However, I still wave my hand in front of my forehead to indicate that I think someone is insane, like this:

So I've been back in the U.S. for just over a week now, and I don't think my brain is any less confused than it was before I left Austria.

I was, in fact, correct. The reverse culture shock is a bitch. Several times a day, I find something that makes me pause in confusion: country radio stations, saying the "Our Father" in English, hearing somebody talk about soccer, constantly getting the z and y keys mixed up when I'm typing (not to mention endless searches for the umlauted letters). The grocery store threw me for a major loop the other day. It's so big. Is it really necessary to have an entire aisle (which, by the way, is a terrible word for ESL speakers to have to learn) of cereal? We could certainly get rid of Waffle Crisp, at the very least.

I want to speak German all the time. I want say "Grüß Gott" when I walk by somebody on the street. I think it's weird when people say "Hi" to me, especially if they're old. I expect a more formal "hello" or "good afternoon."

Actually, walking by somebody on the street hasn't been happening too much. I admit, I'm doing a lot of hiding. I don't want to talk to people and have to sum up my trip in a few neat sentences. I don't know what my favorite thing was, I don't know what I missed the most, and I don't know when I'm going back. In some ways, I want to hold the experience just for me. On the other hand, I can't stop talking about it when I'm hanging out at home. Fortunately, my family doesn't seem to mind too much that every other sentence out of my mouth starts with "In Austria...."

Getting reintegrated is a process of slow degrees, evidently. I'm mostly over the jet lag, and I can control the impulse to speak German. Now I'm working on getting used to the imperial system of measurement and more casual means of address. Maybe next week I'll be ready to hang out with friends who've known me longer than eight months.