So I'm back in the States. After spending the night in the Stuttgart airport, flying to Frankfurt, going through ridiculous security checks, and then flying 10 hours to Portland, I finally made it off the plane. Dad picked me up in Portland and within minutes, I was whisked away back into a life I haven't seen in a year. My brother's football team plays tonight, so we drove straight to Corvallis. We checked into a hotel, and Dad handed me a Beavers cap and an orange t-shirt. The hotel is right across from the stadium, so the lobby is busteling with proud parents and cocky college kids turned game day officials, in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly. It's a world that I'd almost forgotten about. Something tells me that I don't quite fit in here. Is it because I'm a Husky? Is it the dreadlocks? Is it the jet lag? Or is it simply a stage in my readjustment period, of readjusting to life as an American?

I guess I should leave a little bit of time between touchdown and speculation, but I can't help but offer some quick observations. I'd forgotten what culture shock is like, and reverse culture shock is another flavor of the same thing I went through last fall. Normal culture shock means being surprised by the little things that are done differently, but in reverse culture shock, it's stuff that you are shocked by, and then feel dumb about it because you already knew about it, but had forgotten. So far, it's just been little things: using the US plug-ins again, receiving embarrassed smiles when you catch somebody staring at you, strangers asking "how are you?", unnecessary small talk, dollars instead of euros, having to apologize when you brush by somebody, asking officials questions in English instead of German. Things like that. I can imagine it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Anyway. I've been doing nothing for the past 24 hours but sit, eat, and sleep. I think it's time to go to the hotel gym and work out, and maybe even get some laundry done while I'm here. A month on the road in Europe has not been friendly to my hygiene. Then it's off to the football game, that good old American institution. More on all this later.