Safe and sound in the land of cheese

After a very LONG day of travel, I arrived in Wisconsin last night right on time at about 6:00 pm local time. I was greeted at the airport by my sister, Kris, and my niece, Natalie, who apparently was so excited to see me that she told me "I just want to scream!". My first Wisconsin meal was an American dream... a good 'ol cheeseburger from Copps, the famous Milwaukee frozen custard and burger joint. Yum. As much as I love living in Basel and am very happy with our life there, it's always good to be "home". There are so many things I miss-- I guess just the familiarity of everything, and the ability to be able to talk to anyone and everyone in my native English language without having to think through what I'm going to say first as I have to do in German. It's kind of weird being here during a regular work and school week. It's only 8:30 AM but everyone (Kris, Tom, and the 3 kids) are already gone for the day. In the past, I've generally been here in the summer or just on weekends. I plan to head out to the mall today. Walking into an American shopping mall after living overseas for a while is one of those things that always leaves me in complete awe. It's so unlike anything we have in Basel and it will be fun!

Two other quick tidbits. First, I can confirm that the tights I described a couple days ago truly are the tights from hell! It didn't take long before I wanted to rip my legs off (or at least the tights), but somehow I managed to keep them on for the whole 18 hours yesterday! Second, for all you lovers of Wisconsin cheese, I think you'll be happy to hear that I had some cheese curds for breakfast today. They were delicious!