Day 244 - 2/12/08 Again...

Courtesy of that wacky international date line. We actually arrived in Seattle 9 hours BEFORE we left Korea. The time difference is minus 24 (the date line), plus 7 (the seven times zones one physically crosses). Confused? I don't quite understand it either.

The flight from Korea was pretty bumpy. Luckily, I took a massive dose of motion-sickness medicine before we took off, which both kept me from feeling ill, and also knocked me out, so I was able to sleep through the worst of it. Cz was not so fortunate. I gave him some of my drugs mid-flight, but it was already too late to help very much. He was looking pretty green by the time we landed.

*sidenote* if you have no Drammamine (or even if you do) a hefty dab of Tiger Balm under the nose stings like hell but provides instant relief of motion sickness. Sipping ginger salts or chewing a bit of ginger also helps

Despite the roughness of the flight, we arrived in Seattle more than an hour ahead of schedule.

And breezed through customs. It went like so, and took less than half an hour, including waiting in line.

Customs Guy (CG) - How long have you been out of the country.

Us (with some trepidation) - 8 months

CG - What were you doing

Us - I got a travel grant through the UW

CG - Wow! That sounds great. Welcome home

And then we were back in the US. It was that simple.

A friend from the UW picked us up from the airport and brought us to the house of a longtime family friend. We ate lunch, and promptly conked out for nearly 5 hours, stirring only to change loads of laundry in the washing machine and dryer.

In the evening, we met up with several of our former classmates from the UW in our old haunt of the College Inn Pub. What was strange was how not-strange it felt. I expected to feel some distance or disconnect, but slipping back into old banter and designer-speak, eating nachos, and ordering beer by the pitcher for the table came as naturally as if we had never left.

In fact, it feels like we have been gone barely 8 weeks rather than 8 months. The amount of time only registers when I think about all the things we have seen, and realise that there is no way we could have done all that in a short time.

The strangest thing so far is being surrounded by American accents. For the whole trip, we have been able to get by with English, and have been surrounded by English-speaking fellow travellers, but never this saturation, this background babble of American voices.

It hasn't really sunk in yet that we are back in the country for good. Right now, it feels like just another stop in our travels, and in a sense, it is. We are visiting friends in Seattle for a few days, then heading to NY for a few days, and then on to Viriginia. We don't really stop travelling until March, when we (hopefully) move into an apartment of our very own in NYC. I expect that it won't hit me until the end of March or beginning of April. I will probably not be very pleasent to be around for a few weeks when that happens.