Back in Jersey

Hi everyone,

I've been back in New Jersey since getting in at 4:30am on Thursday morning. I missed celebrating my birthday here in the States (and Continental didn't think it was worth giving me first class for), but more or less it was a pretty smooth flight. I've been battling jet lag and this weird sickness that has left me with a runny nose and crazy bouts of sneezing - but hopefully it'll pass over the next couple of days.

When talking about traveling overseas and coming back to the US, I've always heard of the topic "reverse culture shock," meaning the culture shock that you get when you return to your home country after being away for a certain amount of time. I have to say that during the last two or three weeks of my trip, I really felt like I started to click with the lifestyle I was living in India and that it became less of a "this is temporary" lifestyle. I had a routine of everyday things, didn't have to worry about what I would be eating for dinner or how to get from point A or point B, and really started to feel like I was getting to know a lot of the people around me both at work and outside of work. It's sad that things had to end so quickly after they were working out so well!

There have been some adjustments coming back to the US. I haven't been in such a quiet environment (my house...and my town) in a while. Nor have I seen a grocery store the size of Shop Rite or cars as big as American SUV's. To reference the sizes of cars, a Toyota Corola is considered a big car in India. Even as I've been driving around over the past couple of days, it's been tempting to honk my horn expecting the person in front of me to yield to me and the drive with the assumption that no police officer is going to pull me over.

But more or less, things will be moving quickly and I will be going back to Ann Arbor this Thursday. Even though I'm back in the States, there are still a couple things that I wanted to write about regarding the last couple of days and some conclusions that I came while overseas, so it might sound like I'm writing as if I'm still there. But for everyone that has been reading, thanks for stopping by and I'm looking forward to talking with some of you about your thoughts and my experiences!