I am having kind of a hard go of things in Walla Walla. The jet lag has hit hard and I feel like all I want to do is to sleep or eat at weird times. On top of all of this, I've been up since five o'clock this morning.

It's kind of lonely at 5am so I read a magazine, re-heated and drank yesterday's coffee because I didn't know where everything I needed was to make my own, I ate a bagel and waited for everyone else to get up.  I only had to wait an hour until my MoM got up and then I roped her into making a new pot of coffee. The good news is that now I know what I am doing and where everything is so that tomorrow morning I can make my own coffee.

Being back in Walla Walla is pretty great. I've gone on a morning walks with my parents, done a little shopping and plenty of relaxing.  But the transition hasn't been seamless.

I guess that the more time you spend away from home the harder it is to get back in the swing of things. Which is kind of strange because I feel like I know this place and everything I want to do should be second nature to me but as it turns out it isn't.<!--more-->

This morning I was opening some windows and the front door to get an early morning breeze moving through the house and I found myself totally surprised by the fact that our front door dead-bolt lock only turns once rather than the two turns of a key that most Bulgarian doors require.

In the early morning sunlight, I also had a sense of quiet for the first time in days. And I realized that I've been bombarded by English recently. I can hear everyone's conversations and I find myself listening to them. Which I guess is actually eavesdropping on them but it seems justified given the fact that I haven't been able to really eavesdrop on another conversation in months. Still, it's overwhelming to understand everything all at once from signs to the radio, to conversation in coffee shops and the like.  I've come to this conclusion: most of what people have to say is inane and rather silly.

Maybe the best moment recently was when my MoM and I snuck off recently have a doughnut. The bill for two doughnuts was $2.48.  I decided to pay for the treat and plunked down two $1 bills and a quarter.  I pushed it across to the sales girl and she told me the total again. I looked at her and smiled and push the money further towards her.  She looked at me, I looked at her and I was confused about why she wasn't giving me 2 pennies in change.

This is when my MoM stepped in. She apparently looked at the sales girl's face and knew that something was going on but couldn't tell what it was. So MoM looks at the money and says to me: Carolyn, the total is $2.48. I said: I know. She said: you don't have enough money out. I look down and realize that I've mistaken the quarter for a 50 cent piece.

I am embarrassed by this because in America we don't have a 50 cent piece. I laugh. My MoM tells the sales girl: she's been living in Bulgaria. I am not really sure the sales girl understands what this means but she's polite and takes my money once I have two quarters out.  I grab the doughnuts and napkins and head for the door thinking: <em>damn quarter! </em>

So I guess that's what happens when you spend a substantial amount of time living abroad (and you're still suffering from jet lag)--you do stupid things, things that seem utterly day to day, things that you'd never imagine were possible but apparently are.  Funny how that works.