We’re in the USA!  On June 17 Joe and I flew to Chicago for the start of our whirlwind tour.  In four days, we managed to see almost everyone we love in Chicago.  My graduation ceremony at Northwestern was Friday morning, and despite 4 inches of rain in the city that day, we had a good celebration.  Sunday afternoon we drove up to Madison, Wisconsin for dinner with Bill and Kathleen and our remarkable and brilliant god-daughter Lizzie.  We stayed with the Owens family for the night and sent my parents to The Speckled Hen Inn as a celebration of their 40th wedding anniversary which was earlier this month.  They thoroughly enjoyed their stay and highly recommend it.  Monday we headed the rest of the way up to Grand Rapids, with a stop in Osseo for Norske Nook pie.  We’ve been enjoying the time up north to relax, and even got into the lake yesterday afternoon.  Tonight is my ten year high school reunion.  Tomorrow we head down to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for a couple more days with friends before flying back on Tuesday.

After nine months in a foreign land, it’s a little strange to be back in the places I used to call home.  For one thing, the roads are all so wide!  Also, the difference in daylight hours is a reminder just how far north we really are in Germany.  Our house in Menden, Germany, is at 50.7 degrees north latitude.  Chicago sits at 41.9 degrees north, or more than 600 miles further south.  Even Grand Rapids, which is about as far noth as you can get in the continental US, is only 47.2 degrees north, or almost 250 miles further south (gee, I hope I did that math right).  And it makes a huge difference in the amount of daylight.  On the longest day of the year, the sun set in Chicago at 8:29 pm, in Grand Rapids at 9:14 pm and in Menden at 9:49 pm.  Twilight in Menden also lasts longer.  We don’t have curtains on the windows in our bedroom in Germany, and it’s been driving us a little bit crazy.  Every night, I have to point out to Joe that sunshine does not mean it’s too early to go to bed.

As I type this, I’m sitting in my parents’ living room looking at the lake and listening to the loons.  Germany seems like a half-forgotten dream.  Can I have another week of vacation?