Final Week: Z

I've been back from my 11-month adventure for a few weeks now, and I've had time to reflect on what I've learned.

1. Whether you worry about it or not, things tend to work out in the end.
2. In the summer, the weather in Alaska is much better than the weather in Japan or Kansas.

3. How lucky am I to have English as my native language! It not only helped me get employment all over the world, but also helped me communicate in airports throughout the globe.
4. Italy is still the most beautiful country I've ever been to.

5. You can never have enough ZIPLOC bags when you travel.
6. Even though they had explicit instructions not to do so, your nephews will grow taller than you when you are away.
7. As long as you can eat noodles or rice, you can travel almost anywhere.
8. One positive experience with a local makes up for five negative experiences (so be nice to tourists!).
9. The Internet (Skype, Facebook, Hulu, online billpaying, etc.) makes living abroad so much easier than it was 20+ years ago when I first went to Italy, but it is still necessary to have a worthy secretary at home. (Thanks, secretary....and I still owe you that lunch!)
10. We are more alike than we are different.
11. Austrian Air has ridiculous baggage restrictions and fees.
12. There's no place like home ... especially when ZINNIAS are greeting you in the garden.

There it is: A-Z twice over. Thanks for letting me share my year with you!

Week 51: Y

This post is dedicated to my sister who is YEARNING for me to, for once in my life, finish a project.

YIKES! Upon my return home, besides weeds, weeds and more weeds, I also found a human head in my flower bed! Thanks to my brave brother-in-law who retrieved it for me (I thought it was a giant fungus and didn't want to deal with it), I now have an Easter-Island-worthy guardian of my back drive. But now I'd really love to know how it ended up in my garden.

I'm back in academic mode, so I thought I'd introduce some obscure Y words. Here are the precious little dears that I have been looking after the last two weeks. I'm happy to report that they don't YAFF (to bark like a snarling dog), nor, contrary to their appearance, do they YIP or YAP.

Mamma, whom I captured YAWNING in this action shot, did just vomit, though, as I was typing up this post. Oh, how many paper towels I will save when the girls go home to their parents tomorrow!

Somewhere in these trashcans full of my YARD detritus must be the poison ivy which is now making me YEUK (to itch or scratch).

Week 50: X

Fortunately, we are not XENOPHOBIC, or we would have difficulties teaching the 550 nonnative English speakers at the Applied English Center at KU, located here in Lippincott Hall. Did my great-grandfather ever think that this great-granddaughter would have an office in this very same building where he attended law school?

After pulling weeds for two weeks I'm considering XEROSCAPING my yard. Should I include these sculptures in the back? Made of reeds from a nearby lake, it is supposed to represent the tornadic winds in Kansas.

Week W

View of Seattle, WASHINGTON from the Space Needle.

WHALE WATCHING. The other people on my trip with telephoto lens had great pictures of these whales, I promise!

WEIGHT Gained on our cruise -- lots!!

WOW! WOW! WOW!

WEARING a jacket in August? WONDERFUL! Thank you, Alaska!

Week 48: V

A VERY brief foray at the Milan airport justifies a brief return to Italy for V week.

VESUVIO: I took this picture of a VULCANO in Naples back in March just in case I couldn't find any other Vs!

This little guy looks out over Mt. Vesuvius every day.

La VALLE del Po. Bellissima!

VERCELLI: Home not only of my alma mater (Rosa Stampa, Istituto Magistrale), but also 700-year-old buildings hosting clothing stores. To prove my Italophile status, I have to say that I love this storefront more than any other building I saw in the Orient.

VIENNA: Does a layover at the Vienna airport count?

Week 47: U

UMBRELLAS: When you have a rainy season, you learn to adjust. Stores have special umbrella stations at the door and a supply of umbrella wraps so that you don't drip everywhere. Naturally, the girls in our school embrace the rainy season with a lot of pink and cutesy designs.

UNIVERSITY: A few pictures of Sugiyama University, a campus for about 4,000 women (all commuters).

SAYONARA, Japan! Some things I will miss about you...

1. Respect for lines

2. School kids' uniforms--especially the 30's golf hats on the little boys

3. Gyozas at Lawsons 100

4. Flowers squeezed into open spaces.

5. The super-efficient grocery store bagging system.

6. Men wearing white gloves.

7. A fashion sense where anything goes

8. Being handed change with two hands

9. Ohio gozaimaaaaaaaaaas!

10. The Shinkansen -- bullet train

11. Cold Asahi beer

Some last signs of the times

Dude, didn't you watch Lost in Translation before signing the contract?

Kristy, I think I found your host bar!

So, if I understand correctly, in case of an earthquake, crying fish have precedence over driverless cars?

I'm sure that the food is velly dericious in this Itarian place!

 

T-TRIP to Nagano!

Nagano is TRULY TERRIFIC. I stayed on the grounds of the Zenko-ji TEMPLE, on these TATAMI mats.

But even the power of the TEMPLE couldn't save me from the storm clouds of TSUYU, or rainy season.

The TREES on the temple grounds seem other-worldly.

Did you want to see TREES? How about this line of cedar trees in TOGAKUSHI?

Or these TREES on the path to the Snow Monkey Park.

What? Did I mention snow monkeys? I kept trying to heed the warning and not make eye contact with the monkeys, but I'd be walking on a bridge and one would just pop out in front of me or, as you can see, one ran under my bench. (And yes, we really were that close to the famous snow monkeys who bathe in a hot spring.)

I love the mountains! What do I love most? The mountain range?

A mountain stream?

Or a mountain lake? (How about this one called mirror lake?)

Oh...and some icing on the cake: My favorite flower was in bloom!

Last Day of Classes!

Which means....

1. Parties with plenty of junk food.

2. Games!

3. Tons of pictures with this pose.

4. Lovely origami farewell notes.

Week 46: T

Happy Anniversary, M and D -- 45 years!!

How can you think of Nagoya without thinking of beleaguered TOYOTA?  On our tour of the Toyota factory, we saw this robot playing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" on his automated TRUMPET.

TORI, TORI, TORI! (or maybe it was TORA! TORA! TORA!?) TORII are traditional Japanese gates found at the entrance to Shinto shrines.

Still my favorite, the floating torii in Miyajima.

Then, there are the famous lines of torii gates at the Inari shrine near Kyoto.

But, I'm happy with my simple tori gate at the shrine near my school.

TOILET seat, heated. After the filth of the bathrooms in my school in China, it was a pleasant surprise to land on heated toilet seats in the bathrooms at our university. I still feel weird walking into the bathroom with a camera, so I don't have a photo for you, but let me assure you that it is one high-tech masterpiece. My favorite element is the courtesy flush -- you push the button and it makes the noise of a flush to cover up any other noises emanating from the stall. Very proper.

Just TWO weeks until I return home!