The first trip home.

The sun's not up yet, but I am... so rather than lay in bed tossing for two hours, until the normal hour when the rest of humanity will wake up, I think I'll write what's on my mind.

We're in Iowa!  It's cold and snowy, and my body is clearly not yet adjusted to the 8-hour time difference from Romania, but it is Good to be here.  We arrived in Chicago on Thursday afternoon and drove home to Decorah with my mom and sister, finally completing our journey at 10:30 PM (Iowa time) after leaving our apartment in Lupeni on Tuesday morning at 10:30 AM (Romania time).  It doesn't usually take quite that long to make the journey, but ours was augmented by a 19-hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland (which we made the most of by eating cheese fondue and delicious chocolates, though very few of the latter because they cost an astonishing $130 per kilogram!).  It was nice to break up the trip, and Zurich was like a dream straight out of a Disney movie, particularly after the noise and chaos we had just left in București.  The part of the city we saw was all cobblestone streets, adorable upscale shops, delicious smells, and bikers with cute dinging bells.  No blaring horns, no trash, no whiffs of sewage and rot and cows as we walked down the sidewalk.  It was lovely -- though even after a few hours there, I started to wonder if I would get bored living in such a wealthy, clean, orderly place.  (Okay, I'm sure there are social issues and poverty in Zurich... the point is just that the city is so gosh-darn cute!)

Anyway.  Eventually we got back to the airport (one more moment of gushing: the trains from the Zurich airport to the city are so fast and so silent -- it was like floating!  Anyway...).  Then another 10-hour flight, then a 6-hour drive, and then we were home.

Zurich was great fun, but Iowa is better.  :)

So far the transition back has been pretty smooth.  I'm currently most astonished by toilets, which flush in America with one quick little push of a lever -- whoosh! -- and a powerful burst of water cleans everything out.  In Romania, at least in our apartment, you hold the button down for as long as you want water to run -- and the flush isn't nearly as powerful, and sometimes takes multiple pushes to even get started.  Perhaps this is too much information, but it's true -- so here, a couple times a day, I just laugh as I realize I'm standing there like a fool, holding down the flusher when I don't need to be.  So that's nice.

It's also just quiet here.  Decorah has always been a quiet place -- it's a small town with lots of trees, little traffic, and no major motorways close enough to send much noise pollution.  But compared to life in Lupeni, it is blissfully silent here.  Lupeni is a small city, but between the frequent honking of Romanian drivers, the coal trains whose horns echo through the valley several times a day, and the street dogs who have choir practice together every night, it's loud.  Sitting in my parents' house right now, the only sounds I hear are the clicking of my fingers on the keyboard and the gentle hum of the heater in the background.

Oh yeah -- heat.  That's also been nice.  :)

Mostly, though, I am just glad to be back for a few weeks.  I am excited to catch up with people, particularly my family in these first few weeks we have in Decorah.  I'm excited to have time and space to think and process, to repent and adjust, to think over all the things I've learned and experienced in the last year, to make commitments to the future.  I'm excited for weddings and dinners and game nights and church services and parties.  I'm excited for hamburgers and Christmas cookies and cheddar cheese and pizza with lots of sauce.  I'm sure in January I will be ready and excited to go back, too, but for now it is just Good to be back, in this one of the many places I now call home.