Well, I have made my successful return to the United States! After a week-long Ethiopian adventure (including the discovery of the "lost" Ark of the Covenant, more on this soon), I flew into Washington, DC last Friday. I met up with some old friends (basically family, really, right boys?) and they took me for huge steaks and good wine at a local establishment. By the end of the night, we were drinking good beer and rocking out to a live cover band. It was good to be home... and I thought readjustment was supposed to be difficult? The next day we had a barbecue (burgers and brats!), played cornhole, listened to drinkin' music, and played beer pong. Of course, I was dressed in a THB hat, Marc Ravalomanana t-shirt, and jellies, so maybe the readjusting would take longer than I thought. And yes, you get some weird stares in the DC metro area as a 27-year old male wearing jellies. Surprisingly, my defense that it is the footwear of choice for rice paddies, muddy roads and village elders was not accepted as valid.
Now I am staying with family down in Hilton Head, SC, taking some R&R before starting my graduate program in the fall. I have decided to maintain this blog throughout my graduate program and possibly beyond, and make it a place to share my thoughts (uh-oh) and adventures (double uh-oh). Over the next few weeks, I will probably redesign the blog a bit, hopefully making it more readable and make the links and other sections more interesting/timely. Sadly, I may need to cut out the song lyrics titles for my posts, since I may not be able to find enough lines to cover the increased posts. This may only be sad to me. It will be a mixed blessing to my Mom, who thinks every lyric comes from a Hootie and the Blowfish song (Note: she thinks most music created between 1996 and 2005 was by Hootie). Don't worry though, the name of the blog will remain the same! Most importantly, I hope to post more often. I hope to write up a summary of my trip to Ethiopia, as it was a beautiful and fascinating place to visit. I also will give a wrap-up of my Peace Corps Madagascar adventure and some other of my Malagasy stories. And I think I will institute a music post each Friday (focusing on tunes from Madagascar at least at first, especially those that were popular during my second tenure there, so get excited RPCVs).
For now, here's what I've been experiencing on my return to the US of A:
The Good
-Beer. Dark beer in particular, although I've been enjoying everything from Guiness to Yuengling to Miller/Bud/Coors Lite/Light.
-Food. After a long night at above-mentioned live music venue, we grabbed some Taco Bell, and it was magical. In addition to the meals my first two days, I had some sushi, Not too bad! (although I do miss rice - see The Bad)
-The people. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and it is nice to know that you can go home again and the people still remember you and you can pick up where you left off with good friends and family.
-Sports. I returned just in time to see some excellent Stanley Cup finals games and game 6 of the NBA finals, where He Who Shall Not Be Named (*) choked away the title to the Mavs.
The Bad
-Portions. Way too much meat, not enough rice. Seriously, rice portions are tiny.
-Eating with a fork. How do people do it? I am used to eating everything with a spoon, and only occasionally using a fork (to hold my meat while cutting it with the spoon).
-You cannot carry a pocketknife around everywhere. And certainly not in airports.
-People on the street. No one greets each other when passing them on the street. In DC, everyone just avoided my gaze and wouldn't acknowledge my hello. I fear that in New York City, someone might attack me for trying to say hello...
-Constant Connectedness. People flipped when they heard I had not bought a cell phone yet, as everyone else has full-on iphone/droid/blackberry addictions (although now I have a number - 843 422 8195, for those interested).
-The 24 hour news cycle. I did NOT miss constant analysis of the Republican nomination, Obama's wars, congressional twitter scandals, nor Brett Favre.
-The people. This includes the Malagasy from my communities, the Peace Corps staff, and my fellow volunteers. I miss you all!
There are a number of things I knew I could no longer do when I got back, such as point with my lips, tsk at females as a pickup line, pick my nose in the middle of a conversation, and play with random small children. So far, I have been pretty successful at keeping these habits in check (except for the lip pointing that is). Those of you I see in the next few months will have to tell me how I am doing on these...
In closing, I wanted to include the song that this post's title comes from. Warning: it may cause unexpected smiling and/or bouncing.
*-For those who don't know, I am a Cleveland sports fan (aka I am a masochist), so there was a certain amount of shadenfreude in watching the Heat lose.
No comments:
Post a Comment