I'm baccckkkk!!!!I've been wanting to write something about being back home for awhile now, but doing so just kept seeming like such a huge task it's taken me a while to get around to it.
Being back and seeing my family and friends again has been beyond amazing. I will never forget when I finally made it past the 30 person deep security line for re-entry into the U.S... the guard stamping my passport and saying welcome home. Running through the long sterile hallways in LAX to where my family was waiting on the other side. I absolutely could not believe how long I had been gone. Neither could the security guard. When you come back in the US you have to list all of the countries that you have been in since you've been gone - to my long list he just scanned with furrowed eyebrows, looked up in disbelief and went "Really??"
Yes, really haha. I can barely believe it myself sometimes when I look back over all of my pictures - what an unbelievable experience it all was. I remember how being home the first few days was. Everything just felt so big, so colorful, so loud. And so much sensory overload - I could all of a sudden understand what everyone around me was saying after months of a German background noise.
I'm also pretty sure I started to get on my familys' nerves by starting every sentence with "In Germany.." But its hard to explain just how weird it was to be back after being away so long. Your aware of every little single thing that's different because everything just feels so foreign. And you feel weird for it feeling foreign because you know it's your home country and once upon a time didn't feel foreign - and it won't forever. But for the moment it does.
I also felt completely and totally useless for a few days. I opened the fridge at home, looked inside, and officially forgot how the hell I used to assort those random ingredients into something edible. I wanted Quark on dark bread, I wanted Nuskati, I wanted 40 Eurocent mozzarella.
Also, I felt like I was being rude. All the time. To everyone. In Berlin you don't smile at strangers or people will 1. Think you're not right in the head. 2. Think your an easy target for petty crime. or 3. Think your a tourist. Thus #2 applies as well. Strangers being nice to me made me uneasy, waiters introducing themselves and making small talk confounded me, the cashier saying something to me at the grocery store other than my final total annoyed me. I felt my filter in interacting with others disappear; that filter that makes you stop and sugar-coat either a stark truth or your actual genuine reaction to what someone is saying. In Germany that filter does not exist. In America, and I think particularly California, it's a way of life that I feel like I'm still relearning.
Luckily, finding German and Polish food in America is proving a lot easier than the other way around. Yay for being a nation of immigrants haha. I found this great Slavic shop in San Jose and a German bakery about 20 minutes away. Being able to hold on to some of my favorite things about being abroad (the food, my friendship with Bianca, taking German at Stanford) has made the transition a lot easier when I get homesick for Europe.
I am now back at Stanford and feel incredibly blessed to be here and incredibly happy to be in one place for 9 months. It was an amazing ride that I feel so blessed to have been able to have.
So I sign off for now, but I will be back. The travel bug bit me badly and I fell incredibly hard for Europe. I can't see myself staying away for too long. : )
-Courtney
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