I woke up this morning around 8:30, and enjoyed a nice leisurely morning with the Coursey family. They were planning their day around Alyssa’s birthday party. She was holding it in the Botanical Gardens just a bit outside of town, and so in the morning Steve took me along with him to run some errands in town.
The first thing I noticed, nobody gave me a second glance. Nobody stared, and I enjoyed a bit of anonymity that I haven’t had in Japan. Things changed a bit as soon as I opened my mouth, but for the most part, I blended in quite nicely.
We stopped in and ordered some chicken from a rotisserie place, picked up bread and a cheesecake, and a couple of bags of ice. The cheesecake place had some pretty amazing cheesecakes, the mall with the bread store had a pretty good-looking bookstore, and it seems to me that I’ll need to do some serious shopping before I go home.
We got everything organized and went over to the Gardens, and there we set up everything while people began showing up. There were about 15 girls that came by, and they spent the day eating and talking and having a good time catching up. I really enjoyed the Gardens, and walked around taking pictures a bit. I met Brenda’s mom and dad, and I loaned out my camera to Julia and her friend, who took some pretty good pictures.
In one of the ponds Julia discovered an eel, and so she fed it some bread that they had brought for the ducks. The eel was pretty spooky looking, and it was funny to think that I just came from a country that usually serves eel over rice.
We packed up and got out of there, right as a wedding party came in. It seemed like a good place for a wedding, with some dramatic views and a beautiful surrounding. We all went home and shared some tea with a friend of Brenda’s. Afterwards, Julia talked her folks into ordering pizza, and we got three pizzas from Domino’s. I haven’t had real pizza in a long time – almost four months! It was great pizza. I really enjoyed eating pizza that I would have shunned in the U.S. Delicious!
After dinner a friend of Alyssa’s came over and then her dad came by to take Alyssa and her friend home for a sleepover. We shared a bottle of wine and talked for quite a bit – he seemed like a great guy.
Just about 15 minutes later, some other friends of Steve and Brenda’s came by, and they brought along some homemade Chinese dim sum, which we ate with some more wine. I’m really enjoying all the great food and wine… excellent! Afterwards their friends left, we all decided to retire. Tomorrow I’m going to head into Sydney for the first time to meet up with the students and teachers that are flying in. They are going to be exhausted, but it should be fun to meet them there.
I’m running around in shorts and flip-flops, but storms tend to blow in every once in a while, and I don’t want to get caught in a wet one. Starting on Monday the weather is supposed to improve to what the newspaper calls “fine weather”, so I’m looking forward to that!
