I found myself at one end of Leonard Street, which is not far from the Liverpool Street Station, a bit early for the press view of the Stuckist Real Turner Prize Show in Pure Gallery, located on the other end of the street, and so I went to an old local pub to kill the time. The Griffin was full of locals. It took me a short while only to realize why I felt ever-so-slightly ill at ease not only in this cozy pub, but in this part of London, as well: almost everyone around me was British. As soon as this thought took shape, I remembered having similar feelings in the States: whenever I went out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a possible exception of New York City, I would find myself surrounded by Americans. Come to think of it, I am not a good foreigner.

Addendum (December 18, 2015)

Well, I can report exactly the same experiences since my “return” to Croatia, which goes as my motherland. As well as fatherland, I hasten to add. Whenever I leave the familiar neighborhoods in either Motovun or the center of Zagreb, I feel ever-so-slightly ill at ease among the locals. That is, fellow Istrians or other Croatians. I am not a good foreigner, to be sure. And I am definitely a foreigner both in Istria and elsewhere in Croatia. In fact, I am a foreigner everywhere on earth—the planet where abroad is everywhere and home is nowhere. At long last, I can say this without any fear of contradiction, for I have spent most of my life traipsing from country to country to country. And I am nearly seventy already.