I'm BACK!! That's right, back in the good old US of A, the land of high speed internet, vanilla lattes, and flushing toilets. Unfortunately while I was gone, the only food I really missed happened to be Japanese food (what I would give for a yakisoba!). No satisfaction there. But I'm glad to be rid of bread, cheese and nutella and reunited with homemade hamburgers, PB&J sandwiches and good coffee.

I arrived yesterday after a long, long journey starting on the east coast of the Black Sea in Georgia. We left on Wednesday with a 6 hour bus ride, then took a 13 hour night train to Azerbaijan. We had 15 hours of down time before going to the airport at 1 am. Four hour flight to Germany, three hour layover, 10 hours to Portland. During the 3 day journey, I got at the most 11 hours of sleep. Some people can survive on that; I can't. I made up for it by sleeping for 12 hours last night. It was heaven.

It's weird to be in America when I could just as easily be in Georgia. Everything there is still so clear and crisp in my mind. I close my eyes and I'm there again. It doesn't seem as far away as it is. Do I miss it? No, not really. The whole experience was rather bitter sweet. I loved certain things about what we did over there, but there are other things I completely hated. I've decided not to talk about the things I didn't like.... I hope I'm not disassociating but I'm tired of being a negative, brooding person.

I'm in Salem for another week and then I'm off to my parents, probably, for a bit of a vacation. My life is back to being an indistinct blob of loosely hatched plans.