In Tokyo Day 1 (no, not blogging each day)

I got in at about 11pm. To a Japanese woman holding my name. I felt honored, that is until I discovered the reason for this special treatment. Air France, during the 13 hour layover in Paris, was unable to get my bags from point A to point B. Yes, that's right, my bags remained in Paris and I had arrived in Tokyo. After explaining what my bags looked like to the lovely Air France operative, I departed Narita Airport. The only advantage to them failing to deliver my bags was that I didn't have to carry them on the train and the taxi to the hotel. I had no trouble getting into the train and then the taxi. The hotel is nice, very small room, but hot water and heat (it's cold here) and high speed internet. My sleep schedule is not quite right, but it's close, I am sure I’ll equalize in the next couple days. I also jerry rigged an electric converter for my laptop, so I can charge it.

I had an extensive day of orientation, I am now oriental (haha... moving on). I am going to Sumo in a couple weeks and I met a few very nice people who are looking for an apartment too. It seems like most people are willing to spend between 1000 and 1400, which is good (and unfortunately necessary). Also they got us Subway for lunch, but are taking us out to a nicer (and more authentic dinner) with an open bar. Also, tomorrow I have my first class, International Criminal Law. In fact, we are leaving for dinner now. Can't post pics today, more to come though.

3 down 1 to go

Flight from Detroit to Paris was bumpy. It was about a 7 hour flight, the first two hours of which were very uncomfortable. My seat neighbor, a mother who visiting her daughter and her son-in-law here in Paris., was very chatty I arrived at Paris at about 11am. the weather was not pleasant. It was cloudy and lightly raining the whole day, which made walking and picture taking rough. Nevertheless, I persevered. I visited the area where the Bastille used to be. I went to the musee de le' orangerie (sp?), walked through the Louvre to get to a metro stop. I also walked around some restaurant and shopping districts. Oh yea, and the first thing i did was try to find the gardens de Luxembourg... which, because I had a helluva time reading my map, took a lot longer than I would have liked.

Overall, Paris was nice. The parks have too many rocks and not enough grass, but the people were nice, so that was helpful. That’s it. I am not really in a mood to share the whole day, I haven’t slept in a while and am grumpy. There are some pictures up now so enjoy.

2 down, 2 to go

After three hours of sleep each night for the past few nights, I woke up this morning and drove to the Ft. Lauderdale airport for a 10 am flight. That flight was my first of four. Using frequent flyer miles I booked a first class flight to Cincinnati. Why Cincinnati? Good question. Apparently when you use miles to pay for your trip, they have you by the cojones and dictate the direction you fly... which in my case is in circles.

First class was nice. I sat next to a stone-wall of a man who looked up from his laptop for about 10 minutes the whole flight. Which becomes even weirder when you realize for the first and last 20 minutes of the flight, the cpu wasn't even on. The seat was large, the food was good, the flight attendants were fine - not a big deal.

I landed in Cincinnati and quickly visited a borders bookstore in the airport to find out where the hell Ohio was. I learned it was south of Michigan. Then I found out that I wasn't even in Ohio, because the Cincinnati airport, in fact, is in Kentucky. I sat outside gate c-9 for three hours and then, 25 minutes before takeoff realized that in the interim my gate had changed, but made it with no problem. Also, during my stint in “Ohio” I received a number of crooked looks directed at my gator national championship game shirt. One cop actually said gators had no shot. If I knew anything about sports I would have made some obnoxious comment about Ohio state almost losing to some bad team… but a) I do not know about sports, and b) he was a cop and I had three more planes to catch.

Next flight (flight # 2) was also uneventful (which is a good thing). I sat in the last row (row # 11) of a tiny "regional" jet. At least this time the dude next to me was nice. He was from London, Canada. We discussed global warming, the 7 to go plates of food he and his wife had (still don't totally understand why) and his recent ski trip.

As I type this, I am now in the Northwest world club room. This room is swank. Very, very swank. Open bar, servers, free food and people glaring at me like I don't belong. In fact, I barely belong. I am allowed to be here only because I am flying "world business" class. This is what I would call the upper class, as Northwest only has 2 classes now. Anyway, I have a few more hours before my trip to Paris. I fully intend on narcing (rhymes with barking) and sleeping so I can enjoy my Paris days. I've taken a few pictures of the clouds, but am not taking the time now to post.

Go Gators.