The Great Departure or Winter in Chicago

After 23 hours of travel back to the States, I landed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5 AM in my beloved airport, O’Hare International. My dad picks me up and I eagerly shower and get ready for my first Starbucks coffee back home, but jet lag wins out and I pass out on my bed instead.

The rest of the trip goes at follows:

1. I proceed to hide under my bed-covers for the next three days, only submerging for food, water, hygiene, and movie purposes
2. My body, clearly undergoing culture shock, fails to respond to snow, wind, ice, and bleakness and requires me to dress in multiple layers, something a true Chicagoan would only do once upon a random wintry occasion.
3. Large intakes of Nestle dark chocolate raisins and Starbucks lattes help with the adjustment, as do fireplace movie nights with the family. I finally get the guts to brave it, and try out snowshoeing. It’s harder than it looks. My parents are pros though.
4. (Below: me, too cold to move)
5. I decide to be social. A Univision and Notre Dame reunion of friends my first weekend back in Chicago makes for a great re-introduction to life in the US of A with all my favorite people (well, in Chicago). Julie and I get each other the same thing for Christmas: squirrels (though hers suspiciously looks more like a groundhog), college note-passing jokes, and ethnic Bolivian and Cambodian scarves.
6. White Christmas 2010. My mom bakes a delicious turkey; apple-cinnamon mix thing, mashed potatoes, veggies and we trade the usual Austrian strudel for a French fruit pie. We proceed to open presents and miss all of our family back in Mexico City and the sun.
7. A string of movie-theater outings (they don’t have real ones in Cambodia), Barnes & Noble (again lacking in Cambodia), Starbucks (a rare find in Cambodia), and planning for what will be my second failure in life.
8. New Year’s 2010! What is time anyways?
9. Trip to D.C. to visit my newly engaged friend, Diana and my first glimpse of a BRIDES magazine outside of a bookstore. D.C. is colder than Chicago (is that possible?) and Mike teaches me how to play Wii Beatles Rock Band. I’m terrible at the guitar, but looove drums. I spare everyone by not singing, as does Diana.
10. I spend my second day in D.C. at the National Art Gallery and decide that the Art Institute of Chicago is much better. I’m partial to impressionism. At least 3 people ask me if I need help finding my way around D.C. I must look like a tourist.
11. My second failure in life. (The first was not pushing my parents for professional soccer training). I miss the Foreign Service placement cut-off by A QUARTER OF A POINT.
12. Such is life. I must go grow up now and deal with check-points in the West Bank or become a Lawyer in Munich or re-settle Somali refugees in Uganda.
13. I don’t commit suicide and meet Diana and Mike for a last D.C. dinner at a delicious Peruvian restaurant. It's a dark, lonely ride back from D.C. to Chicago.
14. I miss my plane ride back to Cambodia.. One leg booked for the day before the other. Oh details like 12:05AM departures. I take it as a sign I should go back and hibernate some more.
15. One month after I arrived in Chicago, I fly back to Cambodia.
16. A million hours later I taxi it back to St. 278 No. 42E, my humble abode. As I’m standing outside our green gate, waiting for Nora to come let me in, all my tuk-tuk and moto drivers welcome me back. They wave, smile, and point at the shirts they're wearing. Before I left to go home, I bestowed some presents onto all left by a former roommate. I feel back at home. That is, until a nice car full of well-dressed Cambodians parks next to me and they tumble out into my neighbor’s (or my landlord’s) flat. One of the women greets me, we chat a bit and it turns out she’s from Libertyville, a town next to the one I grew up back in my real home. She's just visiting, and dying of heat. Actually, the weather is the best it's ever been in Cambodia, probably around 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit. She sort of stares at me incredulously and asks me how many years I’ve lived here. “Going on 9 months now.” I hope next time I say that I’m pregnant. She blinks twice then says, “Be Safe!” Great. Welcome back to Cambodia.