Weren’t Meant To Be, Definitely..

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// Part 7 of 7 //

There are three cities I wish I had visited earlier. The multiple missed opportunities might be my only source of regret…

-Cold War Berlin. Summer 88, Samih suggested it but I had to suggest London and Amsterdam …and of course the wifey won. Honestly, how could I have predicted that two years later Berlin would be a different Berlin, a Berlin where Checkpoint Charlie was a tourist attraction.

-Hong Kong under the British flag. This time I wasn’t taken back by surprise.

Since the Handover agreement was signed in 1984, I have known that the British rule over its last colony in China will end in 1997, and chose it as the Eid getaway for winter 96.

However, the required two weeks visa-processing period made it impossible to get our visas on time before Eid so we ended up going to Bangkok instead! Still, we could have gone during the summer holiday, but for some reason, while up strolling on the terrace of a stupa in Bangkok, I felt alienated in these exotic surroundings and longed to be in Europe. Six months later, we toured Germany- clock road & romantic road – and I missed my last chance to witness this chapter of the British history…

-Palmyra…I think my dear parents and my dear husband should bear the guilt trip: despite many childhood visits to Syria and a later one 17 years ago, Palmyra’s proximity to our homeland was the “opponents’ ” trump card in the recurring battle of wills linked to each trip.. Their “we’ll go another time” turned my objections to mute mode, always…

Again, I could have joined my friends when they explored Syria but I thought I would rather take the kids, which we did, 5 years later. Damascus, Aleppo but not Palmyra…sacro-saint “we’ll do it another time”.

These trips weren’t meant to be, definitely!

Checkpoint Charlie  – 5 June 2016            Berlin Wall – 3 June 2016