Home again

Hey everyone,
So, as several people have pointed out to me, I've been in the US for almost a month now, and haven't really mentioned it on here; therefore I'm remedying that lapse now.
I flew back to the US May 29, arriving in Minneapolis via Munich and DC. I started out at 10:45 Sunday night (May 28), waiting for the local bus from ODTU to the bus station with Desi and Jeroen (Desi and I had the same flight to Munich). And we waited. And waited. By about 11:45, we figured there was absolutely no chance of a bus coming, so we grabbed taxis. I got to the bus station pretty uneventfully, and immediately had to go withdraw more lira from an ATM, because I hadn't planned on spending on cab fare. When I got back to the Havas bus gate, where the airport bus left from, I found Jeroen, but not Desi: she was cab-hunting, in a successful bid to find her purse, which had been left in her cab, complete with passport. Thankfully, that crisis was averted thanks to some frantic Turkish cabbie radioing, and we boarded the Havas bus at 1, give or take a bit.
I figured we'd get to the airport by 2, and have a catnap before our flight at 6 AM. Of course, I figured wrong: because it was the middle of the night, the bus went to the Havas company offices, and we got to hang out there until 3:15, when we boarded another bus to the airport, where we got to wait around again. As it got closer to 5, more passengers for our flight arrived (the only flight in that terminal that morning), including the Norwegian and Portuguese national volleyball teams, which was...interesting. Wow, are Norwegians tall. And blond. Anyways, Customs finally opened, so I officially exited the country and headed to the departure lounge, where I waited around again before getting on another bus, which took us to the plane. The flight was pretty nice; Lufthansa has the best airline food I've had, and they make a mean breakfast. We got to Munich, and I freshened up before buying a mochaccino at an airport cafe, which was an interesting experience, given my nonexistent German language ability and lack of Euros (it ended up costing $10. What's with that???). Nonetheless, having a real coffee drink again was heavenly, and it killed some time before I headed to the to-the-US departure lounge to go through some security questions before boarding the flight to DC (Security Woman: "Did you purchase anything while in the airport?" Me: "ummm...a mochaccino." SW: "...ok, that's not a contraband item, you can board"). That flight was pretty boring, except that they served ham sandwiches, with mustard, which I was pretty excited about since I hadn't seen ham or mustard since before arriving in Turkey (...and I'm easily amused). I got to DC okay, and through Customs pretty easily, except for the part when I almost took someone else's bag through. My flight to Minneapolis was overfull, and I almost volunteered to be bumped (what's another couple hours?) until I found out the next flight on that airline to Minneapolis was over 24 hours later. Anyway, by 7:15 Monday night (or...1:15 Tuesday morning, Turkey-time), I was at baggage claim in the Minneapolis airport, and by 8:30 I was back at home, just about dead on my feet. Since then, I've been working like a fiend, at the same place I worked at last summer. In between working and more working, my sister graduated high school and I turned 20, so my summer's been buzzing but not too busy.
I'm off to get some sleep, so I'll have to update more of this later; I'll post more about my last few trips and my last few weeks in Turkey on here, and hopefully work out a more sophisticated photo organization system.
Til then,
thanks for reading,
-R