Oh, It’s Tuesday: Back in Black (b/c Nothing Else is Clean)

Hey guys! I’m back in the U.S.A. And though I had a wonderful time in Belgium and London, I’m now rolling around in my stateside amenities, which include

1) Internet that actually works on a consistent basis. Sorry for the many delays and the (worst than usual) spelling and grammar mistakes. It was so hard to get anything published, that in the end, I was just happy to be able to get anything posted, even if it wasn’t up to our usual standards.

2) A wide bed with a loving husband in it. What’s up with Europe and their narrow hotel beds?

3) Cultural delicacies that I can actually eat. Somehow I managed not to slap my sister every time she raved about good her morning fresh cheese and salami on croissant sandwiches were, and my reward for that is an animal style In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Watch me.

I’m also looking forward to cooking and getting back to work on my various projects. You know that old saying that if you enjoy what you do, it never feels like work. Well, I found out the good way that I really, really enjoy what I do. I wouldn’t call myself a workaholic (we’ll save that for the intervention), but I do start to get jittery, given too much free time. And though the internet connections in everyone of my hotels was for shit, I did look forward to working on Fierce and Nerdy every night.

However, there are some things that I will miss about Europe:

1) The age of the place. While accidentally touring a fantastic theatre in Bruges, we actually had our tour guide answer the question of how old the building was with “not that old, it was built in 1862.” Man, America is young.

2) The Belgian chocolate. They offered me a Kit Kat on the plane and I threw it away. Not sure when I’ll be able to eat regular chocolate again.

3) CNN Europe. Wow, apparently there’s a whole world out there and it’s really interesting. I pretty much kept this on 24/7 and especially while waiting for the Fierce and Nerdy admin page to (excruatingly slowly) load.

4) My sister. We’ve always traveled well together. And because we both have absolutely no sense of orientation we spent a lot of time getting pleasantly lost and cheerfully going the wrong way. You might have to be a world traveler with a total lack of orientation to actually understand why this is good thing. But trust me when I say that it is.

5) Going to other countries easily. I still haven’t been to Mexico or Canada, but I probably would if I could ride the kick-ass Eurostar, every time I felt like going abroad on a whim. Hopefully Europeans appreciate how lucky they are.

Oh, and one more thing, if you’re planning to go abroad, and you haven’t downloaded Skype, do so yesterday. So much cheaper than any international service that you could possibly get and according to the many people that we’re surprised to hear from me while I was abroad, clear as a bell. I started off with 6.50 in Euros for the week worth of calls and I still have money left over! Long live Skype!