In response to my question on his reddit IAMA, astronaut Ron Garan linked to this post he wrote on how it feels to plunge back to Earth from the ISS after more than 5 months in space. I found it incredibly interesting.

View from the International Space Station of Astronaut Ron Garan, with 2 others, just before their capsule door shut and it descended back to earth.

http://fragileoasis.org/blog/2011/9/plunging-over-niagara-falls-in-a-burning-barrel-and-more/

Some quotes that stood out especially, to me:

We all strapped into the same seats we occupied when we launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan

 

We approached Earth at a steep angle, at just under **5 miles per second

**

It was wonderful to speak with my family in Houston while we were all on **the same planet

**

…the realization that I would see only one sunset each day, instead of sixteen