A month in China

It has been some time. For me, it feels it has been much longer. In these past month I've had to consider many things about the now and the future. For certain, this country is not a place where I would enjoy living at all. And I also discovered just how much I love Europe. There is a word that is always brought up when talking about the Portuguese language, it is saudade. It is brought up because there is not quite a translation that fits in other languages, but it can be roughly be associated to "missing" in English. Missing a person, a place, a food, or just about anything. I never really felt saudade about something before, but now I can say that I do. I miss my cats and my dog, I miss how the sun shone through the trees and reached my room, I miss the chirping of birds and the silhouette of the mountains. I miss simple and fresh food, a good cup of coffee and fresh tap water. I miss recycling my trash. I even miss the messy garden my father never manages to keep tidy. I miss…