India . . . over and out.

After one month and one day, I am back home in Yichang in my apartment. One of the best things about traveling is coming back home . . . even after a great trip.

Transportation Stats (as best I can estimate and calculate):

*Hours on planes = 25
*Airports visited = 4
*Airplane "meals" = 8
*Hours on a train = 83
*Train stations successfully navigated = 8
*Train "meals" (a first for me, they don't have that service in China) = 3, plus a soup snack . . . oh a and a "chicken lollipop" and lots of "Chai-ahChai-ahChai-ah!"
*Hours in a bus = 31 (most of them spent with less than half an inch of leg room and being bounced around violently)
*Hours in a boat = circa 7
*Hours in a Jeep = 30+
*Books read while traveling = 6 (4 finished, 2 more that I've started but not finished, one is almost 900 pages)

Another great thing abou traveling is coming home and looking through the pictures you took. Since my camera was, sadly, lost/stolen (both scenarios seem equally unimaginable), I'm going to have to get a collection of photos from Katie, Beth, and Brad. I missed taking my own pictures, but in a small way it was kind of refreshing. Instead of looking at all the new, beautiful, famous sites through a camera screen, I actually looked at them with my own eyes. Katie, Beth, and Brad were really good about making sure they got pictures of everything and once we've all recovered from the trip, I'm sure we'll put all the photos together.

I took a long (very long) hot shower and appreciated every second of it.

It will take Katie and me several days to get through all of our laundry.

It's cold in Yichang, but no visual remnants of the great snow storm remain. I'm not sad. I love and appreciate snow, but if there'd been snow left here, it would have been grimy and dirty by now.

I have absolutely zero plans for the next week. There are almost no students on campus. Businesses are still closed. I'm going to spend several blessed days at home reading, watching movies, emailing and blogging, studying Chinese. Eventually I'll get around to thinking about the new semester.