that looked like me, I felt like a fish in water.

It was so in my element.

It was the best time of my life, and also the worse

indirectly caused by effects of 9-11;

Then I moved back to the Midwest, then to Oregon,

and sometimes feeling like a fish, floundering, choking, completely out of a water,

my desire to visit Europe is now

 either completely gone, or  it's been pushed further down a new list

I didn't realize I had.

There are other places outside of North America that I'd rather visit first.