Returning (from the last minute trip) realizations

I've just come back from 2 weeks in the States without b. It is weird to feel like you have become a little French and even weirder when other people don't realize you may look like an orange and smell like an orange (or slightly better than an orange since the Borg has assimilated you into wearing perfume), but you have actually turned a little grapefruity on the inside. (because, of course, you live in Grapefruit land). And when people expect an orange, they are quite surprised and confused that you are not. These are some of my realizations during and coming home from my trip.

• I don’t need 5 feet of personal space, and so I don't need an apology when someone turns their shopping cart and *almost* gets within 4 feet of me.
  

• Is it possible your siblings can actually cause you to regress and act like a 12-year-old by engaging you in the same fights you had when you were 12? Yes, in fact, they can.
  

• I need a medium sized cup. Not the Sunday-Brunch juice glass that the French consider to be a normal water glass, nor the “small” cup at Taco Bell.
  

<-- Too big

Something just right.

• I still LOVE clean toilets I can sit down on without worrying about sitting in someone’s pee.

• I really hate children on planes.

• The same siblings that reduce you to a 12 year old are also the people that know you so well as to pick out the one gift you would willingly throw some clothes away to fit in your luggage and carry home on a 2 hour car ride, 1.5 hour train ride, 45 minute metro, 8 hour flight, 45 minute city train and 35 minute bus ride to get home. In other words, the perfect gift.

• Watch out Cashiers at Target and gas station attendants, I am emotionally slutty. I will find a way to work my daily drama into our 2 minute interaction. And still have time to ask how your day is going.

• The key to French food is sauce. And mold. And a little dirt.
  

• I speak Franglais. Not only does speaking French (which I am quite good at) mess with my identity, but now it has succeeded in making me sound like an idiot in my own language.

Ex: We made a tour in the south of Spain.
Translated into American: We made a loop around the south of Spain.

Ex: We arrived to …
What I really meant: We were able to …

• Wisconsin has bird-sized mosquitos that can give a 2 year old something that looks like a black-eye.

• Americans outside of big cities don’t really know how to dress. I realized how far I have come since arriving in Europe. (see that – another understandable, but not American, bastardized phrase). I actually know the colors that look good on me and don’t buy anything else. Do you know what the style is now? Super bold bright colors. Do you know who looks good in that? Dark skinned people and creamy white skinned people with dark hair, and on occasion light blonds. Are you in that category? Me neither. I am pretty sure that designers sit around a table daring to see who can make people look the most ridiculous. Do you remember the hunting orange of 6 years ago?