My first plane was to leave at 9:30 am from ft. Lauderdale airport to Detroit, but with the security level having risen to the "orange" level, I had been informed to arrive 3 hours early to check in. Well let's just say that didn't exactly work out as I planned; I did not get any sleep, because I spent the part of the night dining and talking with my family and some close family friends, and the other part of the night packing and making sure I didn't leave anything and helping my older brother out pack his things too, because he was heading out of the house as well, for college though. I arrived in Ft. Lauderdale airport at 8:00 and finally got checked in around 8:30, so goodbyes were a little quick, then I went to the security check and my family left to drop of my brother for college in New York.

The first flight Detroit was only around 2 hours and 30 minutes and I slept through most of it. Then when I got off I walked to my next terminal and found the other rotary exchange students, I was the last one to arrive. It was probably around 15-20 of us and coincidentally the two other foreign exchange students from north Florida who I had met previously were there. Then we all got on our plane and a group of about 8 of us ended up together while the other was dispersed through the plane. The plane ride itself was an experience, for 12 hours we all sat there in coach class packed like sardines in the back of the plane, I didn't mind though I got a good 5-6 hours of sleep and fortunately I had the company of my fellow exchange students.

Then finally, what I had been waiting for, the arrival at Narita airport. We got there got off the plane and went together to immigration. It was pretty quick we all got through probably in 25 minutes. Then we went for our luggage and didn't even have to go through customs, A guard saw us and just told us to go through (just one of the many perks of wearing the rotary blazer). And As soon as I walked through the doors of customs to the arrival area, there were 7 Japanese men patiently awaiting me with a sign announcing my name. They were all really nice and only one of them spoke English well enough for me to carry a conversation but I interchanged words with them in both English and Japanese, and then we got into a small bus they had rented to carry us to chigasaki which is the city where I am residing with my first host family.

The scenery on the way was amazing I passed by Tokyo's other airport, Yokohama port among other small cities. The bus ride was about an hour and a half. I was expecting a small Japanese house or apartment, but to my surprise it is an old Japanese house and it's pretty big, there are no wooden doors, they are all the sliding doors you might have seen in japanese movies. I have my own room.

My host family consists of 7 people My host father and mother, their son or my host brother, his wife (my host sister in law), their three kids (host nephews) one girl who is 12 and two boys one who is around 8 and another one who is 5 and my host sister who lives out of the house with her husband and daughter only a block away. And luckily for me no one in the family speaks English. So my Japanese is improving. The family is really nice, my host mom cooks really good Japanese food the only bad thing is that since they are so surprised that I have eaten everything they can throw at me that they keep offering me more and more of everything and I have not learnt enough Japanese to refuse food politely so I just eat everything. Other than that they are all really helping me to learn Japanese and the only one that doesn't like me is the family dog which is this insane poodle who goes ballistic every time I get near its cage, my father even bought me one of those bikes with the basket in the front so I can bike 15 kilometers (a little less than 10 miles for those back in the US). everyday. And my school is suppose to be the most prestigious of this area and is located right in the middle of Hiratsuka city.

That's it for now and I'll send pictures later.

Sayonara