We were blessed to have a healthy baby with her passport in hand in time for the girls' summer break to make our first trek back to The States as a family. Of course, the best part about it was the people we could see again! Family traveled from Washington DC to Oregon and in between to meet for reunions. What could be better than that?
On our longest flight (about 10 hours), the "big" girls were in 7th heaven with their own TV/movie monitors, and Ivy did amazingly well. Unfortunately, our connecting flight was canceled...and canceled..and then postponed. It was so unbelievable, we had to laugh, and we did enjoy getting American food at the airport with our food vouchers. We were discouraged and exhausted (days of traveling plus an 8-hr time difference), but decided to make the best of it and found a really cool aquarium where we saw a live mermaid show and got to feed sting rays.
Our first culture shock came when we had to stop at a grocery store to buy sunscreen and some band-aids. There were just way too many choices. Because we were without a car during our extended layover and were riding trains, we felt like we were still in Germany. (One time while we were waiting at a stop and some people started walking toward us, I even thought, "We should start speaking German" because that's what we try to do when we're in public here). Except that everywhere we went, we all kept saying, "I'm freezing. I'm freezing." We weren't used to having AC. We did enjoy having drinking fountains again, though.
Once we finally arrived (at midnight) and saw our family, then we knew we were really back!
We were glad the timing worked out to meet my bro's fiance and spend time with her. We also got to meet new cousins, and see all of my siblings and Myles'--quite amazing!
A few days before we came back, I dreamt that I couldn't speak German anymore. I was afraid that I had forgotten a lot, but after coming back, I felt like it was actually better than before we left. I thought maybe it was just me, but someone else said he noticed an improvement, too. I thought this was surprising. Maybe just having a break was good, or maybe I had more confidence after going home, not sure.
It was nice coming back to an established life--much easier than the first time we came!
2021 Reading!
1 year ago
1 comment:
I'm SO glad you were able to come! It was a lot of fun having everyone together. I can't believe it's already been 5 weeks since we picked you up at the airport. Hopefully, the time will go by as quickly until we see you again:)
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