Hello 日本

Okay, so here’s the deal with my return home.

I arrived in LA with under 2 hours in which I had to disembark the plane, go through immigration, get my luggage, go through customs, find the bus, ride the bus from terminal 6 until terminal 2, find the northwest counter, check in, go through security, and get to the gate.

Obviously, this didn’t happen. I had about 35 minutes until the plane left when I got to the Northwest counter. The lady there told me that if I’m not there 45 minutes before, they give away the seats! So I didn’t even have a seat anymore.

The best she could do was get me on the next flight to Detroit at 5pm and then I would have a 10 hour layover in Detroit and have to take the plane to Ottawa the next day at 10:30am.

So I had a lot of layover time, but after all it wasn’t so bad. I wandered around the airport in Detroit at 2am, ate candy, slept a little bit….

So finally, after like 30-something hours of travel, I arrived in Ottawa at 12:30 in the afternoon, September 11th.

I breezed through customs and my bags were off to the side waiting for me, so I was out of there in no time. I met my mum in the arrivals area and we went off to the car.

Next, we took a short shopping trip to Walmart and Globo, because I needed some stuff for my room at home, and I needed to buy some new shoes.

By the time we got home, it was 2:40pm, just in time to meet Asumi, my host sister! She’s really cute, and so sweet. We get along well

Also at home, there is Justine, a girl from France who is working with my mum on an experiment.

Being home is really strange; everything is sooooo different. I can’t stop pointing out differences. It’s weird to re-adjust, almost like I am an exchange student to Canada.

Yesterday night we all went over to Helen & Paul’s for a “Welcome Home Anje” party. Asumi and I made a cake and Helen made pizza. Yum!

And today Mum, Asumi, Justine, and I all drove to Ottawa to explore the city a little bit. That was fun. Tomorrow we will go to the Spencerville Fair.

I am really enjoying being home, it feels like a 1000 pounds of stress, expectations, etc. has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel like I can finally be myself again! No more lieing!
Of course, I do miss a few things about Japan, but its mainly just Amy and Sehee. And public transportation. And yummy candy.