Re-entry to America

I’ve been back in the States for about 1 month now.

Everyone keeps asking me two questions. The first is, “how is it being back?” and the second is, “what are you doing with all your time this summer?”

For the first question, the two most surprising realizations have been that,

1. Reverse culture shock does exist, even if you are only gone ten months and even if you didn’t think your lifestyle changed that much.

2. If you like coffee at all, a year in Italy will make you detest American coffee, no matter how free of coffee snobbery you may have been before.

So how is it being back? There are some things I miss, things that strike me as bizarre and illogical, and some things that I’m really happy about. At root some of this boils down to Rome being a more livable city than South Bend in some ways–coming from parts of Chicago or Manhattan a person would experience some of the same frustrations. (e.g. half the sidewalks in this town end in random places, so they are fairly useless for walking.) This has never been my favorite city to live in, but it does have one thing that few other places have.

Friends.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned since leaving college, it’s that people are always the most important thing.

In reality, the reason it’s taken me so long to get back to my little blog is not so much the move or a lack of knitting, it’s that I am blessed with many friends here, several of whom are all moving away within a few weeks, even before I leave. I have friends who have already moved coming back for the weekend, friends in Chicago who want to see my new baby, friends with new babies on the other side of the country that I want to see, and even a friend to meet for a pint with some knitting.

It’s good to be back.

There is, of course, knitting to come.

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