America, in a sandwich

People tend to ask me here, "Don't you miss your family? Your country?" I usually answer: "Sure, but I'm used to living far away from my family. So it's not so strange." And as for my country--you know when I take a moment to think about it--I guess I don't miss the United States...at least not yet. It's funny how adaptable humans are. I feel so busy trying to figure out these new surroundings (which I guess aren't so new at this point; I'm halfway through my grant, at this point!), that I hardly feel I have time to miss what I left behind. Sure, sometimes I wish I could teleport friends and family here to enjoy a nice lemonade on my porch. Or I wish I could find a place with towels that don't shed half a pound every time you put them in the wash. But otherwise, I feel fine.

And then, something happened this week...

An undeniable and urgent craving for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches overcame me. Huh? It was first ebbing in the back of my mind, the idea of a sandwich. Then it inched its way to the front part of my brain as I contemplated lunch. And finally it forced me with the memory of creamy pb and tart jelly atop multi-grain bread, to go to the market for supplies.

I'm happy with the outcome. It was delicious! But I'm starting to think this recent craving is just really the manifestation of latent feelings of nostalgia for home. It's weird because I never even liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a kid. Some mom would inevitably serve them at a party thinking, "These are surefire. EVERY kid loves a good pb & j!" No, Mrs. Rosenfeld, not every kid. Please make me a turkey sandwich.

So am I missing home? I think so. Or perhaps I'm missing something distinctly American--you know like over air conditioned malls, good pizza and really bad reality television. I remember when I moved to NYC after college having days where I missed the suburbs. Who misses the suburbs? So my cousin and I would wrangle someone with a car to drive us out into Long Island for a movie at a Cineplex, a stroll around Baby Gap and a bite to eat at Pizzeria Uno (this is a Chicago-style pizza chain and I'm from Chicago; it's really sad that I even set foot in there, I know). This feels sort of the same. Perhaps I need an America day. Let me just get my teleporter fixed and I'm off!

On a total side note, when I was googling for a picture of peanut butter and jelly, I found all these other hilarous images. Like, if you're REALLY a fan of pb&j, you can have this lovely ornament for your Christmas tree:

You can even get yourself a peanut butter and jelly martini...



...you know if you want to vomit real badly sometime.