Final Days

So I've been thinking a lot about the great USA and how much I miss it and how surreal it will be to be back.  I think that after driving down I5 again, Chile will seem like a distant dream.  Like in that episode of Even Stevens when Louis dreams about getting abducted by aliens but later that day finds the tattoo they left him (I didn't get a tattoo).  I do have just a few reservations about returning home and I shall list them here. 

1.  I'm going from mid-January to mid-July in 24 hours.  My legs are doing that so-white-they're-blue thing and I actually haven't seen my bare knees in weeks because I'm constantly wearing pants to fend off the frostbite.  I swear there was once at time when I didn't rotate between three wool sweaters and two pairs of pants, but Lord knows I don't remember it now.

2.  Michelle Bachmann.  America, I want to love you, and I do.  But only you could spawn this lady and have enough people care about her that I have to know who she is.

3.  I left my phone in Buenos Aires.  I'm sort of looking forward to getting a new phone (it will be the cheapest one offered) but I have zero contacts and don't want to do a fbook group about it.  So for some time I will be texting everyone back with, 'sorry, who are you?'

4.  Spanish.  I'm afraid that I will lose everything within the first ten minutes of being back in the US.  Must find a way to keep speaking it.  Sorry family, but I'm going to be watching Telemundo and renting Spanish movies without subtitles.  Also, I think there is way more pressure to be good at Spanish there than here, because here everyone assumes I know nothing, but at home...everyone will assume I know everything (which I don't).  Plus, Mexico is actually a different country than Chile (who knew?) and that makes me a little nervous about the Spanish that I'll be hearing.

5.  Do I still know how to drive?  Is it like riding a bike?

6.  That annoying person that never stops talking about their study abroad experience and accidentally drops Spanish phrases obnoxiously because she is so used to it and compares everything to Chile and who not infrequently uses the phrase, "well while I was backpacking through Patagonia..." or, "the Spanish translation of that is really funny because..."  And NOBODY likes that person.  This, this is my greatest fear and I'm going to try so hard not to be that person.

 I mean, if you want to hear about this experience, I'll tell you!  But if not, I swear I won't mention it.