Return to the U.S.

After 5 months of traveling, I am now back in the U.S.! I had a great time on my trip and got to see lots of amazing things, but now I'm glad to be back. The traveling lifestyle can get pretty tiring when you don't stay in each place for very long, so I'm looking forward to some down time and catching up on some things that I wasn't able to do on my journey, as well as seeing family and friends who I haven't seen for months.


I got back home 3 days ago, and as with most travel plans, there were some problems. First, it took me almost 3 hours to get from my hotel in Istanbul to the airport, and I had only planned for 2 hours, since that is how long it took me when I arrived to go from the airport to the hotel. So as soon as I got to the airport I was feeling rushed because I only had about an hour until my flight, and then it felt like every time I turned around there was another line to wait in. As soon as you walked into the airport you had to go through security with all of your bags, which I'd never seen before, then there was a huge line to check in, and then a shorter but still very slow line for passport control. While waiting in line, I got talking to a guy from Colombia who was also taking the same flights as me to New York, so I had some company. Then when we finally got to the gate, turned out our flight was delayed by about 30 minutes so we had a little time to relax. Then when we got to Stockholm for our layover, our next flight was also delayed, but this time by 4 hours! That meant that what was originally a 4 hour layover turned into an 8 hour layover. Even though I had gotten separated from my travel buddy along the way, I was able to entertain myself fine with the free wifi, and I had also gotten a meal voucher from the airline because of the delay, so I got dinner for free!

Right before boarding, I met up with the Colombian guy again and then after take off he and another guy he had just met moved to empty seats near me and we ended up chatting for most of the flight. The other guy was from Turkey, and he was traveling around the world in 80 days with no money! I couldn't believe it, I thought he was joking at first, but turns out he really hadn't spent any money on his whole trip. He was on day 24 I believe, and had started his journey in India, then hitchhiked through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and various other countries, through Europe and was on his way to New York, then South America, Singapore and back to India, all without spending a dime. He relied on meeting people along the way who would offer him food and places to stay, and also used social media and some contacts in certain countries to find lodging. He hadn't even paid for his flight to JFK. He had gone to the VIP lounge at the airport and gotten talking to people about his trip, and he met someone who worked for Norwegian Airlines, which is the airline we were taking, who bought him a ticket to New York! I thought I was traveling on a budget, but he blew that out of the water. And he was only 17, so it was amazing that he had just decided to leave home and travel by himeslef in such an unconventional way. The Colombian guy also had lots of stories to tell because he had been traveling for quite a while, and would stop in whatever country he felt like for several months until he decided to move on. He had just been in Russia for 3 months, and then had traveled through Belarus and Turkey, and then was planning to stay in the U.S. for a while. I think he had been traveling for 2 years, and had no plans to go home in the near future. It was really interesting that right at the point where I considered my trip to be over, I was heading home and everything was done, I met two other travelers who really surprised me with their stories. It showed me that you can meet cool people and have chance encounters like that at any time and place, even when you're least expecting it.

So because of the delay, I didn't arrive in New York until 1:00 am. Luckily getting through passport control was very easy with the new machines they have to digitally scan your passport (I'm not really sure how new it actually is, but they didn't have it the last time I reentered the U.S.), and I was on my way out of the airport around 2:00 to my friend's apartment where I spent the night before taking a bus to Massachusetts. Even though I tend to not like NYC much because it's so big, crowded, dirty and smelly, one thing I definitely appreciated was that all the public transportation is 24/7, so I had no problem getting where I needed to go without having to spend an insane amount of money on a taxi. Thank you, New York!

I didn't get much sleep because my friend and I stayed up until 5:00 am catching up since we hadn't seen each other in about a year and a half, and then I got up around 8:00 to get my bus. That went smoothly and I finally arrived home around 3:00 pm, about 40 hours after leaving the hotel in Istanbul. I was very tired since instead of a full night's sleep I'd only had 3 short naps along the way, so even though I tried to stay awake until at least 8 pm, I failed and fell asleep around 6. Then I woke up at 8 and went to sleep again around 9, and slept for about 11 hours. But after all of that sleep I was basically adjusted to the time change. Luckily I'm never very effected by jetlag, I've just been waking up really early every day since I've been back haha.

So far being back has been good, and it's nice to be in a place that's so familiar after so many new places over the past 5 months. The things that were the weirdest when I first got back where that everyone was speaking English and with an American accent, and seeing temperature in Fahrenheit again. I never had much trouble communicating with people in English when I needed to, but I had mostly heard only accented English on my travels, except for the times I got talking to other American tourists. I had also gotten pretty used to hearing other languages and assuming that there would be many people around me who I wouldn't be able to understand, and knowing that everyone around me speaks my language now was a bit strange at first. And I got so used to seeing and thinking about temperature in Celsius that the first time I saw a thermometer that said 33 degrees, I was confused for a second because I expected to see a single digit number (the same temperature in Celsius would be about 1 degree, and 33 degrees Celsius is over 90 Fahrenheit). Other than those things, it's just been interesting to realize that I am now in a place where I know pretty much everything about how things are done and how people normally act, etc. Even just walking around the grocery store the other day, it was an interesting feeling that I knew exactly what to expect and I didn't have any questions about anything around me or how to interact with people. Even though there are many  things I don't like about living in the U.S., and many of those things were reinforced when I learned about how things are done in Europe, it was a relief to be back somewhere that was so familiar, and regardless of the things I dislike about this country and where I end up living or traveling in the future, it is my home and I think I will always find it comforting to come back.

I know I am a bit behind on my blog posts, but I figured I should let you all know that I am back home safe and sound before finishing up with the last few posts about the countries I visited. I still haven't written about Galway, Dublin, Bucharest or Istanbul, so posts about those places will be coming up shortly. Like I said, I have a lot of things to catch up on now that I'm home, but I will do my best to get those updates posted soon!