Return Trip

I've officially been back in the states for 10 days. The trip home didn't go as smooth as I'd hoped for, but I'm still alive, and wasn't mugged, so all in all, it was ok I guess. It was my first time to travel alone, and God put some wonderful people in my path on the way to help the travel much easier and interesting.

I landed in Miami at about 5 PM on December 18. My first 5 minutes back in the US were so surreal... I was expecting the dramatic language change in that whenever I got back here, everyone would be speaking English. That was not the case at all. I heard just as much Spanish in Miami as I did in Paraguay. All of the airport employees were Hispanic, with only a handful of exceptions. It did catch me off guard though, when I got into the food court area and there was an Indian man wearing a turban. I had completely forgotten the existence of people from India, and especially their use of a turban... The smell of Subway made my taste buds go insane, but not insane enough to break down and spend a million dollars on a sandwich and chips... I had a few hours to kill, but no one to kill them with, so I decided to just go ahead and go to my gate to wait for the plane. Luckily, there was a small plasma TV hanging from the ceiling in the giant room of people, broadcasting CNN. The meteorologist was doing his spill about the weather and about how North Carolina and a few other states were having the worst storm of the season, and that he would hate to be the pilot of American Airlines having to land in Charlotte and look down on that mess... Fantastic... I was flying with American Air, and going to Charlotte... what are the chances... For some miraculous reason, we got to Charlotte without any delays at all, but due to the weather, my parents and I had no other choice but to stay in a super cool hotel for the night until the ice melted :) There is a ton that I've noticed in differences already, but I'll save that for the next blog. For now, I'm just throwing out the official, I'm back in the States again, and I'm alright.

Despedida

After over 5 amazing months in Paraguay, it's now my time to go home. It was a hard decision, but a decision that I had to make. I have made a lot of friends in Paraguay, and will miss them like crazy. It has been a huge learning experience, and I'm looking forward to taking my new found wisdom to my home country and sharing it with everyone there.

Sunday, Ken and Christie threw my a going away party, "Despedida," that turned out amazing! Several of the neighbors came, pretty much the entire church, and other friends that we've made along the way. Saul and Ken put their chef skills to work and made home-made pizza for the entire huge crowd, and Christie did what she always does best, the computer. We had a slideshow of a few pictures of my time here and some Christian music videos projected on the wall. And the Pastora (Pastor's wife) even baked me a cake! We all had a great time, and I'm going to miss everyone here very much.