Home, Sweet Home!

After being awake 27 hours, I slept for 12 hours.  I unpacked my suitcase and then left to get my girls from daycare.

The girls were very excited to see me when I picked them up on Thursday afternoon.  Maggie ran across the playground yelling, "Mommy" over and over.  I squatted down to give her a hug and kiss.  Then Mena saw me and ran across the playground.  She gave me a big bear hug that knocked me off balance so I landed on my bottom with both of the girls hugging me.  It felt good to be missed!  I've gotten a lot more hugs and kisses than usual this weekend!!

Thursday evening I gave the girls their souvenirs of dresses, ornaments, chopsticks, and their favorite...Hello Kitty phones and sunglasses.  They lost interest in everything else after seeing these!

This is the pile of mail I came home to.  It took me a few hours on Friday while the girls were at daycare for me to get through my mail, organize my bills, update my checkbook and make a trip to the bank to close my travel account.

I've adjusted to the central time zone again.  I actually think it was easier adjusting back to my home time than it was when I adjusted to the time in China.  I didn't really have any really tiring days, but I had 4 days to do as I wanted with my girls so I was setting my agenda rather than someone else setting it for me.

I started my next summer class today online through UNK, but the girls and I are planning a camping trip that we can take together this summer after my class is done.  I missed them so much while I was gone and am so glad to be back in the same house as them!!

Day 15

Ok, I’ve been awake 27 hours and I want to take a shower before I go to bed but I don’t want to forget my first thoughts upon entering the U.S.

We landed in Detroit with 30 minutes to get through customs and to the other side of the airport for our flight to Omaha.  I told my classmate, “Yea, we get to talk to people who speak English!”  The guy behind the counter heard me and thought he’d be funny to say, “Nihao!” and “Shea Shea.”  I just want to get through to Omaha and while he was funny, I really just wanted him to look at my passport and let me in!  He turned to his partner and said, “I think Shea Shea means Thank You.”  I told him, “Yes, ‘Shea Shea’ means ‘Thank You’” while inside I was thinking, “Get on with this!!”

I got through customs and ran in my stocking feet to the check in gate.  I was the first to arrive so I ran up to the counter to let them know a group of us just landed and were making our way through customs and needed to be on this flight.  She looked at me and said, “The flight doesn’t leave until 7:55.”  I replied, “Yes, I know but it says to board at 7:15” (and it was currently 7:20 pm).  She looked at me and said with an attitude of annoyance, “I haven’t called anyone to board yet.”  I replied, “OK.”  Then I found a place to stand where everyone else could see to meet me.

The “crowd” at Eppley didn’t seem crowded at all after being in China.  When people bumped into each other they said, “Excuse me.” The air was so fresh smelling.  There was no one honking their horns.  The cars waited for us to cross the street.  No one had pottied on the sidewalk.  The air was so easy to breath and we got out of town so easily.  Granted it was 10 pm, but even rush hour traffic won’t seem so bad for awhile!

Carrie was a great roommate and I appreciated not being alone while in a foreign country, but I haven’t had a roommate in 14 years.  First, it was nice to have a full size tub and shower.  Then, it was nice to come out of my bathroom in just my underwear and dress in my bedroom without thinking about who might see me.  I know at one point April came out of her bathroom to find 4 of us in her dorm room.  The comradery was nice, but I appreciate my own apartment with multiple rooms here at home.

Day 15 -- Gifts to Our Wonderful Leaders

Michelle is such an enthusiastic person!  She loved her new book and everyone could read the excitement on her face!  Michelle had wanted The Very Hungry Caterpillar when we went to the book store but thought there were no more copies.  We surprised her with another copy we found.

Tonia was touched by our personal message inside each of their books and all of us signing the books thanking them for all the wonderful experiences we had in China with them.  Tonia received The Giving Tree.

 

Jon didn't know what his book was about since he's not in early childhood, but he appreciated our thankfulness.  We explained that it was about a daddy seahorse and that it would be a good book for him and his son.  His wife can translate the Chinese for him and read it to Connor in Chinese.

Lessons from this Trip

Next time I travel out of the country, I need to remember to pack medicine for constipation/fiber pills.  I brought medicine for diarrhea but not for the opposite problem which I encountered with a change in my diet.  

I also need to pack more than one power converter/adapter so I can charge more than one item at a time.  I brought an extension cord so I could charge 2 items at a time but that only worked for 2 prong items so when I needed to charge my computer I was unable to charge anything else.

I plan to pack a towel for my hair because hotels only give each person one towel and I use two.  I'm going to pick up a hair wrap from the Dollar Tree to keep in my suitcase for any time I travel.

Squatty Potty

I don't know what the Chinese call these, but we refer to them as squatty potties versus a western toilet.  You have to squat down and balance yourself and go into the hole.  I have a very hard time balancing and relaxing enough to go to the bathroom, but I can do it now.  This bathroom actually supplied toilet paper, but most do not so I carried a pocket Kleenex with me where ever I went.  The trash can is for the toilet paper; to prevent clogs you do not flush any paper products.  This results in the girls' bathrooms stinking just as much as a boy's bathroom with urinals in the U.S.  This squatty potty had an automatic flusher which could be set to flush each time someone moved or some were set to only flush periodically to save water.  Again, contributing to the stink.  Some squatty potties had a foot switch you could step on to flush it and some had a regular handle on the pipes for you to flush like we'd see in the U.S.

Electricity

I used my room key to turn on the electricity in both the dorm room in Shanghai and in the hotel room in Beijing.  You slide the key card into the slot to turn on the electricity.  When you leave, you have to take the key with you so you can't leave anything on.  The a/c turns off as well as all electrical outlets and lights.  You can't leave something plugged in to charge while you are gone because there is no power to charge anything while you are gone.  A good way to conserve energy but so different than how we do things in the U.S.

Also, every where in China the light switches turn off in the up position and on in the down position.  The opposite of the switches in the U.S.

Foods

Chinese "cookies" that tasted like a Ritz cracker with strawberry frosting in between the crackers.  They don't do sweet like we do in the U.S.

The same Ritz we can get back home with a Chinese label.

They carry some of the same candy bars that we have in the U.S.

Tonight we ate at KFC.  The food tasted like what they serve in the U.S.