The author was away from home for so long that his new territory felt more like home.
Confused and overwhelmed at mixed feelings regarding his return, he felt homesick for the alien culture that he came to enjoy so much, while he was travelling abroad.
He was thus disappointed by the inversion of feelings he was originally expecting. He is not happy about returning to America.
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tl;dr
The author was away from home for so long that his new territory felt more like home.
Confused and overwhelmed at mixed feelings regarding his return, he felt homesick for the alien culture that he came to enjoy so much, while he was travelling abroad.
He was thus disappointed by the inversion of feelings he was originally expecting. He is not happy about returning to America.
This tl;dr doesn't imho really point to the core of the OC. And he did not travel - he lived there for five years.
But yeah misrepresenting seems to be working good here.