Back in the USA!

I never seem to have good luck with getting through immigration and customs quickly I can't count the number of times I've been almost the last person from my flight to get through the check in stuff. I was wondering if they were going to ask me anything at customs since they ask on the forms how much in terms of gifts are you bringing into the country and that was almost my entire bag. Basically I just had gifts and about five changes of cloths. But it wasn't a problem in the end and I eventually got out into the airport. I flew into Dulles which can be annoyingly difficult to get back into the city from as the taxis are expensive and the public transportation sucks. One of my neighbors offered to pick me up and met me at the airport. We walked out to her car and I put my bag in the trunk. Immediately upon closing the trunk she realized that she had just put her keys in there and we were now both stuck at the airport. In the end we took a cab back into DC where she got her keys and than took another cab back out to get her car. I came back while my sister and parents were still in South Africa so I had the whole house to myself. The cat made herself quite scares as I, like everything else in the world, scared her.

Even though I was exhausted from the long flight the first thing I did was to get into the car and drive over to Bethesda for some bagels. Bagels are maybe one of the most regional foods I've ever known. Not only can you not find them internationally at all, it's actually pretty hard to find them outside a few parts of the the North East. Even in DC most of the bagels are pretty bad that's why I drove over to Bethesda Bagel which I know is good. I'll talk more next time about things that I noticed coming back to the US but the first one was definitly the roads. Besides being less crowded and crazy that China it was remarkable how much wider they are and how much bigger the cars are. In China street parking is basically unheard of so even in the US a two lane street is bigger than most four lane ones in China since the lanes tend to be a little wider in the US. Also people just drive so much more defensibly in the US plus you have the lack of crazy bicycle and moto traffic which account for a big chunk of all the stuff on the roads in China. Whatever the case it was nice to be back in the US with a bagel in my hand.