A Post-Trip Trip

I've been home for about three weeks now. It's funny, I thought adjusting would be absolutely horrible, but I've managed to get by without having any major break downs or panic attacks.
When people ask me how my trip was, I don't know what to say, really. How do I sum up 4 months away in a sentence or two, because, let's be honest, that's really all most people have time to hear. Regardless of those who don't wish to relive my four months in Kenya, I have been able to absorb my trip day by day. Gilbert asked me to write up a summary of my trip for him. I think that'd help me to get to terms with going so far away and coming back. It's not like I can just jump back into the life I had before. I don't even want that for myself. I intend to take what I learned from my trip and apply it to daily life.
As of three days ago I set off on a plane heading for Western Massachusetts, but get this, I had to stay the night in New York City due to transportation difficulties. Poor me, right? I managed to get into contact with Hailey, a friend of my brother. She was more than happy to house me for the night between getting off my plane and boarding my train. Before leaving home I was a bit anxious about getting lost in New York City or finding myself in trouble, but then I remembered that I had already done something very like this, and on the other side of the world. That revelation put my nerves at ease.
Hailey was a very gracious host. She had a gig in the Lower East side of Manhattan and I was able to squeeze in without too much trouble. In fact, it was no trouble at all. The style of music varied from acoustic to heavy metal. I surely wasn't expecting to like the combination of the two, but they complimented each other well.
I'm not sitting on the train due north to Amherst, Massachusetts. One thing I REALLY appreciate about New York, and most of New England, is the structure of the public transportation. I had no trouble at all getting from the LaGuardia Airport in Queens to Hailey's apartment in Brooklyn to Penn station in Manhattan. I rarely ever had to pull out my map and play the "ignorant tourist" card. I did though, once.  The prospect of being in NYC is an exciting one. There's something about just being amidst the energy and life that gets a person excited. On the subway coming home from the gig last night, a handful of people struck up conversation with us about the saxophone case Hailey was carrying. I've heard many bad things about East coasters being cold and distant to strangers, but this small encounter with a Russian musician and a cupcake-making piano player put idea of New Englanders in a different light.
Later this afternoon I'll arrive in Amherst to a little bed and breakfast. I sure wasn't expecting the humidity that I met when I got off the plane, so hopefully I'll have climatized once I have to start transporting myself, possibly by bike, to the campus of my future school.
Running on few hours of sleep, I'm looking forward to the cozy comforts of a small massachusetts town bed and breakfast tonight. We'll see how it goes.
More later!