Double-sided Euro coin

I’m finally starting to experience Europe withdrawal.

It’s been five days of non-stop partying with my Minneapolis friends: loud concerts, late-night parties, meandering car rides, shopping all day, dining out too much, reuniting with everyone I’ve ever known, liked and missed. I haven’t had a spare moment to sit down and really realize what’s happening and to be honest, I haven’t really wanted to.

But then this evening as I lazed around in my pajamas and flipped on my iTunes in an attempt to stifle the silence that filled the house, I got an email from Philipp just as one of the songs that I’d listened to on so many cross-country train rides came on and suddenly my throat tightened up and my eyes crinkled and I started doing that weird thing where you’re laughing and crying all at the same time.

I miss my friends. I miss that feeling that I used to get on the way to visit Junior or Philipp. I miss the flutters deep down in the pit of my stomach as the train rumbled underneath my feet and Europe whirled by outside the window. Excitement, exhilaration, elation. I don’t know how to recreate that here.

I read his email over and over again and I want to go back. What am I doing here? Why am I here?

Junior called from Madrid yesterday. It was really nice to hear his voice. My Spanish has already gotten rusty. I keep going back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I should visit him in Brazil this winter. My friends don’t trust him and think that he’s going to lock me in a box covered in cryptic Portuguese words and sell me to the Sao Paolo mafia. I think that the worst that’ll happen is he’ll try to marry me. Either way, I’ve got a little bit of time left to decide and if there’s one thing I learned in Europe, it’s that time will answer every question. Not sure why or how I learned that, but I did.

This afternoon I spent a half an hour showing my 92-year-old grandma how to use the Internet. We refreshed Google News over and over and she was amazed at how quickly the stories updated. She pointed out a headline that read: Earth's Eye in the Sky Goes Out and said, “What does that mean?” so I clicked on it and a new page opened up, taking us to the full story. She looked at me and laughed, “I asked and it gave me an answer!” I showed her my Flickr photos and she asked me to explain how I get the photos from my camera onto the computer. I showed her the cord and the camera and where I put each plug. She recognized the picture of my friend Sarah and laughed at the picture of Jennifer choking on spicy food. Then I took her to a celebrity blog and showed her some pictures of movie stars and she said, “What’s the benefit of looking at this?” I paused for a second and said, “Well, I suppose for entertainment.”

I have no reason for writing that last paragraph other than wanting to remember it. But memory preservation seems to be all I’ve really done these past three months anyway, so why not write about Grandma.

It’s been an emotional day.