Back in the 'burgh

I arrived back in Pittsburgh around 6pm last night.

The trip itself was okay. I got jipped on the "taxi" ride to the airport, but no biggie.

-The flight from Prague to Frankfurt was spent trying to get the zipper of my Pitt hoodie unstuck.
-The layover in Frankfurt was spent eating a 2-euro "bretzel" and talking to two older Egyptian guys who picked me out and said, "You're Arab, right?" (in Arabic). I replied that I was, and they said, "Palestinian?" I really like when that happens. :) They gave me their business cards and told me they would love to mail me books on Islam. Their hearts were in the right places.
-The flight from Frankfurt to DC, I was seated next to an Israeli who managed to unstick my zipper for me. It almost changed my opinion of Israeli people, but then he started talking about how "life in Israel is sooo hard" and how he is dating a hot blonde european girl who's my age (dude was like 50), and how living in DC is expensive but he doesn't care, and that once his son graduates from high school he'll go live in the south of Spain and paint. Then I think of how the Palestinians suffer and even with my working zipper, I can't help but feel resentment.
-The layover in DC was spend racing through customs, pushing ahead of everyone, and racing to my gate. I barely made it.
-The flight from DC to Pittsburgh was spent chatting to the guy next to me who lives in Peters Township. He kindly caught me up on all the Pittsburgh news. He asked me all about Prague and told me about his life between Pittsburgh and DC. The rest of the plane was chatting, too - I heard strangers in front of me and in back just talking about nothing. The guy also shared his newspaper with me. Hear that, Prague? That's how it should be. :)

When I got back to Pittsburgh I raced to get to my mom, hugged her about a million times, got my luggage and went to the car. While in the car, I checked my voicemail to find out that Tracy's (one of my best childhood friends that I haven't spoken to in years) mom passed away from cancer on Wednesday, and that the last viewing at the funeral home was going on at that moment (from 6-8 - by this time it was about 6:45pm). I went straight there, was the only person in jeans, but at least I went. My heart really goes out to their family. Tracy and I practically lived at each others' houses when we were kids, up through about mid-high school when we became very different from each other. Looking at her face brought back a lot of memories, and even though we're still really different, my heart just hurt for her. I couldn't imagine losing my mother at this age, even though I know a lot of people do. My prayers are with Tracy and her family.

After that we picked up pizza (AMERICAN pizza:) at my favorite place in Ambridge (Frank's), chatted to the Aloe family, and went home. Gave mom her presents, ate my pizza with lots of hot sauce, watched American TV, and drank a glass of iced tea with ice in it. MAN did that feel good.

After a while Tara came down to visit, and it was like I never left. We watched America's Funniest Home Videos and rewound all the funny ones 20x and laughed our heads off. After about an hour I was falling asleep (it was about 10:30pm but my body felt like it was 4:30am due to the time change). Tara left, and I went to sleep, and woke up at 6am today wide awake. So I got up and read for a while, lazed, had American breakfast, did laundry, and now I'm going to go get a haircut.

And now you are caught up on Pittsburgh life.

I have to enjoy it a lot in the next couple of months...