Back in the US of A!

My last couple days of holiday were nice. I took an early shinkansen from Hiroshima to Kyoto on Friday and spent a half day in Kyoto exploring a couple of temples in the north part of town. I met a fellow JSPS-er (he was in town sightseeing with his parents) for dinner that night at my favorite Okinawan restaurant and then relaxed by the river with an Yebisu :) On Saturday I took a half-day trip to Nara to see the big temples there (and a GIANT buddha statue) and then in the afternoon stopped just south of Kyoto to see a really cool mountain shrine with thousands of torii. On Sunday I spent my last day in Kyoto in the Arashiyama area, a really pretty neighborhood on the outskirts of town with some beautiful gardens, temples, bamboo forests, mountain views, and winding residential streets.

I really enjoyed my holiday and was EXHAUSTED by the time I took the train back to Tokyo for my last night in Japan. I got a good night's sleep and then got on an early Narita express for the airport. I had a lot of downtime at the airport and then got to enjoy my 12.5 hour flight home...it wasn't too terrible but wasn't great either :P

Coming back to America, I had quite the wake-up call at the Atlanta airport. It's quite the airport experience for someone who's only slept for 6 hours in a tiny airplane seat and who's been in one of the calmest, quietest countries in the world for 2.5 months! People yelling, customs and security checkpoints, hauling luggage around. But after that fortune smiled upon me and I was actually able to get on an earlier flight to Gainesville and see my boyfriend and my city 3 hours earlier than I was originally going to :)

Life has slowly come back to normal now, but sometimes things still feel weird. Driving my car, being able to listen to other people's conversations and make purchases with full sentences, blending in and not being the only one in a 100-mile radius with blonde hair...it's weird how much you get used to living abroad and then how coming home all of a sudden feels foreign.

Fortunately I'll be kept rather busy this fall with preparations for my qualifying exam. I'll be finishing up my proposal rough draft next week, then studying and reading all of October (I've got a big pile of notes and a list of books to check out...). I've also got some traveling during September (I'm in Nebraska right now and will be in DC for the EPA Fellowship conference in two weeks) and would like to get some lab work done as well! And I'm taking a risk assessment class too.

I really should try to keep this updated amidst my busy fall, and even with everything that's going on I'll continue to update at least once a week. For now, back to enjoying Labor Day at home!