fin

the ice was right on schedule and i got to the airport trouble free, was the first person in the air india line. and one of 10 or so people to fly from frankfurt to chicago on air india. very differnt than the other way! i ended up finding my gate 2 hours before the plane takes off. used up my last 3,26 on a phone call to meike's mailbox and some candy. eventually they opened the gate up for the 10 of us, then our plane pulled up and we were joined by the 690 indians. they all looked tired. i was glad i hadn't gone the whole way to bombay. the plane was late, then once we finally got to o'hare, it took me all night to get home- each of those 700 people had 3 suitcases, and if they come off the belt at about 1.5 seconds per suitcase, how long will i have to wait? i never did get the math right in my head, but it was over an hour. it was a wet drizzly german night. and the bus took a long time. but the elevator worked, and i was home by 9, and so my 20 hour journey finally ended. then we got a huge snowstorm (20-25 cm!) wendsday and thursday, so i was glad i wasn't pulling my suitcases home in that. now that i'm home, i'm trying to keep the germanness from wearing off too soon. i have this tiny, tiny little thermos my mom sent me (it holds .25 liters!) with smurfs on it, and i've been drinking tea in the morning and then taking the rest with me. it reminds me of ruth, of course. also have defrosted bread from my freezer and am eating it with the rest of my nußnugat creme. and a hard boiled egg for protein. i feel very german. i left my heat off once i got home, except in the bathroom. it reminds me of those little german wohnungs, and i can wear sweaters. i wore ruth's lovely sweater on tuesday, then the red skirt to show off to charles at work on wendsday (note- bad choice for a snowstorm) and then wore my new jacket thursday! i was surprised to find my charm from new years still in the pocket! it's so hard to believe it was only a week ago. it's like a dream to me- one of those wierd dreams where you wake up and you thought it was a dream but then how come there's silver polish chipping off your nails? very mysterious.