I need a word for the opposite of homesick. For missing places that aren’t your home, but you sort of really wish they were. Like such as Fes. I really really really really liked, aka loved, Fes. The whole time we were there I dreamt of being a local, of learning Arabic-y French and traipsing down to the market each morning, past Ali at the marzipan shop, down along chicken row, live and dead birds stuffed into cages and hanging from the ceiling, picking up a few oranges, still on their branch, from the wizened man who looks like a he might spout extraordinary wisdom at any moment, munching on the strange, light Morocco version of the crepe, big thin sheets of pastry folded onto itself and cooked an a hot metal orb, buying giant, cheap baskets of olives swimming in garlic, barrels of confits, stuffing my bags with local produce and protein before wandering home through the market-maze to create something horrifically good, Middle East-meets-West, in my big, open, blue tiled kitchen. And after dinner, of course, mint tea. Which I may miss most of all. Beautiful, shiny little glasses, appropriately chipped at times, stuffed with fresh mint leaves (available in an abundance unknown to us Americans) and a colossal amount of sugar, melted into it all. Steeped in hot water and drank on a rooftop, having a Lonely Planet moment, listening to the call to prayer, smelling the tanning goat hides, gazing languidly out over the cross hatching of tan buildings crouched below big green hills.

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