Los Estados Unidos

So now that I’ve been back for about three weeks and gotten back into the thick of things back in Honduras I feel like I should probably talk about my time back home. For a little over a week I rushed around, didn’t get any rest, and was freezing cold…and it was great. There are a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers that don’t go home at all during their 27 month commitment, and then there is Peace Corps Honduras. Because we are so close to the US it isn’t uncommon at all for volunteers to head home for a family funeral, Thanksgiving or Christmas, if you live in Texas or Florida you can be home in 4 hours and $250, Seattle is the furthest contiguous US big city from Honduras. From leaving my house in San Marcos, the bus and taxi trip to the airport, a layover in Houston and touchdown in Seattle it took me about 14 hours to get home, not too shabby. The only problem was that it was 35 and raining when I got into Seattle, a little shock to my system. The main reason for my trip home was Rylan and Mali’s wedding, and for the first 4 days that was about all I did. I got in on Wednesday night, had a family dinner and quickly slept off my jetlag, Thursday was full or errands and then a rehearsal dinner. Friday was more things I had to get done in Seattle before a evening/sleepover with all the groomsmen, which was a lot of fun because most of my best friends also happened to be in the wedding party. Saturday morning rolled around which meant wedding pictures at UW and then getting ready for the wedding and reception. It was a really fun wedding, lots of friends that I hadn’t seen in 9 months and sweet Spearys(boat shoes) that the groomsmen got to wear. It was tough trying to balance my time between my really good friends that I wanted to spend lots of time with and talking to my other friends that I wanted to see and catch up with, talking about my work in the Peace Corps got a little tiresome at times, but it’s all good. Sunday was all family all the time with people showing up at the house at 10:30 and not saying goodbye to my last cousin till about 9:30 at night, but it was great to get to see everyone and get some quality conversations in. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were a blur of errands, friends and family, lots of great food that I hadn’t gotten to eat in too long everywhere too. By the time Thursday came around I was shocked that I had to pack up all my suitcases again and get ready to head back to Honduras, but I had one more activity planned. Knowing that the best flight for me to take to get into San Pedro Sula at a decent hour would be leaving at midnight I realized that I would get to indulge in one event that I had been dearly missing, UW football. UW happened to be playing a night game against UCLA at UW starting at 5. I got to go to the game, all bundled up of course, watch the dawgs manhandle the bruins and spend a little more time with my dad before heading to the airport and heading south. It really was a perfect way to end my whirlwind visit home. Although I dindn’t get to eat all the food I wanted, spend the holidays, or see everyone that I wanted it was still a great break from my work down here, a chance to get recharged for the work that is lined up. Thanks to everyone that made an effort to see me, I’ll be back for a bit in July if everything goes according to plans!