So about Christmas... Part 3

So I finished up my visit to Springfield, and Mom and Dad drove me to the airport. I found out two things at the check-in counter: 1) my bag was overweight, and 2) my flight had been delayed for an hour. The bag part was easy: I had to pay $50. The delay was actually great, because it gave me a bonus hour with my parents. The goodbye went like it's gone every time I've said bye to my parents for the past eight years: I'm fine, Dad's fine because I'm fine, and then Mom starts crying, so I start crying, and then Dad tears up, and the whole thing falls apart.

We said our goodbyes, and I had an otherwise uneventful flight to Atlanta.

At the airport I met up with my bestest polyglot friend, Ashley. We spent about two hours just catching up, talking about random things over cheese fries and Coke. She gave me a dictionary of Roma (a gypsy language), written in Hungarian, that she bought while she was teaching in Budapest.

After saying bye to Ashley, I rented a car and drove to Toccoa to see my grandparents. Nothing big happened that night--it felt like I'd never left for Japan, and I was dropping in for a visit like I've done for the past seven years. Granny and Papa are doing just fine, and I spent the evening just catching up on family news with them, and telling them bits about Japan.

Saturday we had a get-together that was, I guess, held in my honor. Before everyone arrived, I walked down to the lake. (My grandparents live on Lake Hartwell, on the Georgia-South Carolina border.) Northeast Georgia was in an awful drought most of the summer and fall, and I took this picture to illustrate just how low they drained that part of the lake to keep that part of the reservoir filled.

Back at the house, I got to see my cousin, my uncle, another aunt and uncle, and another aunt and uncle. We also had this for lunch. Pictures very rarely do barbecue justice, but that's brunswick stew, pulled pork, and ribs from the best barbecue place I've ever eaten at.

An aside: does anyone else have relatives who use the term "dinner" for the meal you eat at around noon? My grandparents have done that for as long as I can remember, but I don't think I've heard many other folks call it that. Oh well.

Anyway, visiting with all of them was great. At around 5, I said my goodbyes, and headed on to Athens. I would dare say that, in the past seven years, I've driven that stretch of back roads between Toccoa and Athens almost as many times as Dad has. It's amazing how little the countryside along that road changes.

Once back in Athens, I headed to the house Cord just bought. It's a fixer-upper very close to where we lived last year. There I met up with Cord, Cord's friend Katie, Chuck, Marissa, Clay, and newly wed Jeremy and Brigette. Just as with my family, it felt like I'd only been gone a week or so. Apart from Cord buying a house, Chuck and Marissa breaking up, and Jeremy and Brigette getting married, I mean.

We all went to Cali N Tito's for supper, and oh my goodness I loved every bite of it. Cali N Tito's is a Cuban restaurant in Athens that serves the best sandwich I've ever eaten: El Cubano Especial. You grill steak, hot dogs, and onions, and you put that on a hoagie with a fried egg, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. On the side you can get maduros, which are sweet fried plantains. The whole ambrosial platter looks like this. We met up with Meredith and her boyfriend there, too.

After supper, the group moved on to Copper Creek downtown. While there, I ran into Ski, Madeline, and Caroline, though I didn't take a picture of them because I foolishly thought I'd get another chance to see them before I left.

After Copper Creek, we walked to Clay's new place, which is about a ten-minute walk from downtown. There we played cards for a while, until a few people started falling asleep. Most of the folks--Cord and Katie, Jeremy and Brigette--were calling it a night, and Jeremy asked if I wanted to play Guitar Hero and Rock Band with him. I had been secretly hoping for just such an opportunity, so I took him up on it. We played around until about 3:30a.m. I'd forgotten how much I miss playing videogames with Jeremy.

He gave me a ride back to Cord's, where I made a pallet on the floor. The next morning (Sunday), I woke up at about 8 in order to make it to church to see Katie and Michael. Along the way, I stopped at the Waffle House I used to work at. Almost all the same first-shift waitresses are still working, and they all remember me perfectly. A few of them said something about how great a waiter I used to be, though I know for a fact I never waited tables with any of them--I always came in on the shift after theirs. I didn't complain about the praise, though.

Waffle House has biscuits and gravy now. One more sign the world is getting more and more messed up.

After breakfast, I scooted on to church, making it about fifteen minutes before service started. Snooping around, I succeeded in finding Michael. He promptly gave a bear hug like only Michael can give, led me straight back to the choir loft to meet Fish (Katie), and they both asked me if I wanted to sing with them. I sort of stammered, which they took as a yes, so they gave me some extra robes and an extra folder of music. We warmed up together, and I tried to learn the music as well as I could from those five minutes of rehearsal. It went fine, and I got to hang out with Fish and Michael a lot more than I was expecting.

Afterwards, we teamed up with Joel, Nathan, and a few others, and went to lunch. I promise I had nothing to do with the decision to go to Cali N Tito's. Honest! The place is much more photogenic in the daytime. This is the inside, where the ordering goes on, and this is Fish, Michael, and me amid some of the outdoor seating. Note the Fish's fabulous shades.

