I'd really like to spend a lot of time describing what my international flight experience was like, but I haven't slept on a bed in 27 hours, and no matter how much sleep you get on a plane or in a van, the quality just doesn't compare. I'll just put some bits and pieces here now and elaborate later.

My hotel room here in Kobe, Japan is smaller and cozier than the New York one, and I'll post pictures of it soon. The toilet was a bit of an unsettling experience since I've never used a bidet or a butt shower before. I was confused by the closet when I first tried to open it. I pulled on the handle, and it wasn't until I thought, "Wait, this is Japan," that I tried sliding it.

It's a little scary how good websites are at tracking your computer's location. Facebook, Google, and Mail.com all recognized that I wasn't in the US anymore, asking for security questions and presenting international, Japanese, or specialized versions of their sites.

I'm lucky that people are very kind and airport employees are very dedicated to ensuring that people make their flights, otherwise getting to Kobe would have been much worse than it was.

I'm going to have to learn how to straddle the language divide. I clearly look like an English speaker, yet I can speak Japanese, but my Japanese isn't that great yet. Most of the employees speak both, but their English isn't very good either. I know I should have been trying harder to communicate more fully in Japanese, but in the whirlwind that was today and my desire to make it to Kobe with as few problems as possible, I muddled through both.

Now, I've summed up the things I wanted to say most, but since I'm tired, details will have to wait until later.

Pre-Departure 2: NYC

Okay, I'm going to keep this short since it's late and I have a super long day tomorrow.

Today my family and I drove up to NYC, which is not one of my favorite cities, especially on a rainy day. Everything looked gray, brown, and depressing; spring hasn't really settled in here like it has in Pittsburgh. On the highway, I saw evidence of the ivy overgrowth I've noticed before--in quite a few spots the ivy was the only green plant, and it was smothering the trees. We got lost, since our GPS didn't have the address of our hotel. We pulled over twice to replan, the first time to figure out what we had done wrong since we were clearly in the wrong place, the second time to call the hotel and ask for directions. It turned out that we were actually very close by this time, somehow, so less than 10 minutes later, we were circling the block multiple times to try to pull into the claustrophobic, poorly shaped parking lot.

At first I felt the hotel and the surrounding area was really sketchy, but seeing some of the hotel guests and starting to get a cozy feel out of the small but carefully prepared accommodations began to comfort me. Here's a photo of my hotel room.

Like I said before, international flights are really a hassle. I keep checking the guidelines and instructions for luggage rules, departure/arrival procedures, etc. The websites are hard to navigate. I hate online forms that have poor directions and no explanations, and then warn you that filling them out incorrectly can have dire consequences. I have to keep repacking my bags, which is never a fun task. Plus, my family is worried, so they keep asking to make sure I'm ready and making suggestions. I can't wait till I'm settled in Japan so that I can worry about a whole different set of uncertainties. The airports' and airlines' websites don't have all the information I need, so I'm going to have to hope things are clearly marked and explained as I go. Let me just add the facts that I haven't been to an airport for at least 4 years, I've never been to a foreign country other than Canada, and I don't feel very confident in my Japanese, especially the reading/writing.

I'm really nervous. 楽しくしましょうね？