After spending more than a total of 24 hours traveling, I was excited to see my parents. It had been the fastest three months of my life, and I was still trying to process everything as I sat in the Chiang Mai airport and then the Hong Kong airport. I ended up having plenty of time to reflect when I landed in Hong Kong, seeing as my flight kept getting delayed. All jokes set aside, as I walked through the doors at Logan to see my parents there waiting for me, I felt relief but also a longing to go back to the place I had just left. As we walked through the maze of Logan Airport, I thought about the stories I wanted to tell my parents on the car ride home. There was so much I wanted to say; however, my exhaustion caught up to me as I had fallen asleep as soon as the car started moving.
I was excited to give everyone their gifts and explain their meanings and provenance. I was particularly excited to give my sister the gifts for her wedding. She got married just three days after I got home, and though my body was still in Thai time, I loved watching her open the gifts I had bought. By then I was getting questions of “How was it?” and I had so much I wanted to say, but it would have taken days for me to say everything. It was hard trying to pick just the highlights to talk about because it seemed like every small moment was a highlight. I was already missing my massive breakfasts that my host mom would cook for me in the morning and my bike rides to the reservoir.
Shortly after my sister's wedding, my mom and I flew to Portugal to go see my grandparents. I still was not fully over the time difference between the U.S. and Thailand, meaning I did not sleep for a single minute on our flight to Portugal. By the time my mom and I had reached my grandparents' house, I was barely functional. The best part of the trip was that my grandparents had no idea my mom and I were coming to visit! Their reactions were absolutely priceless. While we were there, I was lucky enough to spend my birthday with my grandparents!
When I was in Portugal I began to notice how much I appreciated every small moment. I was also picking up Portuguese faster than I had ever been before. I had this new sudden appreciation for the culture, the people, the language, and my family. I realized that my time in Thailand truly changed how I travel. I now have such a great appreciation for those small moments because I have found those are the moments that mean the most. I was also less scared to make mistakes in Portuguese because what mattered was that I was trying. My time in Thailand truly has changed the way I view traveling and how I will travel in the future.