Wedding Crashers – Part 1

We finally made it back to the homeland after having been out here for over a year. We were both really looking forward to being back and seeing friends and family…especially baby R. I can’t speak for Paul, but I don’t think that I fully comprehended how much my soul needed go back home for some refreshing until we landed in Chicago. I can’t really explain the feeling I had when our plane touched the ground. It was just like this tension, that I didn’t even really know I had inside me, just released. I am sure the tension was accumulated from a lot of different things over the past year, but I think one of the main things is just from living in a completely different culture where you are never completely at ease due to the uncertainty of what could happen at seemingly the whim of any local, police officer, court judge, etc. When we’re in the US, we know the rules. We know what the likely consequences are of our decisions. But over here, it is always a bit uncertain—if something happens (or even doesn’t happen) with a local and it’s likely going to be your word against theirs…and I think we all know how well that would end up for us expats. In the US, as an educated woman I feel like I could probably rely on finding someone (although maybe not the first person/group) that could use some amount of reason to explain why something wasn’t my fault. Here I don’t have that same comfort. It has recently made me wonder if minorities in the US feel similar to how I feel over here—I’m not naive enough to think that all of the US laws/court system treat everyone equally. I think these thought were spurred on by the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett which my mom lent to me and I just finished last night (it’s a story about African-American maids in Mississippi…I’d recommend it). Anyways, I could write a whole post on the non-tangible things that make living here difficult.

The Disaster Zone--aka our bedroom while we were getting packed

Day 1

We left the first day of Eid Al Fitr which marks the end of Ramadan. We took the Etihad flight that flew us direct to Chicago. It’s a 15 hour flight which is long, but doable as long as you are mentally prepared for it. We lucked out in that we were sitting on the side with 3 seats and the person next to us never showed up so we had a bit more wiggle room. On most international flights I feel torn between wanting to sleep and trying to figure out which movie to watch. That’s not an issue when you’re flying for 15hrs. I think I slept for about 8, watched 3 movies, ate 3 meals, played cards with Paul, did some crosswords, and read my book. One thing that I like about the Etihad flights is that they always serve good food (if you like arabic/indian-type food).

Our Etihad plane

From O’Hare we took a local airline which flew us directly into Burlington, IA just 20 mins from Paul’s family. I have never been on a plane so small. It was a prop plane that only held 8 people—there were only 4 other people on the flight. It was almost like we had chartered our very own flight—AND it was cheaper than having to wait in O’Hare an extra 3 hours to take a plane to Des Moines where we would’ve been a lot farther from their home. We never got above the clouds on the whole flight—it was so pretty to look down and see all of the lush, green farms. I tried to stay awake to enjoy it but I couldn’t keep my eyes open long. Seeing all those fields reminded me of how lucky we are to be in the US where we can actually produce a variety of food to eat—you can’t say the same for the UAE.


We were met at the airport by Paul’s family, Paul's sister Brook made a big "welcome back" sign, and we got to see and hold baby R for the first time! After lots of hugs we headed back to their home for some dinner and headed to bed. Both of us seemed to do ok and not have too much jet lag from the flight out.

Seeing and holding Baby R for the First Time!

Day 2

The next day we got up and had breakfast over at Grandma M and Grandpa D’s where they served us five star eggs with avocado :)  Then we went up to Iowa City to meet up with L to see her new place, get manicures, and have lunch.  I wish I had taken pictures of it, but L had taken some old shutters and painted them black and is using them has her headboard—it was so cute!  Then we came back to the farm where we helped load up some of the wedding decorations in preparation to head out the next day.  We ended the day with Chicken Lips at Martini’s with all of the family.

The farm

Even when he's back home around family he hasn't seen in over a year, he still finds time to swing that club...