The trip started at Phil's house. Mom and I drove there, while Dad stayed the night. The bagels that Phil picked up before the trip were a blessing. We all ate and drank our energy (i.e. coffee and Mountain Dew). We left later than we said we would but I am sure almost every endeavor that the Smith family has embarked on has been started later than planned. We stopped a few times on the way to Denver. After leaving Omaha, the city I love, we drove through the parts of Nebraska that I have grown to detest. Histories of rednecks and rustlers were written upon the countryside. I slept. I slept a lot.
Getting to Denver was great. We were all ready to get settled in, and get the hell out of the car. We walked to dinner at On the Boarder. The gentle rain was apropos. The general feeling I felt was sadness, but not enough to ruin my mood. The rain, just like my mood, wasn't enough to deter us from sitting outside. The food was good and when we returned to the hotel everybody was ready to sleep. Phil and Betsy went to their room. Mom read for a while and then fell asleep. Dad watched a movie on his laptop. I, on the other hand, went to the sauna to soak in the hot-tub to relax and think about the trip.
The next day, we all conviened at the pool. It was beautiful outside. Omaha was sweltering with humidity and heat, but Denver was quite cool. We found a table under a tree that gave us a good deal of shade from the sun. Towards lunch time Phil and Mom went to the grocery store and picked up a fantastic lunch. Fruits, vegetables and lunch-meat for the bagels that were brought from Omaha. It was so good. We lounged by the pool all day. I sporatically jumped in the pool throughout the day to cool off. I would not have wanted the day to go any differently. My family of academics just sat around and read or played video games or solved sudoku's. It started to rain a little, and everybody was asked to go inside. After a long walk through the downtown area, we finally agreed upon a place to eat. It was a little cafe that had really good food. Dad took a thousand pictures, and we all rolled our eyes but we really wanted them too.
The next morning was my last day with my family. I went to the store with Phil and picked up some odds and ends. After loading everything back into Phil's pickup we left for the Curtis Hotel in beautiful LoDo Denver. The hotel was very posh and trendy. After loading my 150 lbs. of bags onto the handcart, I remember saying, "Let's get this over with..." I'm not sure why I said that but I'm pretty sure that I wasn't really ready to leave my family behind. I'm not sure I was really ready to leave Omaha and America behind. College life for me has been a constant stuggle with myself to push for change; change in me but also change in the world around me. It felt like I was leaving so much behind. I hugged my family all in turn. I felt the weight of the world teeter-totter. With every embrace I was comforted, yet I was also completely bound by the weight of my decision.
I walked into the Curtis Hotel alone. I rode the elevator up to my room talking to the attendant trying not to think about everything that was yet to come. I set everything up in my hotel room. Preparing my suit for the meeting at the Japanese consulate later that night. I figited with everything. I turned on my DS and turned it off, I had the news in the background, and I called for some $25 macaroni and cheese (For the first time in my life I am not exaggerating a number). My roommate came an hour later and we made weak small talk. I knew that we didn't have much in common, which was to be a common thread among many of the JET participants. The only sure-thing was that we all spoke English.
The orientation at the house of the Consulate of Japan was boring and stuffy in the basement. I met some interesting people and met others that conjured feelings of being in West Omaha. I guess that I am the only person who felt like they did not belong and at any moment I would be found out and asked to leave, because there were others that conducted themselves in a manner that was extremely disrespectful to the presenters at the orientation. This was to be another common theme in my dealings with Westerners throughout my time in Denver and Tokyo. I must have been the only one that believed that I could be replaced. I must have been the only was whose Daddy wasn't a rich banker that could get them another position of similar prestige. After the drawn out meeting, we went upstairs and had our first experience at Japanese ceremony. All of us were needing a drink after the long winded orientation, but Japanese custom is to not drink a drop until a toast is made or until all toasts are made. There were too many god-damned toasts! The consul's personal chef prepared sushi and sashimi. The food was amazing. The conversation got better as I was able to mix around the room. I even met another JET from Nebraska. A JET from Scottsbluff, and of course anybody from Scottsbluff knows of the Stinner family. Japanese have a way of ending events in two hours: we ate, we drank, we left. As the bus drove away, sunset was crawling behind the Rockys. It was beautiful. Many people went out for more drinks, but I felt like using the internet and getting my bags sorted. I left the room around midnight to 'blow off some steam.' I returned and fell asleep. We were to leave at 5:00 a.m. I only slept about an hour. Why not spend my last day in America as I spend most days; in a haze of sleep.
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