Returing to Israel and Egypt

After a decade I'm back traveling in this strange part of the world I once called home. I feel almost as much a stranger as when I first arrived just out of high school. Both the places I'm revisiting and myself have changed. Like everywhere else, there is more money; more people buying and selling land, cars, camels, carpets than ever before. Israel looks like a modern, bustling place with fancy cars and stretches of real estate indistinguishable from a suburban subdivision back home. The once dusty, remote beach town I'm seeing again here in the Sinai now has a paved promenade and wireless internet emanating out of scores of dive shops. Though I never thought it possible at age 18, I'm older. I eat things other than pizza and burgers. I even have a lovely wife to see all this change with me. It's been tough to come up with one theme to try and wrap up such a hodgepodge of feelings and experiences so I'm left with the old standby of change, the one true constant. It's a trip getting older.