Fun and Games

Last week was fantastic. Even though I had eight hours of classes each day, I was blessed with a course that has only lab reports and an individual assignment as opposed to a group presentation. That meant that drinks for Giorgia's birthday last Tuesday was followed by beer at De Ruif on Wednesday night, aquadiente in front of IHE on Thursday, and Stefania's birthday on Friday (I have posted the April photos, along with March and Italy, finally, these are not as well captioned as I would have liked, but I've been taking lots of pictures). Then a day in Amsterdam on Saturday. Last Sunday was our final formal futbol match of the season. The first years lost to the graduating students 3-2 in the last minute, but the match was followed by a nice picnic at the lake. I hope that I don't give the impression of being a lush, but since spring is here it has been easy to relax.

In two days I go to Chicago. I'm really looking forward to seeing my family and friends, but at the same time, I'm a bit nervous about going back to the US after spending the past six months living in Europe with the international crowd. The last time I left the states for a significant period of time (10 months) my sister picked me up from the airport. When I asked her what had changed while I was away here first response was, "Everything is now low-carb, even the beer." I shudder at the thought of another epiphany like that. I'm afraid that I will find everything in the States to be too big, too loud, too fast, too ostentatious. I mean, Mom and Dad live two blocks from the corner store and we would occasionally drive there. But I'm sure after 24 hours it will be business as usual.