Sleep!!

After almost a week of being back in the US, I'm starting to sleep normally again. I had over nine hours of sleep last night! I was in bed by 8pm, though. This is compared to 4-5 hours I was getting most of the week (getting up at 2 or 3am) even when I was taking Ambien. I think part of it was being severely dehydrated (mostly from the last leg of the trip home on the 10hr flight from Rome).

You can view Jess's blog here. Jess mentions this in her blog too, but this whole experience was such a roller coaster ride. Even before the trip began, there were such highs and lows in organizing, preparing, and planning. When the trip fell through in September the first time, I was so depressed that I had spent the large majority of my summer preparing for it. The ride continued once we were actually in country, too. I would have these feelings of gratitude for the opportunity of being there, followed by waves of thought that I was in completely over my head. The positive feelings won, overall. I am so glad that this trip came about. The group we worked with got a lot out of us, and we had this once in a lifetime experience.

You can see our official trip report here.