We spent about two hours just talking, and man, I had been dying to do just that with Fish and Michael. Any of you who have ever hung out with them or their friends know exactly what I'm talking about. Fish, Michael, Joel, Liz, Nathan, Alan, Nathan--talking with any of them one-on-one is tons of fun. What's more, as you add more of them to a conversation, the amazingness goes up exponentially. I dream of one day being able to see all of them on a regular basis again, because... man. They rock.

After saying goodbye to them, I moved on to Inoko. I had it all (sort of) planned out: Jean, my old boss, works Sunday lunch, and Mr. Inoko comes in to help for that shift too. They both stick around until the beginning of dinner shift, to close out lunch sales and make sure dinner gets started right. I figured, therefore, that the ideal time to visit would be at around 3, which would catch some of the lunch servers leaving, the dinner servers coming in, and I'd get to see Jean and Mr. Inoko, and maybe even Tetsu, the sushi chef who trained me as a manager.

It sort of worked. I got too caught up with having fun with Fish and Michael, so I missed Mr. Inoko by about fifteen minutes. I did, however, see the last of the lunch servers go, and got to spend some time with Jean. Just as with everyone else, it felt like I'd never left--I picked right back up with Jean and the servers who knew me. I got to see Khanh, Erica, and all the chefs. Going back to the place was exactly the way I wanted it: all of the resentment and negativity I felt while I worked there has washed away, leaving only the good memories and the friends I made.

After telling them all goodbye, I went and visited Jenna and Chase. I know I'm saying it a lot, but jeez, I'd forgotten how much I miss my friends. I've known Jenna since sophomore year (02ish), and Chase for only a little less time, and they're both two of the most caring people I've ever met. Because I'm terrible with time management, though, I only had about an hour to spend with them.

My next stop was trivia at Wild Wing with Jeremy, Brigette, Cord, Jonny, and some guy. Jeremy started a team about a year ago with the original name "Laser Beams - Pew Pew!" The announcer for the trivia, when he reads the team names, makes "Pew Pew!" sound like a high-pitched laser beam, so it's always satisfying. I know--we're lame. However, for the first time ever, our team won first place that night. I'd like to think my guest appearance had something to do with our good fortunes.

After that, I said my goodbyes to everyone, except Cord, who I lingered on with for a while. We didn't get a chance to chill out and catch up one-on-one, but there weren't any hard feelings. We did a little preliminary scheming for some traveling next year, and I was off.

The next part of my plan was to meet up with Khanh, my favorite Vietnamese Inoko server in the whole world, after she got off work. One of our haunts last summer was Choo Choo, one of the local hibachi express restaurants, so I thought it'd be awesome to continue the tradition. Alas, she called me after work and said she didn't feel like coming out. So instead we talked on the phone for a while, I grabbed food for myself from Choo Choo, and went on about my way.

I stopped at both Wal-Marts in Athens looking for candy to bring back to Japan as gifts for the other teachers. (Chocolate especially--it's the best time of year to travel with meltable things.) While there, I bought my first piece of Georgia paraphernalia: a red hoodie, with "GEORGIA" emblazoned across the front.

My flight back to Japan left the next morning (Monday) at 8am. Allowing for check-in, customs, and turning in my rental, I had to be back at the car place in Atlanta at 5:30. I decided that $70 for five hours in a hotel was silly, so I drove as far as I could toward Atlanta until I got tired, then I pulled into a gas station and napped.

I woke up with plenty of time, checked in the car without incident, got to the airport, checked my bags (paying another $50 in overweight fees), got to my gate, and napped. The flight to Dallas was uneventful, mostly because I slept. My flight to Tokyo was nowhere near as fun as the one coming the other way had been, though I did get to see ice floes around Alaska and the Bering Strait--a first for me. The movie selection on the flight was terrible, so I watched the same episode of CSI three times, then gave up and tried reading. When that got old, I read the newspaper. When that got old, I started writing theorems. No, seriously. Sure, it won't change the world, but I'm pretty certain I found a shortcut for multiplying any two 2-digit numbers. I went on to expand the formula to 3-digit numbers, and succeeded, but forgot to take a picture.

Getting back to Tsushima was largely uneventful, though the overweight fee for my bag on the last leg was about $10. The guy at the desk was very sheepish when he tried to tell me, too, like he was breaking the news about a dead relative.

So, in summary, I spent a full two weeks in Springfield with my family. I flew from Springfield to Atlanta on a Friday afternoon. I visited a friend and drove to my grandparents'. Saturday, I visited my family in Toccoa, then drove to Athens, where I had supper with friends, then hung out downtown, then played videogames until 3:30. Sunday, I went to church with more friends, ate lunch with more friends, visited work friends, visited more friends, then visited more friends. I then talked on the phone with a friend while I did last-minute shopping, drove until 2am, slept until 5am, drove to the airport, and flew back to Japan.

In 64 hours I visited 35 people. I'm definitely satisfied with that, but I still didn't get to see everybody. Kieu, Kelly, Tetsu, Mr. Inoko, Yuliya, Liz, Dr. Benedek, Professor Crowell, Dr. Magnani, Christine, Kristi... Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I take consolation from the knowledge that I'd be hard-pressed to visit all those people in two weeks, much less two days.