Day 164 and beyond

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Day 164 and beyond:
Sunday, May 9th, 2010
Beijing, China, to San Francisco, CA, to Chicago, IL, to Rochester, NY- USA USA USA!!!

WHEW! I made it! Not just to the end of the trip, but to the end to the end of this blog. I was blogged out the last 10 days of the trip, hence why it took me almost 2 months to finish writing it.

That morning, after saying a very teary goodbye to Marcia, I shared a taxi with Hamish, Rob and Liz to the airport. My terminal was a different one than there's so they dropped me off first, more goodbye's, and I lugged Monstro into one more airport. Nothing to report for the airport- tried to upgrade my flight to first class or business class but Oh My God are the prices high to do that!! Oh well, I'll suffer. And suffer I did. Not because of lack of legroom, nor because we didn't have individual TV's for the 11 hour flight (sorry to sound elitist but that is ridiculous that we didn't have individual screens!!), but because my cold/sinus whatever had hit me full blown and I was in pain!! The pressure in my head was bad enough that at one point I found it actually felt better if I pounded my head against my headrest. However, I couldn't really do this because it would freak out my seat mates. Enough pain that I couldn't even watch the movies that were showing on the stupid "everyone share a screen" TV that was hanging in the aisle. So, guess it doesn't matter that I didn't have my own TV... still...

Get to SF, stand in line for customs forever (have Monstro back with me but he was on a cart, so all was well). I get up to customs and, after traveling the world, I can say the least friendly custom person I met was in the San Francisco airport. Yes yes yes, they have to keep their eyes open and protect us all. But friggin smile! She wasn't 100% buying my "I was just traveling around for 6 months story" and I was having to explain specific details to her. 10 minutes later, my quiz was done and I was free to go. After SF was Chicago, very brief layover and I was in Rochester!!! John (brother) was kind enough to pick me up and I bugged some stranger to take our picture. The last picture of my trip- awwwww!

So, life after traveling. Yes, it's weird. For the first week, in addition to feeling like shit due to the cold/sinus whatever and jet lag, I kept thinking I should get up and take pictures. We'd be driving around Rochester and I'd be looking around, expecting to see new things. Took a few weeks to get over the feeling of "I should take a picture of that." Plus, once the cold/sinus whatever went away, I had a hell of a time sitting still. That's a good thing, but I'm used to being a lounge lizard. Slowly, I was able to turn back into my sloth like American ways. I hope not to fully revert, but I'd like to be able to sit and enjoy being lazy again. And, my stomach was no longer used to Western food, so that part felt like I was still on the road :) Just with better rest stops!

Since being back, I crashed with John and Sarah for about a month before getting a place of my own up in Rochester. We sold Mom and Dad's house and got rid of Mom's car- so that was the last of that. At the end of May, I flew out to Las Vegas for a buddies birthday- it was odd to stay in the Luxor after seeing the real thing. Then, John and Sarah were married just a couple of weeks ago! Life has continued. Who knows what it holds for us all.

Thanks for keeping up with this blog and for keeping me company on all my travels! Here's hoping we can meet up on the road before too long!

xo
Amanda

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