Coming Home

I stayed at the Chocolate Box Backpackers hostel for five more days. I was so tired and burned out that I kept mostly to myself and stayed inside. The weather was still wet and dreary, so I wasn’t missing out on much outside. I read the web, watched some movies, and otherwise relaxed. On Friday, March 2, I flew from Taipei to Seoul, and then a couple hours later I flew to Seattle, Washington. I arrived nine hours later at 11:30 AM and Tess picked me up, having taken the rest of the day off. I spent the next week or so staying with Tess and her wonderful family in Seattle. It took me about that long to get over my jet lag. I would grow sleepy around 10 or 11 PM at night and wake up naturally around 8 AM, which is very abnormal for me. Tess and I were together when she wasn’t at work. On Sunday, March 11, I flew to Sacramento, California. My parents picked me up at the airport and we stopped at In-N-Out for dinner — as we tend to do — on the way home. As I mounted the front steps to our house in Grass Valley, I beheld a hand-written sign hung on it proclaiming, “Welcome home, Will!” I was home.