Three Summers Abroad

It was four years ago that I last spent a summer in the US, summer of 2003. At the end of that summer I went to Hong Kong, the next summer(2004) I was in Beijing, the next summer(2005) I was in Xinjiang, and the next summer(2006) I was in Thailand.

After being geographically the furthest away possible from where I grew up, now I'm the closest possible to where I grew up, in Wilbraham Massachusetts, waiting tables at a chain restaurant that is the most engrained-into my childhood memories of eating out. The most symbolic difference is perhaps the fact that I serve these now instead of eat them: