Home Sweet Home

As I write this, I'm sitting on my couch... in CALIFORNIA! This is my 3rd day back home, and it's kind of... crazy. I don't know what to do with myself! Don't get me wrong; I'm excited to be home. Catching up with friends and family I haven't seen in 4 months is great and well worth the ridiculously long travel day it took to get here.

This picture is completely unrelated. Unless you count the fact that it's a picture I took of a rose in my backyard...

However, being back in the States is definitely surreal... kind of like, what was real? Heidelberg, or life before? Obviously they both were, but so much of it feels like a dream. It was a bit disorienting at first... or maybe that was just the jet lag? Speaking of jet lag, that definitely caught up with us last night... my parents and I were sitting in the living room relaxing and watching TV, and next thing you know, I couldn't keep my eyes open. At 7:30 pm! So i fell asleep at 7:30, and my parents fell asleep around 8. Of course we got up later to go to our actual beds, so it's not like I slept straight from 7:30 to 8 this morning... but almost! It's kind of ridiculous, but it felt so nice!

The pros of being home:

• Seeing family and friends 
• Getting to hang with my dogs again
• Guacamole!
• Free refills!
• Free water!
• Free restrooms!
• "Oh there's no place like home for the holidays..."
• I get to choose from all the clothes in my closet, rather than just the select few I brought to Germany with me
• I get to drive (I missed you, Chip!)
• Free time to read

The cons of being home:

• Not that much of an opportunity to practice my German.
• Living with 4 other people is A LOT different than living with 45 other people. You think this would be a good thing, but I miss being able to go down the hall or down the stairs and find just about any one of my friends to talk to. Now I have to plan and drive (so lazy, I know).
• On that note, I MISS EVERYONE IN MOORE HAUS!

So, I guess this is what it's like when you have two homes: you can't be in one without missing the other. With that in mind, I'm going to make the most of my time in each place. I look forward to all the amazingly fun times I'll have with my wonderful friends here, making up for the lost time of the past 4 months and the next 4 after that. However, I will be so excited to return to Heidelberg and all the lovelies back there, too!