I finally arrived back in Philadelphia today. It's an absolute miracle that my flight from London to Newark wasn't cancelled, as the London papers reported that dozens of London-NYC flights were going to be cancelled for days. The airport experience wasn't all that bad considering I was in a complete daze because I hadn't slept all night (my hostel had a hot tub/sauna on the roof without curfew). I had no alarm clock--I always remember the details--thus I didn't want to risk oversleeping and missing my (almost) cancelled flight. At the airport there were massive lines, but to my surprise no one was really upset over having to stand in them for hours. Alas, I put on my "I'm not really happy/don't talk to me" face to avoid the "Where are you from in the US?/What do you do?/Oh really you teach?" conversation that gets redundant after a few thousand times. I found it humorous, though, when they took my bag at the x-ray and went through it item by item. Unfortunately, a few weeks back I went to this flea market outside of a Brussels train station to scope out the cheap goods. Well, they had Axe body spray (probably stolen) for a mere 1 Euro per unit. In the fashion of the bargain hunter I am or aspire to be, I bought 4 or so of these cheap sprays in the hope that they would bring me odoriferous bliss in the coming weeks. To make a long story short, they "caught" me with 4 bottles of Axe body spray, 1 bottle of antibacterial hand wash, some tooth paste, and a deoderant stick and neatly laid them all out in an orderly fashion on the examiner's table. At this point I immediately regretted my decision to buy so many hygeine products on my European trip.

So I'm back in Philly for a day before I depart for the NC to visit some family. Though I like Philly in some respects, I feel as if I should explore other places while I have some down time before I move to London/Manchester next year (elsewhere if I can work it out). Most of the TFA'ers are out of town anyhow, so it would be rather dead here anyways. Next week, however, I will get back into work mode and get some serious stuff done for the beginning of the school year!