Repatriation: Our First Week Back in the USA.

This week is going to be a whirlwind.  We left Germany last Saturday around noon in one time zone and arrived in the USA in the afternoon of another.  We made the long, slow trek though the airport customs line with our bird, Koopa, who passed his USDA inspection with flying colors.

 

   

Since we had to fly to an airport near Washington DC instead of the one closest to our home in Charlotte (because it was the only direct flight into a US port for bringing birds into the country) we decided to just drive home afterwards instead of taking another flight the next day.  Fortunately, Mr. Meena’s parents were gracious enough to drive up from SC, pick us up at the airport, and then take us home.  We were far too exhausted to be driving.

Our first stop after leaving the airport was Chik-fil-a (of course!) before heading to a hotel for the night.  We made it home around 2pm the next day.  We were reunited with Mr. Meena’s car and many of our favorite foods by the time we made it to our company provided apartment.

 

  

 

While it’s great to finally be back in the USA for the first time in 13 months, we’ve got lots of things to take care of before we can really relax and enjoy ourselves.  Here are our priorities for our first week home:

 

Get a US cell phone plan.

Check!  I was concerned about the cost of this, because before we left we were paying an average monthly cost of $147 for a two person phone plan and we paid only $33 per month in Germany.  I wanted better service than what we had in Germany but without paying way too much like before (and without being charged per minute for calls – Germany really needs to move forward in this regard).  I’m happy to report that we have a pretty good phone plan for only $75 a month.  I’m glad that we learned to make smarter decisions in this regard thanks to our time abroad.

 

Register my car and make it safe to drive.

We turned in my NC license plate before we left and set my car up for long term storage at my sister-in-law’s place.  It was an easy and cheap option for us when we left, but had the potential to make getting my car up and running again a tedious process.  Mr. Meena (in typical superhero fashion) managed to get all of the legal stuff (a new registration, license plate, and title) taken care of yesterday, but today we’re dealing with the physical side of things.  We’ll be having it looked over by a mechanic today and hoping that he gives us the okay to drive it home without too many costly replacements.

 

Find somewhere to live.

The company is providing us with a furnished apartment for at least the first 30 days after our return, but we need to find another place by November.  Of course we already have some ideas but we’ll have to do some tours, get approved, and sign a lease.  Mr. Meena only gets two days off of work for our move home, which makes me think I’ll be touring some places solo.  I’ve got my hopes on finding a nice little rental house while we build our own custom home, but anything could happen at this point.

(Update: That didn’t happen, and I felt very differently after being home for 100 days.)

 

See family.

As soon as those all of the previous things checked off we’ll start making the rounds and handing out some of the lovely German Schokolade we brought home to share with everyone.

 

 

Other things I’ll be doing this week (or very soon):

• Eating Chik-fil-a for lunch every day. I’m not kidding.
• Going for a deluxe mani-pedi. I avoided doing this in Germany for a few reasons, one of which is the notorious customer service standards.  My feet need some TLC.
• Getting a haircut. I’m way overdue and there are only about two people in the world that I trust to deal with my thin, curly hair.
• Go to the dentist. Despite the fact that we could have done this for free in Germany (and received more than a dozen email reminders from our dentist at home about being overdue for a cleaning) we just never got around to it.  Fingers crossed for no cavities!
• Go for an eye exam and order more contacts. Meena and I are both running dangerously low.
• Visit my favorite grocery store (Harris Teeter) multiple times at any hour of the day and possibly cry because I’m so happy.
• Visit our wonderful family physician for checkups.
• Start shopping for a new laptop (maybe). Mine has been going downhill for a while but over the past two weeks the charger cable has been barely functioning.  I’m glad that I didn’t have to worry about importing or shipping a US laptop over because I’ve heard that customs can sometimes be picky about things like that.
• Savor waking up early (thanks jet lag) and going to bed at a decent time – because that will never last.

We could have done nearly all of the things on the above list while we were in Germany but we were able to skate by without them since we were only living abroad for one year.  There are so many things, like finding a dentist and optometrist, which would have made sense to figure out if we were staying for longer.  I am glad, however, that we didn’t have to – because plenty of things were already hard enough to figure out.

In fact, that is what I am looking forward to the most about finally being home: knowing how to do things.  I know which brand of laundry detergent I prefer, I know where to find that special ingredient I need, and I know what behavior is generally expected of me by other people.  I know how to communicate with people (in English!), who to ask for help when I have a problem, and which social faux pas to avoid.  It can be very exhausting to consistently struggle to figure out the normal, everyday things of life.

Truly, it is so good to be home and in our element again.  It might take a few days or weeks before we really start to miss Germany.  I’m so looking forward to our busy, expensive, and awesome first week back home!

 

Featured photo and above photo by Rebekah Jackson Photography.