Hello, America

After 33ish hours of relatively uneventful travel I arrived back in America Friday October 28 (almost a month ago? No way.).  Aside from some trouble with the meals on my flights (which weren't, as I'd been promised, Vegetarian/Non-dairy), my travel home was smooth - even the 1-hour layover in Doha when I had to go through security twice and was questionably touched by a lady security guard the second time.  Passport control at JFK was quick and easy, and my backpack was just coming around the baggage claim when I arrived at it.  I was surprised to see it at all - I'd checked it through from Windhoek and figured it'd get lost somehow - and even more surprised to see it hadn't been tampered with.  I shot through customs after picking up my backpack, and found my dad and sister sitting in the waiting around.  Apparently, we'd landed early and gone through everything so quickly that my flight wasn't even showing up as on the ground when I walked out into the receiving area. Thanks to my Dad and sister for fetching me!

Thanks to my sister, I had a cell phone to activate and keep me occupied once we got on the road back to Pennsylvania, helpful in distracting me from the myriad traffic leaving New York.

My first weekend back I spent in the Pennsylvania mountains with my family.  Of course, within 48 hours of my arrival, SNOW! Thanks, Mother Nature, for that freak October snow storm. I came back to Baltimore after that first weekend home to unwind, decompress, and start this readjustment process.

America's so weird!  There are so many people, so many cars, so many of the streets and roads are paved! And, people around me are speaking English. Not Namlish, English. 

The last almost 4 weeks have been a bit of a blur.  I moved into my friend Julie's house, and have spent alot of time renovating her attic into the perfect space.  It's been very therapeutic, and really great.  I've been marveling at unlimited internet.  Even after 4 weeks, I still wake up during the night and get excited about free internet, then remember it's free all the time.  And let's not even talk about Hulu, Netflix, streaming EVERYTHING.....

The Am/Nam time difference is really tricky from this side.  I still find myself first asking myself who do I want to talk to, then where that person is in relation to me.  Sounds funny, but I spent so much time calculating it the other way.  I have to say that I think I preferred being in the time zone ahead; it's so strange to wake up here and know my friends in Namibia are already done working for the day, or will be soon.


I have, on a whole, tried to avoid big places with alot of people.  I made the mistake of going to Target on the trip from PA to MD.  So there I was, list in hand, looking for a particular brand of face scrub, and I'm nearly in tears, completely overwhelmed trying to figure out why there are so many brands/varieties of facial products.  I went to the farmers market last weekend.  The farmers market is generally overwhelming anyway, but in the last 2 years it's expanded, they've closed down one of the streets to accommodate, and there were alot of people there when we went (although I know not as many as would have been there earlier in the morning).  I wandered through IKEA the other day (not even the display section, just the marketplace!), marveling at the consumerism of it all.  I'm sure people who've encountered me at any place of business since coming home have either been amused, or frightened.  I'm guessing probably amused.

There is alot of air traffic in Balitmore.  I haven't counted, but I'd say on average a helicopter flies over every 15 minutes or so. It's loud. 

One of the other things I noticed almost immediately was the height of the trees.  MAN the trees are tall around here. 


I've indulged in all most of the things I was really looking forward to, like vegan foods I couldn't get in Namibia, things like yogurt, cream cheese, ice cream, decent burgers/patties.  I've consumed some delicious beers.

Just after I returned (literally, the following week) Matt Lauer from the Today Show went to Namibia as part of his "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" series.  Below is the intro segment, but I haven't been able to find any of the others from that morning.

There's alot I'd like to write now, but I think I'll leave it at that for today.

Thanks for reading!