Almost Home...

Do you remember the movie “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”? Well, I feel like I am right in the middle of it. After a bumpy 16-hour bus ride, a very long 16-hour “layover” in Bangalore and a smelly seven-hour train ride, we finally made it back to Chennai. Our flight to Australia leaves tomorrow afternoon and then it’s back to the States in just a little over a week!

It’s going to be bizarre to go back to a country where I will drive on the right side of the paved road, pretty much all cars have A/C, four wheeling is for snow and “off road”, horns are typically only used in frustration, people are fined for littering - it’s definitely not the way of life, showers are prominent - no more bucketing!, STDs are sexually transmitted diseases - not the phone booths I use to call home, people are usually over 18 when they get married, the only things women wear on their heads are hats and sunglasses - no baskets, sticks, etc., I won’t a superstar (but I will be a bride!) or a singer (oh yes, as sad as it is, many microphones have been put to my lips over the past few months), no one will ask for my autograph or try to take pictures of me, the only herds I see will be of people at a good concert, I’ll have my very own room (at least for a little while!) with a mattress on a bed, children suffer from obesity and materialism (not poverty and starvation), children will be in school - not working construction, carbs are bad, you go to the grocery store for food - not your backyard, tap water is drinkable, Thanksgiving is the only meal that takes more than two hours to make, high maintenance orders (I would like an iced, grande, sugar-free vanilla, non-fat late please) are common and shoes are pretty much required everywhere you go. Crazy as it is, in so many ways, I am really going to miss India!