And Suddenly I'm Back

Just like that...24 hours of travel and I'm back in Reno. Aside from an early morning harrowing taxi ride from my hotel in Pristina out to the airport (dense fog and the speedometer was clocking 180 km per hour), the trip was fairly uneventful. My route took me from Pristina to Vienna to DC to Phoenix to Reno. Entering the US at IAD was rather unpleasant. At IAD, deplaning international passengers are immediately seperated into those with connections and those without connections. Because the lines going through customs were so insanely long, and all of the people I was in line with had onward connections, the atmosphere was incredibly tense and bitchy. Tons of people were jumping ahead in the line, it was hot, exaggerated sighs were flying, and nobody was happy. I didn't care so much. I figured that if I missed my flight (which I didn't), I'd just be rescheduled for something later.

On my flight out of DC, I was sat in the last row on the aisle. The absolute worst seat in the plane: My seat didn't recline and I was right next to the toilets. However, no one was seated across the aisle, so as soon as the airplane door was shut, I scooted across and buckled myself into the middle seat. As soon as we took off and reached 10,000 feet, I loosened my seat belt, sprawled out, and slept nearly the entire 5-hour trip to Phoenix. Flying into Phoenix was amazing. It was late afternoon and there were scattered rain showers. Because the sun was low in the sky, the light on the clouds was stunning and when we landed, there was a big ol' rainbow to greet us. I left Phoenix after the sun set and we flew around several thunderstorms. I've never been above or beside a lightning strike before, and it was really cool to see the clouds light up from above. The woman beside me was freaked out that the plane might be struck, so I in turns consoled her, ignored her, and then fell asleep.

Today I woke up rather early and unpacked all my stuff. Then I did a ton of laundry. Then I went to Winco and spent $50 on groceries, which seemed like a lot considering the cost of groceries in Kosovo is far less (at least for staples). And then I made a blueberry-peach pie (with a marzipan topping and graham cracker crust), baked some beets, and later I'll grill up a steak. Nothing special, but a nice way to spend my first day back.