August 6, 2015

Back in the States

The tiniest member of my welcoming committee.
I've been home for 8 days. It feels like I've been home for weeks, which is good. As much as I am looking forward to going back to Romania, I also want my time at home to go slowly. So far I've had a lot of good, quality time with family and friends. The other night, Raegan and I fell asleep holding hands. I'm pretty sure it doesn't get much better than that.


My journey back to the States was LONG. I took a bus at 8:30 pm from Sighisoara to Bucharest, arriving around 1:30 am at the Bucharest airport. Thankfully, I slept the entire bus ride. Then I waited in the airport until around 4:30 am when I could check-in for my flight. I slept a little bit in the airport...let's just say my neck was hurting by the time I woke up. I slept with my head resting on my two big suitcases. Not ideal, but I was so exhausted. I would have loved to watch myself...I know I looked like a zombie. Anyways, I checked in for my flight and flew from Bucharest to Berlin. This flight was only 2 hours and guess what...I slept! I didn't have a long layover in Berlin so I went straight to my gate and waited to board the plane. This was my least favorite part of the journey. 9 hours is waaaayyyy too long to be on a plane. On my way to Romania, I flew to London, which was only 7 hours I think. I can handle 7 hours. However, AirBerlin was pretty fabulous and I have no complaints about the flight other than the length. I watched 3 movies: Still Alice, Crazy Stupid Love, and Romeo & Juliet. I listened to music and slept as much as I could...but I was pretty well rested at that point. ANYWAYS, we finally landed. I went through customs and finally greeted my welcoming committee, which consisted of my mom, dad, sister and Raegan. Raegan had painted me a sign, and gave me a big hug. She kept staring at me, almost as if she didn't believe I was really standing in front of her. It was so cute. (Side note: I feel like I just completed a Gilmore Girls style rant about traveling and I'm 100% okay with that.)

Once we left the airport, we went to...Chipotle! No surprise for anyone who knows me at all. I LOVE CHIPOTLE. It was delicious, but I could barely finish it. My stomach is still on Romanian capacity and digestion. Does that make any sense? Oh well. One major realization that I've had is that my stomach prefers Romanian food, or rather fresh, non-processed food...everything I've eaten so far has made me sick. Thankfully it's not too severe, but I definitely don't feel good after I eat.

I missed this guy.
I haven't been walking as much as I did when I was in Romania. I've tried to make it a point to walk when I can because I actually really miss it. However, I have also missed driving. Such a simple thing, but I've always enjoyed driving. Whenever there's a road trip or adventure, I'm always willing to drive. The scenery, the tunes, the company of good pals...man, I love driving. Anyway...

Quiet mornings
I've been able to enjoy quite a few quiet mornings, which are one of my favorite things ever. Coffee. Reading. Music. The keys to a perfect morning. One thing I'm not fond of is the fact that my room is A MESS. I'm having a garage sale at the end of the month so I've been going through EVERYTHING I own. It's a disaster zone. The plan for the day/week is to organize a bit because I don't know how much longer I can live like this.

I went to the dentist on Tuesday. I was almost positive I had a cavity or two, but thankfully I passed with flying colors. No cavities for me! Anyways, my dental hygienist asked me a question that I haven't been asked in months..."So what do you do?" I stumbled as I started to answer..."Well I used to be a school social worker, but I quit my job and I've been doing mission work in Romania." Did those words really just come out of my mouth? Sometimes it's still hard to believe that this is my life and not someone else's. Yes, Casey, you did quit your stable, well-paying job and move to another country to work with people. Woah.

Overall, I don't have any complaints. As far as culture shock goes, I feel like things have been going very well. Of course, there have been a few things that I've had to adjust back to (driving, food, the overwhelmingness of shopping, etc), but all things I can handle. I feel like I was pretty aware of the re-entry process before I re-entered so that also helped.

I need to rewind a bit in the next blog post or two and share what I was doing in Romania before I left. The last month was a bit of a whirlwind with VBS (3 different ones), saying goodbyes, a weekend away with some teens, my INCREDIBLE roommate (Hi Beth!), the medieval festival, and more...I've got some writing to do.