The upside of home

I wish I'd had a camera with me today. Words cannot describe the shapes, smells, textures rising out of that bowl toward me...
"Dumboy and peppa soup."
"What kind of meat is it?"
"Meat."
"And that?"
"From the intestine. Cow. Good."
The beefy parts look good, but around them float raw, squid-like, spongy bits -- some spiky, some
little squares like coral, some like half-plucked chicken skin. My mind races back to grade twelve biology: does a cow have three stomachs or seven?
I eat the beefy parts, I eat the dough, I even eat the Boni-fish (boney, indeed)... Success! My friends are sipping their last spoonfuls, and I have a meeting to get to. "Darn. Time small-o!" They laugh, unconvinced but gracious.

What do cheerios taste like? Ice cream? Home's less than two weeks away, now... I wonder if I'll have celebrity-status withdrawal -- no staring, no heckling, no haggling over prices. I don't want to leave, but I can't wait to be home.