FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Safe at home after a solo trip to Iraq, Farris Hassan now faces a different kind of challenge: an upcoming calculus exam.

Hassan was scheduled to return to classes at Pine Crest School Tuesday, after he and his parents meet with officials there to discuss his absences.

His mother, Shatha Atiya, said the school has no plans to suspend her son but did want to discuss his decision to skip classes when he began his travels on Dec. 11. Atiya also said there would be "consequences" for not telling his family that he was going to a dangerous war zone.

"First I'm going to hug him and say, 'Thank God you're alive!'" Atiya told Local 10 before Hassan returned home Sunday night. "And then second, we're going to sit down and discuss what he's done and his privileges."

The 16-year-old returned home to a throng of reporters and camera crews at Miami International Airport, and then had a steak dinner with his father, his mother said. He kept a low profile Monday but promised to share more details about his odyssey after getting some rest.

"I'm really tired," Hassan told reporters outside his father's condominium building. "I'm glad to be back."

Hassan was able to secure an entry visa for Iraq because his parents were born there, although they have lived in the United States for more than three decades. He took his U.S. passport and $1,800 in cash when he left, but didn't tell his family what he was doing until he arrived in Kuwait.

He had thought he would be able to take a taxi from Kuwait into Baghdad for the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, but the border was closed for voting. He stayed with family friends in Lebanon before flying to Baghdad Dec. 25.

In Iraq, he stayed at an international hotel along with other Americans, drawing a crowd at a Baghdad food stand after using an Arabic phrase book to order.

Last Tuesday, Hassan contacted The Associated Press bureau in Baghdad and related his story. Hassan had recently studied immersion journalism -- in which a journalist lives the life of his subject -- and wanted to understand better what Iraqis are living through.

"I thought I'd go the extra mile for that, or rather, a few thousand miles," he said last week.

Hassan left Baghdad Friday.