Back in the U S of A!

My vacation home for the holidays went too fast but it was wonderful. I didn't get to see all the people I wanted to but I did my best given the limited time and I am pretty pleased. Even though there was two feet of snow on the ground my heart was warm and toasty being around my loved ones. (Yeah, I said it. Cheeeeeeze). I suppose it hadn't been that long compared with how long some PC volunteers wait to go home but I was still overwhelmed and sniveling with joy when the plane touched down. Then I was in full on tears when I saw my mom and boyfriend who had come to pick me up. It's hard to describe that pure joy of suddenly being surround by people you love and love you after being an alien for 7 months. There is rush of belonging and understanding. All of a sudden everything around makes sense. You know why people are acting the way they are. Order is restored in your little world.

I never thought I'd say this, but the thing I missed most about the US apart from mi gente is convenience. You want hot water? BAM! You want to call someone? BAM! You want to find your favorite chocolate bar? BAM! It's at the store. It is utterly amazing how fast and easily things happen. It is pretty easy to adjust to having a grocery store trip take all day but it is so much nicer when it doesn't.

The only bad thing is that my bag got lost on the way back. The airport thinks that a woman who left a very similar bag probably took mine. I'm doubtful though because why would she leave her bag there for week while she carting around mine? She likes my clothes better maybe? I don't know. The whole thing is suspicious and really inconvient. I even brought home my sheets to wash them and they were in the bag so now I'm sleeping on a filthy bare mattress.

Filth is also taking some getting used to. I'm not a neat freak but I came home to a house full of roach and lizard poop and my water has been running on a trickle or not at all so it's been difficult to make the place liveable again. I swear the roaches launched a colonization campaign while I was gone. I haven't seen this many before but I'm hoping the spray will do the trick.

I started my English tutoring classes yesterday and one household decided to go to a party during scheduled class time and didn't inform me. Big surprise there. And at the other class I only had to wait an hour for the girl to show. Not so bad. The class itself went pretty well. This morning the representate asked me for classes! I would really like to open up some sort of relationship with the dude because theoretically he can help me get stuff done but we'll see how it all pans out.

I hope everyone had great holidays!