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Hey everybody, I'm back here in the frigid city of Nagoya.. this update will be in two parts: One, covering my break. And two, covering my return to the land of the rising sun and raw fish. After finals ended, I went home and packed up all my stuff.. then I got a call from Alex about trying to meet up with Shiga-sensei, our Japanese teacher from Notre Dame. We met her at the Lazy Lizard. Well, actually, Paul couldn't get ahold of her, so we ended up meeting there and just hanging out for an hour or so before heading home. If you're reading this, Shiga-sensei, sumi masen. Well, the next morning, my host mother drove me to the Nagoya airport three hours ahead of boarding time, as is prescribed for international flights. I proceeded to wait for the vast majority of that time. Note to self: an hour and a half is plenty of time. As I was waiting, I met a guy who is teaching English in Japan through the JET program. Actually, we went up to check-in our luggage and get our boarding passes together, and the lady behind the counter assumed we were travelling together. So we ended up sitting together for the entire plane ride. Once we got to Detroit, we parted.. I went down to gate G for my five hour layover, which was now only 4 hours due to a lunch at a bagel shop. This shop is where we encountered our first item of reverse culture shock. When we ordered our food, which was expensive(airport stuff always is) we got these humongous drinks and humongous sandwiches. In Japan, you would pay the exact same amount for about half of what we got. As I was waiting in the G gate, I listened to a CD four times, wrote poetry, and drew sketches of people passing by. There were a bunch of delays, cancellations, and angry people. Eventually, I got up to get in line for boarding. My boarding time was around 2:30pm. Unfortunately, as we were waiting to go through the door, they cancelled my flight. They followed the announcement with one mentioning a bus that would take us home to South Bend. The bus, showing up an hour and a half later than announced, has seating for 45 people. As we bottlenecked to get on the bus, we all got nervous. There were definitely more people than seats, and nobody wanted to be left behind. Someone jokingly said, "Wouldn't it be terrible if they ran out of seats and you were the next person in line?" Yep, you guessed it. I was that person in line. With 45 seats, I was number 46 in line. So continues the sordid tale. The lady taking tickets told us they had no more buses, but would try to get some carpool cars to take us. So she said wait. And we waited. Until they announced that another 15 buses were coming, and listed the destinations. By now, 4 of the 6 flights to South Bend that day had been cancelled. But they weren't going to send another bus to South Bend. No, they were going to let us fend for ourselves. I went to the ticket counter, and asked the lady what there was that they could do for me. She told me there was a spot on the 11:05 flight, and she would even bump me up to first class for it. (An hour of first class would have made me happy) So I waited. I found other people who were waiting for the same flight, one of which was a Notre Dame graduate. We all waited, and watched as they delayed the remaining flights by more and more time. Eventually, some of the flights took off. Unfortunately, mine was not one of them. Around two o'clock in the morning, they cancelled our flight. So, after a 13 hour flight from Japan, the six hours before that, and the 14 hours of waiting in the Detroit airport, I had amassed a nice 33 hours of no sleep. At 2 am, I went to the ticket counter again, and conveyed this story very politely. Unfortunately, it was met with "well, I've been up for twenty hours. Get over it." The kind man also informed me that every flight to South Bend the next day was booked full, and that if I wanted, I could be put on a flight later that evening. Eventually, it was arranged that I could be put on a flight for Fort Wayne, Indiana and my parents could pick me up there. They also had completely filled up their hotels, and could only offer me a crummy pillow and a ten dollar food voucher for the airport restaurants, none of which were open at that hour of the morning. So now, I am hungry, exhausted, have practically no hope of getting home to my family after a semester on the other side of the world, and am expected to sleep in a chair in the airport. I am not happy. Countless collect calls had been made to my home that night, as I relayed all of the information I could gather. Eventually, my dad said "Chas, get your bag under your coat, curl up around it, and try to get a few hours of sleep. Your mom and Chris and Mike are coming to pick you up." And they did. Around 6 am, my mom ran up to me and hugged me for the first time in four months. I would like to once again thank Chris and Mike Blankenbaker for driving all the way to Detroit in the early morning hours to pick me up. It will remain forever in the history of great Christmas presents. For anyone who would like to know, I was flying Northwest, and the problem was due to Mesaba Aviation, their local carrier. As of right now, they have promised to send refund and a "goodwill gesture." Over break, I ate steak, Christmas cookies, fettucine alfredo, soup, chili and pizza, among other things. I also got to see many friends and relatives, all of which was cherished greatly. I recorded a few songs with Brian, essentially finishing up a "second album." To hear them, check out our MP3 page, where you can download them to your heart's content. =-=-=-=-=-PART TWO-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Well, my return flight to Japan was uneventful. I was sure to bring a few new clothing items, many books, and some new CDs I burned. One of these CDs is "Deja vu" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. This is one of the greatest albums I have ever heard. Now playing through my headphones as I type: "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" which I fit onto the CD after the Deja Vu album. The first night I was back, I had sushi. It was so good after being away for three weeks. I have gotten plenty of sleep since I have been back, but I think jet lag is affecting me a bit. I have been going to bed around 8-9pm, and waking up around 6am. I read a 500 page book that Alex lent me. It was by Mick Foley, better known as professional wrestler Mankind/Cactus Jack/Dude Love. This book was incredible. Even if you hate wrestling, you will gain a greater respect for the things these guys do. And it's very well written. He can't type, so he wrote it out by hand on 760 pages of looseleaf paper. I picked up my grades on Monday. I was disappointed. In the same way that I was disappointed in my SAT scores. They aren't what I wanted, but at the same time I have grown apathetic a bit. The grades are good enough, but I don't feel like I deserved them. Oh well. I had a good conversation with Alex about the loopholes in the the story of Gremlins. First, this thing supposedly came from China. Now, in the rules, you aren't supposed to feed it after midnight. Is that midnight Chinese time, and what part of China? Even if it doesn't matter, when can you feed it again? Is 5 am too early too feed it? Technically, 11pm is after midnight of the previous night. And also, water is bad. This thing being a living creature, doesn't a good portion of it's body contain water? And where in China did they get it? Somewhere that doesn't get rain or light? Or have access to food after midnight? How dumb for such an awesome movie. I got a cool wooden frog thing from my friend Courtney Joy(see pictures page). She got it in Thailand over vacation, and if you use the wooden stick that it comes with, running it along his back you get a sound sorta like a frog would make. Anyway, classes aren't too bad. I haven't had any of my afternoon classes, since they are all on Fridays this semester. So in exchange, I will be updating this webpage a bit earlier in the week. I had the notion of doing it on Monday, right after a weekend full of activity, but since my weekends seem more devoted to resting, reading, etc. I figure that would be boring. So we'll play it by ear(which is scary, seeing as how I am considerably tone deaf). Check it out when you can. Peace, Love and Yes it does snow here, but doesn't stick, Chas Previous Post Next Post Top of the Page Back to Main