Reunion Pie and Goodbye Cake

Well, well, well, look who it is.  Just when you thought the ol' blog was dead, I'M BACK.  After a month of soul searching and touring Oregon, getting sunburned and talking a lot (because it's so much easier in English), I'm back at it.  I like it, my Mom likes it and my soul twin is abroad (again, sheesh) so I'm doing it.  Plus, my Chinese fan base is no doubt worried about what happened to me.  And that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

Recently Germany realized that it was missing out on having Erica around so they stole her from me.  She has landed and I expect the Euro debt crisis to be solved within the week.  A smart girl, that one.   To say goodbye, our families had a German themed dinner and I provided the German Chocolate Cake.  It was...delicious, if I do say so myself.  Betty Crocker, you have never let me down.

 

Lucky for me, Colleen came down for a visit the day before Erica left so I wasn't a complete mess.  Mom had a bunch of berries and a great idea to make a pie but when Colleen overheard her plans to use a frozen crust, Colleen offered to make one herself.  And did she ever!  Blue, black and marionberries in Colleen's famous pie crust was a beautiful reunion indeed.  I cannot wait to be roomies again.  CAN'T.  WAIT. 

 

What beauties!

To conclude, I love Oregon, my family, having a kitchen and the delights of being home.  Look forward to more updates about cool stuff, mostly food, probably.  Not too many updates though, I have to have a little mystery to myself, right?  So here's to blogging in moderation!

So, I guess I smell.

Things that I didn't know would be different but are different than they were eleven months ago:

-Tualatin has a Jimmy Johns?!  Awesome.
-New Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book...not reading it is not an option.
-I had to update the information on my library card.
-Everyone thinks I smell different.  Combination of campfire (wood burning stoves) and old people (average age of people in my Chilean home including me: 57.5).
-...that's about it.

I read the Returning Home section of my study abroad info packet and am happy to report that I'm not yet experiencing reverse culture shock (although being happy is stage one...uh oh).  However, Bridgeport Village seemed...more sinister somehow.  Other side note, I keep practicing what I'll have to say to strangers in my head before I talk to them before I realize that they speak English so I can just wing it.

I am very happy to be home.

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.