An expatriate comes home, and it feels like a foreign country:

I went home to see my family, to see my brother's children and to forget a bit about the Middle East. Instead I walked into a surreal world where the news of war and fear of terror was a constant accompaniment on the radio. The drumbeat was such that you could almost understand the need to bomb something just to strike back.

(from the Cairo Times, via Chad Orzel, a friend of the author).