It's a Long Way - to Itinerary

Yesterday afternoon I received the confirmation that my visa and passport were picked up and they, along with my travel documents, are on the way to me via FedEx. The email included the itinerary - it’s a 14-hour flight to Tokyo, a 2 ½-hour layover in Tokyo, and a 4 ½-hour flight to Manila. That will be a long day. I plan to change the ticket so that I return to Los Angeles (most likely after some travel-to-be-named-later), but if I weren’t, interestingly, the return would be 4-hour flight, 3-hour layover, 12 ½-hour flight – still long, but significantly shorter! I wonder if the plane travel will seem easier after traveling in Morocco. It’s hard to believe that I am actually leaving in a few days – I feel I’ve been in a holding pattern for so many weeks now that it’s become my natural state.

I expected friends or family to be here with me this entire week, so I had some late nights last week writing and packing and organizing. The friend agendas changed, so I have extra time to myself! It’s still nice to be this ready, but it’s strange to have this open time. I have treated the writeup of my trip as a real assignment, and it is weird not to have that to work on (not that it’s done, but I won’t be able to finish Hawaii this week, so I don’t want to start). I’m now working on sweptashore and on Princeton class business, so I’m not completely carefree (though I also went on long bike rides and took a walk in the village). I’ve been calling some friends so we can talk before I go, but I know I won’t have time to talk to everyone I want to talk to – I’ll just have to get myself back in the phone habit more quickly and more regularly next time than I did this time. I thought I had seen the last of New York City, but I’m going back in again, which is good. I haven’t read any of Culture Shock: Philippines in about a week now – I’d like to make more of a dent in it. It’s raining today (which reminds me – I should add rain to my list of immediate expectations) so I might just do that.

One of the things I read mentioned frequent outages of electricity – I said in the comment section that I don’t want to get there and immediately say, “I have to buy shampoo,” but I do have an immediate need – an adaptor/surge protector/whatever they call it (the thing I read said to buy it there – though if it’s the same as the one I use here I may wish I had packed the one I use here!), so that I can use my computer (and surf-noise machine). In other words, I don’t know how soon I will be able to write when I get there, or how soon I will be able to post. But I’ll be back!