"We could go there."

I can't even begin to explain how I am feeling lately. I will only have been home for 2 weeks this Wednesday, but it feels like ages. I honestly feel like I was in London months ago. In another life. Or something.

I was talking to my good friend Colin on the phone today, and I was telling him that everything about my particular experience this summer was strange.
I never really felt like I was on the other side of the world because of how many friends I have over there. Sure I was in a new country where the food and the signs and the accents were different, but I had people to hang out with every day and friends that I already knew, so I kind of felt at home already.
And then cut to Seattle, to home, where a lot of times people come back from being gone for a long time and have trouble re-inserting themselves into their routines because life did, in fact, go on without them for the whole time they were gone.

But I didn't experience that either. My best friend (Eia) was gone too, for the same amount of time, so everything about our dynamic was just put on pause. I'm not very close to anyone else in Seattle aside from my housemates, and whatever they did in their spare time when I was gone doesn't really affect how we all interact in our living room, so life literally picked up exactly where it left off back in July. In fact we're all already closer after this last week in a half, oddly.

The only other people I am really close to here are Liz and Kayley and I only see them every so often anyway, so nothing's changed there either.

Basically, what I am trying to say, is that I experienced literally NO reverse culture shock like everyone warned me I would. Life here is absolutely the same, except that I now have a much more expensive taste for clothes, and I am incredibly more willing to go hang out with people and do things than I was before, because I am not being pathetic and video-chatting/waiting for emails up in my bedroom.

Anyway, I think these are all good things. Because life here is back to normal (better than normal, honestly), and I am, for the most part, doing really well and looking forward to the next year of my life here at UW and in Seattle.

Yesterday morning I was talking to my friend Josh and we decided we wanted doughnuts. I said the best doughnuts were at VooDoo Doughnuts - in Portland.
He was like, "We could go there."
It's three hours away.
I have free gas in my Fiesta for another month.
It didn't take much convincing.
We literally drove to and from Portland in one day just for doughnuts. After we got the doughnuts we were just kind of walking around the city and I asked, "so now what do we do?"
We didn't really account for the fact that we would still be in Portland at that point, since our plan only went as far as "get doughnuts".

Then when I got home, rather late, Eia and PJ watched the Wedding Crashers while I slept on a footstool. I really didn't mean to sleep on the footstool, but it just happened that way. Sometime around 11 Eia kicked me and said "go to bed!" and I nodded and obliged.

Tonight I went with Justin to Urban Outfitters to help him pick out a new jacket under the condition that I not buy anything. I bought a skirt. Sigh. It's a really nice skirt.

Tomorrow is my first day back to work! It's going to be incredibly weird. I hope I remember how to use the computer system. xD (It also just hit me earlier today that I have been at my job for FOUR YEARS. How many 21 year olds can say they've worked at the same place for that long?)