After nearly four years of the Hamburg life, I am now back in the U.S.A., specifically California, not too far from where I used to live. The last few days in Hamburg were spent painting, shampooing, and cleaning our apartment. We passed the inspection, after which the chief inspector used my nice CLEAN sink as an ashtray while his apprentice inspector filled out the forms. The trip to San Francisco went relatively smoothly, except for one cancelled flight and one ear that took a while to unclog. Maxwell (our cat) survived her ordeal without too much trauma, just one little squeak during a bad patch of turbulence (I squeaked twice and left a left handprint on Dave's thigh). The hotel housekeepers, however, might need some psychotherapy.

After a day of recovery, we started the search for an apartment. A gazillion phone calls, many visits, and two days later, I am happy to report that we found a place to live. It's a one bedroom, second floor (up one flight of stairs -- that's second floor in the U.S.A., right? I finally learned how to count European floors and now I'm confused), balcony, and 800 sq. feet, almost palatial compared to our apartment in Hamburg.

It's really strange to be back here. There's been a lot of changes in four years. I was surprised. I guess I was expecting to find everything the way I left it. There's lots of new construction, buildings I've never seen, and some buildings are gone. It's as if things have been moved 3 cm. to the left. The important stuff -- a huge bookstore and our favorite cheap Chinese restaurant are still where they used to be; there are many new flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream; Dave and I were complimented on our English language proficiency; I was very happy when some lady at the motor vehicle registration gave me a form (at last, something that was familiar!) and I was so overwhelmed at the Walmart (which wasn't there four years ago) that I nearly broke down. I can't imagine what kind of shock I would be going through if I had not gone to Boston in December. I've been eating bagels every day (gotta make up for lost time) and Dave got his pizza and sub sandwich. And we had our Chinese food and potstickers. Next on the list is Mexican food (our apartment is down the street and around the corner from a Mexican restaurant which I expect will be getting a lot of our business until my pots and pans come to shore).

Moving is never easy, and this move back to the states seems harder than moving to Hamburg. I really miss Hamburg. I miss the fresh bread, quiet hours, the Hier Offnen marker on the boxes, and my friends (not necessarily in this order). I say "at the moment" only because this place is really strange and I haven't figured out where I fit in. Even though I was warned about culture shock, I really wasn't expecting to be affected. After all, not only was I moving back to the homeland, I ended up living only a few streets over from where I used to live. I should have been able to pick up where I left off. As time goes by, this town will begin to feel like an old shoe, much like Hamburg did after time.

Postscript: While the selection of dust rags is not as awe-inspiring as what you can find in Hamburg, I did manage to find quite a nice one that makes the furniture smell lemony. And I finally got to hear what Captain Janeway from the TV show Star Trek: Voyager really sounds like -- nails on chalkboard. Her German voice is much more captain-like.