I can't hide in plain sight when it's this quiet in here

Traveling in a group has been in every.single.way foreign for me. Brian, a thirty-three-year-old from Iowa with blue eyes and a superb intellect, has never left North America before. He handles every exotic detail affably and expertly. He has a rejoinder for every quip and already knows which beer he likes best. He can order paella, large, hold the squid. Six foot eight and ducking through doorways, nothing seems to catch him by surprise. I've got fifty three countries on the guy and I'm caught up short by every change in the routine, every "ok, back on the bus!", every walking tour that should have ended an hour ago, every hotel wake up call. (Hell, every hotel. In Paris I slept on a bench in a bookshop; in Croatia, an abandoned fort; in Hong Kong, a shuttered shop window until my dignity got the better of me). 

The biggest adjustment, though, has been the silencing of my inner monologue. Without it, there can be no circus ninja.