My [enter placename here]

I was thinking, while my Paris is no one else's Paris, my Bluefields, for example, is probably not that different from Marisa's. It's not that we didn't have vastly different experiences; it's that, from what I understand, we left with a very similar impression, taste, sense of the place.

What about my Galapagos? It was hardly unique in most ways, and yet it was because of the people I was with. I wouldn't go back, because I don't want any other memory of the Galapagos distinct from the ones from that most amazing trip. Yet, as a place, the Galapagos I experienced was (were?) the same as the one(s?) experienced by most travelers these days. After all, a friend who went months earlier swears that the animals in my pictures are the same as those in his, only months older.

Some friends said of my China pictures that they have photos of the same places and in some cases same people--thirty years earlier--although my China was worlds away from theirs.

I feel the same about my Istanbul and my Delphi as I do about my Galapagos, but in different ways. I think lots of people share in Istanbul, and I just happened to have a great time there with my friends, and that will always be my Istanbul. As for my Delphi, it was characterized by intermittent rain and cool air, and a lack of crowds, as well as by the shared experience with Kate. My Delphi would be a different Delphi had I gone in high tourist season. Perhaps it would be like my Bruges, which was disappointing.

One more, then I'll stop: my St. Petersburg. Which is vastly, vastly different from that of any non-Russian who's gone, one of whom quite stupidly said to me that he was surprised by my references to poverty, since he hadn't seen any there. My St. Petersburg is one of belonging, family, stories-- stories like 'in that spot over there, when we were in grade school, one of our classmates was hit by a stray bomb.' My St. Petersburg is also the one I cycled through at midnight on a white night, the one that feels thoroughly mine, even though I've spent much less time there than Paris and don't quite know my way around. Is it as much mine as Boston is mine, even though its locals could immediately call me out as a foreigner? Then again, they'd call out my parents as well, and it's certainly theirs. And many locals of Boston would immediately call me out as a foreigner, too. Which to me just means that it's not up to them, it being whether or not it's your city. It's how you feel when you're there and when you think of it.