Our Home and Native Land

July 5-7

(Rob)

Home again, safe and sound! Ever thought about what means? Safe - that's simple: our plane didn't crash. Sound - meaning still of "sound mind." A little more complicated to judge, but I think we've done it.

My parents met us at the airport and we were all smiles and hugs. Jenn's foot is a little better, Anica's cold is better and despite the time difference, we couldn't wait to see our "new" home. We've been away for eleven months and one week, after living in the condo for just three months.

We even went to Swiss Chalet for dinner. Very Canadian, actually.

Then the moment of truth. Home. Everything looked better than I remembered: the lobby, the elevator, our front hall, the walls we had painted, our furniture. Our parents had the place spotlessly clean and had stocked the pantry, too. Lucky us!

There were things I'd forgotten. As I washed my hands, I stared down at the taps, thinking, it's like I've never seen these before - completely unfamiliar. And I have clothes...so many clothes! Not really, but more than I had in my backpack. So we're running around the apartment, trying to figure out where lights are turned on, what cupboards the dishes are in...it's what we've been doing every week on the road.

The calendar on the fridge was as we'd left it: July 2007. We looked at all the appointments scrawled in, leading up to the day we left. July 30th last year.

Anica enjoyed playing with her toys for most of the next day. She's got so many toys! I thought we'd pared down when we moved, but there's still so much. No more than her friends do, but so much more than she had with her on the trip. So much more than children in many of the other countries we've visited. We'll be giving more away. Anica's been very willing to make choices of what to give up. Partly she's just older and no longer interested in the same things.

The only thing I found sad was that Anica's forgotten almost all she learned about playing the piano. She took two years of lessons, but she's going to have to go back to the beginning now. She'll pick it up much faster this time, because she's learned it once before. Now she's enjoying sitting down at the piano, and picking out the songs from her beginning book, so that's a positive thing. But it's a little "Flowers for Algernon."

Since we talked endlessly about "when we come back home," we have some decisions to carry out that we're tackling immediately. Before inertia sets in. Like shedding even more of our possessions. There are things we didn't even remember we had after a year. Other things we didn't have with us and never missed.

Unfortunately, we can't live where we do, and work where I do, and not have a car. So we went out and leased a new car. The "green" angle here is that we used to have two cars!

The weirdest part might be not having a phone yet. They're coming tomorrow for that. Right now, it's like we're still travelling - our only way of getting in touch with people is by piggybacking a free wi-fi signal. There's still a feeling of "it hasn't sunk in yet."

July 5

(Anica)

"Home!"

Boy it feels weird to be home! One second wheir on a airplane being served ice cream and twix, next second meeting Nana and Grampa at Toronto Pearson airport having dinner at Swiss Chalet. Then home! I'm having a lot of fun whith especially thanks to Emily, Sarah and Sam who have been lots of fun (Emily as the big unicorn, Sarah another and Sam the chihuahua I play with). Well I'm a bit tired now, so G.N.