I made it!

Ok, so after another straight 24 hours of traveling, I am back in Maki. The flights went surprisingly well, especially considering I was flying in/out of Atlanta. I thought ahead this time and had some cash on hand to drink a bit, so I was able to sleep for awhile on the flight. Between the random movies, the random sleeping, my iPod and Harry Potter, the 14 hour flight coming back seemed to go pretty fast. We got in a bit early and I booked it through the Japanese/foreigners with Visas line at the airport, got my bags and ran down to the Narita Express. I barely managed to get on the 13.46 train to Tokyo, then I just had to wait 20 minutes for the 15.20 Shinkansen to TsubameSanjo where Makiko was there waiting for me.

It was so nice of her to come get me cause it seriously cut out about another hour (or more) of train travel for me. I otherwise would have to go to Niigata station then to the Echigo line to Maki, which sucks. As she drove, I saw that Sanjo is kind of flooding again. Apparently there were some serious rain storms while I was gone, and Sanjo is prone to flooding as everyone learned last summer. Yikes. So we went to dinner at Naomi's and she filled me in on the gossip of the last two weeks. It was good, but I had a pretty weird case of vertigo happening. I think my brain still thought I was on a plane cause I was pretty dizzy. She dropped me at home, we managed to struggle with my suitcases up the stairs, I showered and immediately went to bed.

And now I'm up... and it's 4:30 am! Thanks, Jetlag!

It feels weird to be back. I'm frustrated because I am currently without a drivers license - and probably will be for at least two more weeks. My bike tire is broken, so I need to get that taken care of today. It seems like it's gonna rain non stop this week. There are a few events for the new people this weekend that I want to go to, but I would really have liked to drive there - and I fucking can't. So I'm a bit frustrated.

On the other hand, it's nice to be back on my own turf again - in my apartment, my space, my stuff. I have to go back to half days of the BOE this week, which is easy, so I have a bit of dowtime before school starts up again. Things are different here now, but I am being positive about the coming year.

And now I'm either going to unpack or go back to bed.