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Coming to America
Mar. 22nd, 2003 11:52 amA few friends from Tsuru are actually visiting the States over the next couple weeks. Noriko has been in California since Tuesday or so, checking out colleges (most of the tutors in the Tsuru program eventually intend to return the favor by coming to a UC; that's why they signed up). Since she was coming down to check out UCLA, everyone in SoCal (that's me, David, Nathan, and Laura) drove over to meet her and catch up. Plus it was an excuse to get food.
Slight disaster coming in. I was expecting traffic, so I gave myself an hour and a half to get up the LA (Dave, the UCLAer, thought that sounded reasonable). Well, first, it wasn't... I wasn't to the right exit until something closer to an hour forty-five. Second, the right exit was this street (Wilshire) that runs right past some important government building just as you exit the freeway... Said exit, plus three blocks of Wilshire in both directions, were blocked off because half of LA was protesting the war outside. So I had to take another exit and wander around for a bit in an area I had NO familiarity with, and fight through other cars in similar states of confusion taking similar detours.(Because nothing makes me think how much I'd like peace for all mankind like being stuck in a traffic jam! >_<) Anyway, final arrival time: two and a half hours. And it took me another 15 minutes to calm down enough to feel conversational.
The rest had waited for thirty minutes at the parking garage and then gone on to the restaurant; they had gotten seated and ordered drinks when I called Dave's cell from the garage and asked for a location update. So I didn't miss too much, at least. Got caught up: Keiko may be coming to UCI next year (I'll be graduated by then, but I may still be in the area when she arrives), Yoshi's aiming for Berkeley. Marippe will be visiting California next week, hopefully in a quieter area. Tsuru Spring is well under way, this time with 15 tutors... and only 5 exchange students. Go fig.
Slight disaster coming in. I was expecting traffic, so I gave myself an hour and a half to get up the LA (Dave, the UCLAer, thought that sounded reasonable). Well, first, it wasn't... I wasn't to the right exit until something closer to an hour forty-five. Second, the right exit was this street (Wilshire) that runs right past some important government building just as you exit the freeway... Said exit, plus three blocks of Wilshire in both directions, were blocked off because half of LA was protesting the war outside. So I had to take another exit and wander around for a bit in an area I had NO familiarity with, and fight through other cars in similar states of confusion taking similar detours.(Because nothing makes me think how much I'd like peace for all mankind like being stuck in a traffic jam! >_<) Anyway, final arrival time: two and a half hours. And it took me another 15 minutes to calm down enough to feel conversational.
The rest had waited for thirty minutes at the parking garage and then gone on to the restaurant; they had gotten seated and ordered drinks when I called Dave's cell from the garage and asked for a location update. So I didn't miss too much, at least. Got caught up: Keiko may be coming to UCI next year (I'll be graduated by then, but I may still be in the area when she arrives), Yoshi's aiming for Berkeley. Marippe will be visiting California next week, hopefully in a quieter area. Tsuru Spring is well under way, this time with 15 tutors... and only 5 exchange students. Go fig.
