After-trip stuff

One interesting thing about traveling is... the smells. You wouldn't think they would differ so much from place to place, but they do. Each city I went to smelled different, as did the hotel rooms and souvenirs. But the time you really notice the smells is when you return home.

The car smelled like it always does, but I noticed how it smelled this time. My nose had gotten so used to its smell that I usually don't register the "half-new-car-half-my-house" smell. And when I got to my house, I was blasted with the same smell I smelled when I first stepped into the house for a tour with the realtor a few years ago. It smelled good, but I really noticed it again. Sometimes you have to leave home to realize what you take for granted. I loved Paris, especially, but I missed the nearby presence of a Starbucks, my dad, my dog, and my friends. And fluent English-speakers, but that was partly my problem because I don't speak French. Oh, and fast food. Let me tell you, if you go to a foreign country and have no access to a McDonalds or Burger King or Wendys for a few days, you miss it (if you are an American, anyway. Probably some similar food-missing thing for other countries exists, but I can't speak for those countries. Sorry.). Thankfully, we found (expensive!) McDonalds's in each city, where we discovered that the food tasted better than it did at home. French food is great, but sometimes you need a burger. Or McNuggets.

Anyway, a school friend who lived in Ethiopia for a few years is going to be taking some of my friends and me to an Ethiopian restaurant. I gotta get ready (and I don't know what else I'd write anyway. I just did some gardening and weed pulling? How interesting.) Bye.