I have some practice in repatriation, having done it on four different occasions. When you go "home" there are the big things that hit you hard, and there are the little things which you never thought you'd miss from your host country. I have lived in Germany and Austria and let me say life just isn't the same without Broetchen, good public transportation, making eye contact with and saying hello to strangers, non-splashing toilets, church bells ringing, and walking everywhere. But more on that later.

After high school I went to Germany as an exchange student. I was very homesick and called home every week. Little by little it got easier and I found a boyfriend and nice family to live with, but I still craved home. When I returned I began college in a small town in farmland Pennsylvania and was very disappointed with the closed-minded attitude of my peers, as well as their lack of interest in what was the best experience of my life up until that point. One boy I met unbelievably referred to me as a Nazi lover. It didn't take me long to ace my classes and transfer to another school, closer to New York.

The lack of challenging course material at my first college was chalked up to the questionable caliber of that school. True, the students at my new University were more culturally diverse, but there was still that general non-interest of the world as well as a whole slew of kids I met who could not put all the names of the fifty states of our country on a blank US map. Upon returning from my Junior Year Abroad program in Konstanz this was even more apparent. I was also struck by the comparatively poor hygiene, disrespect for others in the use of public space, and all-around lack of common sense, especially in regard to drinking alcohol, which I saw at the time.

My senior year passed uneventfully and I had a gnawing sense that US Universities were merely an extension of US high schools. I didn't have any desire to continue my studies, but was longing to travel back to that place where I had yearned so badly to come home! I was offered a position on a fellowship program to teach English in the former Eastern Block of Germany. I was thrown for a loop there; I couldn't have imagined how different it was from the Germany I knew. Of course I learned to respect and love that area, and when I returned to the States I truly pined for my group of friends I had made there. From that point on I could see a huge difference in the way I interacted with my old friends and my new ones. You see, there is an even a stronger loyalty between Eastern German friends than between Western Germans. Needless to say, I became cautious of superficial friendships and held more tightly to those long-time relationships which I knew to be true.

(I have to mention here that after that year I married a " Wessie" who had been the university flat mate of the boyfriend I had met during my first exchange year. Another story, for another time...)

Eventually my husband and I moved to Leoben, Austria, where we lived for two and a half years. Our children were born in 1999, a year before we moved back to the US. Since I had been a student each time I lived in Germany, there was a new set of experiences to be made as a mother and housewife in Austria. Some of the "big things" I have a hard time wrapping my brain around now that I'm back in the US are: health care costs, lack of recycling, obesity as a national disease, school shootings, and crimes against children.

On a lighter note, I have been known to mention that in my Austrianization I have developed guilt in my every day life : A)when the grocery store clerks pack my purchases; B) for not knowing anything about my car engine or how many meters it will take me to stop on a line if Im going 50kph; C)for being out until 11PM shopping for nothing in particular; D)when Im asked by my Austrian friends what I think about the US Government (I take the dont know dont tell approach); E)for the lack of exercise I get and my bicycle feeling neglected in the shed out back.

It really is a double edged sword, as you know. All things being equal: it is nice not to feel like youre in a race at the check out line at the market, and to be able to just run over to the DMV and get your license for 20, and to shop 'til you drop, and to be decidedly apolitical, and to not be considered overweight because everyone around you weighs at least 50 pounds more. Like I said, little things.

Please don't misunderstand — for all of the negativity I've expressed towards the US in this essay, I do love living here. If I could have it both ways, I would spend equal amounts of time here, in Austria and in Germany. I would send my kids to Gymnasium where they would have a great education, then I would send them to American High School where they could go to football games, pep rallies, and the prom. I would meld the bright blue skies and sunny days of US winter with the fresh-air, anti-air conditioning culture of Europe. And I would like the option to have good customer service but not be constantly harangued by telemarketers during supper time.

We are all different, this is true, and for all of us the experience of repatriation will vary. If I have learned one thing through all of this, however, it is that once you have immersed yourself in another country's culture you will never get it out of your blood and you will be torn as if you are in love with two people at the same time.