Well I'm back in the states. The flight home was so long! I had an 18 hour flight from Cape Town to New York--stopping to refuel in Dakar. Thank God this time we got out of Dakar without trudging to a resort! The worst flight was from New York to L.A. It was 5 hours, but I think after the 18 hours I was hitting a wall. And 5 hours is long enough to suck, yet short enough to where you're counting the minutes. I swear I looked at my watch every 15 minutes thinking..surely another hour has passed. No such luck. The 18 hour flight truthfully just feels like a time warp. Somehow it only feels like a few hours. You watch a couple movies, I read an entire book from start to finish, did some word searches and sudoku, and slept. Bam, before I knew I heard, "We're now starting our descent into New York, please put your seats and trays in the upright position." At which put I got a little teary eyed. As long as I was just on a plane from Cape Town the trip wasn't over right? I wasn't sure if I was relieved that I had made it back to NY without any trouble, or sad that this was it, back in the U.S. and everything was over. Although if I had to guess I'd say I was sad. As I sat in New York waiting for the next flight the news was on and was talking about some food poisoning from tomatoes and they were trying to pinpoint the exact tomato it all started from. For whatever reason it just annoyed me. I was thinking...yeah I'm back alright. The news is reporting on stupid crap that doesn't matter. And then a ton of stuff about Obama. I'm an Obama fan but my God, I don't care if I ever heard another word about anything. And in the stores I saw the new entertainment magazines, which I buy and read, but for some reason they annoyed me too. I think I got used to being a little less saturated with news. I hardly saw news when I was there, and while I did tune into a lot of crap TV on the E network...it pales in comparison to the abundance of "news" here. Another way I knew I was back and the trip was over!
I'm pretty sure when I landed in Phoenix that I was a huge disappointment to Ivan. I was definitely very happy to see him, but I had also just come off 33 hours of traveling, and was in a bit of a dreamlike state. Like...wow I'm really here, that's really you, you're really standing next to me. So I don't think I gave him the loving and excited reaction of running through the airport and tackling him that he was hoping for! haha I'm not that kind of person anyway, but I know he was expecting more from me. I felt a little shy towards him but it's all good. Now that I've been here 24 hours it's almost like I never left. Which is scary and nice all at the same time.
When you've been away and you walk back into everything it's almost like walking into a dream because you haven't seen that stuff, it's just been a memory really, and then it's real again. Kinda weird. And while 6 weeks isn't that long, in some ways it is I guess. I just got so into my routine and way of life over there that I'm readjusting back to the way life was here. When I left, the dogs had just gotten haircuts so that's how I remembered them, and when I walked in they are these fluffy furballs! So that was kinda funny, I was like oh my God, you're my dogs?! hah Good to see them though. And Jeff's son Ryan looks like he's grown a foot while I was gone.
Ivan has all my TV shows recorded so I'm going to start catching up on those. Sadly they are weekly entertainment shows so...I'm diving right back into seeing what celebrity's did for the past 6 weeks....the shows are damn funny though. That's why I watch!
All of my souvenirs have the kitchen table covered! I have to figure out what I absolutely need to keep and what can be given away because I need to pack up again tomorrow to head to Illinois. That'll be fun. So anyway, that's all for now. I'm back. Distracting myself so I don't think about the fact that I have to go back to work in 2 weeks...if anyone remembers what it is I do for a living let me know, because I've totally forgotten at this point...!
