Home (?) Again....

Home is weird. Since we moved overseas over a year ago, but have yet to become residents of another country, I often get confused about where 'home' is. We just spent over three weeks in the States, from a tour-de-midwest celebrating my brother's wedding, to playtime in the Rockies, to playing the role of visitor in office environments we used to call home, learning that the 1-800-ohshitsubaru number really works and they will come up to unpaved roads in Leadville to unlock your car (I didn't do this, but have locked the keys in our work car in Bolivia), to blow-up beds and sevearl meals that I would select as my last meal on earth at Bridget and Blucas's new Denver digs. This was the longest we have been there since we left, and I was amazed at how much I missed some things. Good, good friends with whom you don't have to talk about work all the time, more than three cerveza options, and lots of outdoor fun.

I am happily typing from a new computer (thanks, Jess) and figuring out how to train for a 100 mile run living in the second largest desert city in the world (Cairo is the first)-thanks, Greg.

But whenever I come and go to either Peru or the United States, I have to switch where I consider home. Officially, I use my office address as my home, but when I'm in the States, I tell people i live in Peru, becuase i do, right? Sad as I was to leave Denver, good friends and family, more frozen food choices than I ever remembered existing, this orange suede couch is what I call home these days. I ordered a salad in Miami and it came out, pre-packaged and pre-pared and wrapped in plastic. I'm sure it was made sevearl days ago and I found myself eager to get back to a place where we go shopping for food every day.

The headlines I saw on the paper somebody was reading as I waited for the migration officer to say adelante was "de mal a peor"-from bad to worse. Here, that could really mean anything-President Garcia's approval rating, the swine flu hysteria, El Nino, Lima traffic, the value of the dollar (although I bet only for us expatty types), or the next installation of some telenovela drama, which often seems to mirror reality pretty quickly. In good news, I am the recipient of a used iphone, so once I figure out how to use it, I'll have a camera phone with me at all times to finally be able to capture some of the things here that words just don't give the whole picture.

Several naps followed by lots of bad coffee on the pleasantly surprisignly clean American Airlines flights means that I'm up later than I've been all week. No food or drinks in the house means I'm contemplating a late night snack of the dark chocolate i brought back with me and finishing the flor de cana.....straight or with gatorade.

Once I get all these photos organized, visual representation of our USA adventures will be here, too....