Traveling

The other day, I had finally gotten back online to check some stuff after my Germany trip (more on that later), when I saw my boy Joel had had some trouble getting home this Christmas. Reading his stuff, I fully sympathized with his situation. This holiday season has been by far the most stressful traveling season I've ever dealt with. Here's the, at times embarrassing, details.

• Leave Fukuoka for Tokyo on the 22nd to catch my flight on the morning of the 23rd. Catch a flight in the afternoon and arrive at Narita Airport Hotel at around 830 PM. They ask me for my passport. I spend a solid two seconds looking for it before that funny feeling that I had on the plane and train to Tokyo that I had forgotten something was terrifyingly realized. Immediately remember that the passport is on the table in Fukuoka. I go about finding out how to get a new one, get the number to the American Embassy, they say no can do. Best you can do is go back to Fukuoka, pick it up, and come back.
• Change flight to Amsterdam, have to cancel the connecting flight to Germany, and go to sleep knowing that I have to go to Fukuoka in the morning.
• Get on shuttle to airport, buy ticket to Fukuoka, go, get on the train to my house, get my passport, get back on train, buy another ticket to Tokyo, renew my hotel for one more night. Left at 8 in the morning, arrived back at hotel at 930 PM. Sleep.
• Get up early to make absolutely sure that I catch my Christmas Eve flight to Amsterdam. Catch it. 11 hours, no sleep.
• Get to Amsterdam, still not relieved though, gotta get that train ticket to Nuremburg. Get it, have one transfer. After I transfer, I'll be able to get all the way to Germany and the party that's waiting for me at my mom's house. My train is at 6:45 PM and I have a 15 minute cushion between trains.
• First train delayed 15 minutes. As I'm pulling up, the train I was supposed to be on starts to pull out.
  
• Run up to station master, explain the situation, she says only one way to Germany as that was the last train. Gives me piece of paper and tells me my train leaves in two minutes from Gate 8. I run, and make it.
• Original train would have gotten me to Nuremburg at 1035 PM. New improved train schedule gets me to Frankfurt, 3 hours away from Nuremurg, at 133 AM. I have 5 transfers. No thoughts of sleep. At one of the transfers, a Dutch station officer sees the book I was reading, The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman. He asks for my ticket in Dutch, I say I don't understand and he asks again, in hurried English. I give it to him, and as I'm walking away, he says, "Ann you know my fren, I tell you sumsing...the world is not flat." I smile and walk away.
• Make all my transfers, and arrange with my stepfather to have me picked up from Frankfurt. Drive three hours to their house. He and his friend have already driven three down, and are driving three back up.

So, that's how it was. From that first 50poundweightinthestomach feeling, to finally, finally getting there. The time and money spent was...sickening, but it also felt good, in a way. It really made you think on your toes, think with a purpose. It sucked from a financial standpoint, but it was a challenge to say the least. I was happy though, because in the morning, I woke up to this.



Introducing, my little sister, Isabella Marie Lenzini. I have never said, "Hey, I don't play that" more to one person in my life. More on the actual trip later. On with the travel theme.

• Spend a mean week and half in Germany and get on my plane in Stuttgart to Amsterdam, then make my plane from Amsterdam to Narita. So far, so good.
  
• From Narita, catch train to Tokyo for my Shinkansen to Fukuoka. Train from Narita to Tokyo station takes an hour and a half. Luckily I had set up my train for later in the day. Happy with my foresight in that decision.
  
• Get to Station, put ticket into machine, doesn't work. Doesn't seem to be working for anyone, I go to the manual line, the man takes my ticket and stamps it. I get on the train.
• Putting my luggage on the rack, a man comes up and says that I am in his seat. I take out my ticket, and show him that Car 6, 14 C is actually my seat. He looks at the ticket and says, in that incredibly irritating Japanese tone that anyone who has lived here long enough can hear from a mile away, "三日？三日？！今日は四日ですよ。フォウア。" (The third? The third?! Today is the 4th dude.)
• Stop and immediately realize that while my flight to Europe would have gotten me there on the same day, East to West travel gains you time, that West to East travel has you lose time. I was a whole day late with my Shinkansen ticket. I thought I arrived on the 3rd, but had actually arrived on the 4th.
  
• Immediately take stock of my situation: I have a ticket for a train that left yesterday, but the man at the gate had already stamped it. I've at least got that stamp, which says that I am supposed to be on the train. Usually, after every stop on the Shinkansen, people walk up and down the aisles and check the tickets. Once they check you though, you're good. I ran through my options: 1.) find an open seat in the car, wait for the man to come through, hope he doesn't notice the wrong seat and date, and be good from there. Knowing Japanese thoroughness, this would not fly. 2.) Find a seat in the unreserved car, wait for the man, and explain my situation. This would have been ok, but also had the added danger of having to pay for my entire trip again. After all the money spent on wasted trips, I was not in the mood to spend another dime on wasted travel. 3.) Elude that man every time he comes down. This was especially difficult to do, as the dudes that walk up and down are especially curious. I also had a huge suitcase. There was also the added danger of the dude that was sitting in my seat and staring at me as I was hashing out my situation; he could blow the whole thing up at anytime. I decided to jump into the inbetweencars car, and thought it out.
  
• I choose option 3. Forget paying money, and forget feeling bad about lying. I had had too much bad luck. My train leaves from Tokyo to Hakata, a 5 hour and 13 minute trip. First, I put my bag on the luggage rack on Car 6, when irritating (but correct) dude was not looking. Then, when the train man made his way down the aisles the first time, I was still in the inbetween car, on my phone, arguing in English. (My phone was dead.) He looked at me, stopped, and then walked past. First run, all good. I had like 12 more stops to go. There was no way I was getting out of it. I figure that the next time, he'll ask me for sure, on the phone or not.
  
• Next stop. He comes down again, I take my phone out and pretend I'm listening. He walks right past. How long would my luck last? I was standing in the inbetween car of a reserved car the whole time, they would have to notice eventually. You're not supposed to stand there if you don't have a ticket. Knowing this, I made sure that the next stop would have me in the bathroom.
• Goes right past, while I'm in the bathroom. Had some funny looks from other workers, but ignored and walked on. Only at stop 3, and I'm thinking there's no way I'm doing this the whole way.
• I do it the whole way. Bathroom, phone, whatever I could, I was the (I think) only passenger on that train who did not have his ticket checked. Each stop brought new danger. I stayed in that little inbetween car the entire trip, huddled up into the corner, reading books and pretending to be on the phone. There was one time, when I, alone, was approached by two train dudes. I saw them in the mirror, asking each other whether they should talk to me. They decided against it, and moved on. Crisis averted.
  
• Last stop. Get my bag when no one was looking and I was sure that the man had already come down for the tickets. Wait at the inbetween door. Even though I had made it all the way to Hakata, I still wasn't safe. I needed to show my ticket one last time. Knowing the ticket wouldn't go through the machines, I needed to time my exit perfectly with a man taking tickets. Get off the train and head for the ticket machines. Again, fortuitously, some people having trouble with tickets, go to the manual man. He begins taking tickets. I walk to him, hand him the ticket with confidence, he looks down at it. I walk past, ready to run if need. Get to the escalator, mix with the crowd, and exhale. I'd done it.
  

More on the actual trip later.