Back home

The journey home was a pretty painless one. I left the house in jeans and layers in anticipation of the cold plane and the fog when I would arrive in SF, but it meant I was lugging my luggage up steps for train transfers in jeans! H-O-T, hot! I got to the station about 15 minutes before the bus left for the airport, downed an Aquarius and a Pocari Sweat (Gatorade type drinks), and then I was on my way. The bus ride was about an hour and 45 minutes and I was a little worried when we were in quite a bit of traffic. But, the bus driver made up the time in the areas outside of town. I walked right up to the line to check my bag and my only delay was a mistake I made on the touch screen. It took a second to register my answer so I touched the screen twice and ended up answering that I did not pack my bags myself. Oops. They flagged down a guy to ask me more specific questions but it only took about 1 minute longer. I was worried about the weight of my bag, and I thought I did the math to find out that my bag was 56 pounds (it was shown on the scale in kg). I thought I got away with it (and I was prepared to pay), but when I sat down and actually did the math correctly, my bag was 22.5 kg=49.5 lbs....yeah, baby, that's some good packing skills since I'm allowed 50 lbs! ;)

After the check-in, I went to turn in my cell phone and pay my bill for the rental. It was actually a little funny...the counter was one of 3 in a line and I guess I didn't make a whole lot of noise when I came up to the counter. A woman was leaning back in her chair, head back, and looked to be asleep! I had to say, "Sumimasen..." (Excuse me) a couple of times to get her attention. The cell phone ended up costing me just over $100 for the 5 weeks...not too bad, but I have to add that to my regular Verizon bill where I used none of my minutes for an entire billing cycle here! I think if I'm in Japan next year I won't pay for being able to make overseas calls in order to save some money. It was 200 yen per minute for outgoing calls domestic and overseas but if I picked domestic only, it would have been 80 yen per minute. All incoming calls are free with either package. Just another thing to add to my list of things I'd do differently next time! :) I changed my yen back into dollars before I went through security and then kept my camera case (containing my money) close by for the rest of the trip home!

The flight itself was uneventful. I finished a Ken Follett book that I had started a couple of days earlier and then watched FOUR movies! Thankfully I was on a plane with the individual on-demand movie screen. :) Kung Fu Panda was a cute one and then I watched Made of Honor. It was a cheesy chick-flick, but mostly what I expected. After watching those two, I picked two independent films. The first one was an Indian film called Krazzy 4. It was funny! It was subtitled but every other line seemed to be a mix of English and Hindi. The last movie I watched was a French film called Hors de Prix (Priceless). It had the actress from Amelie in it and it was pretty good, too! As soon as the last movie was over, we were starting our descent into SFO. We were scheduled to arrive at 9:55, but touched down just after 9 AM, so my flight was actually less than 9 hours. Yay for tail winds! Michelle's parents picked me up and took me back to my car at their place, and then I drove home. I stopped by the post office to pick up my mail that has been on hold, and by that time, I was starting to get pretty loopy! I am half-way unpacked and am just enjoying the cool weather and comforts of my place. I was going to try to stay up until tonight and sleep through the night, but I had a bad headache. At 1:30 I started what was supposed to be a short nap but ended up being a 4 hour nap. I guess I turned off the alarm without realizing it.

I wasn't hungry all day and just got back from grabbing soft tacos to go from Chipotle. Mmmmm...I missed Mexican food! :) I know it's a late dinner, but I'm not too worried about getting back on West Coast time immediately. I don't have any set plans and don't have to be back at work until late next week. I just look forward to catching up with friends and getting back into a routine before the new school year begins. Thanks for reading my blog about the summer! I hope to see you all in person soon...