Go with the Flow?
We left our house at 6:15 am on Tuesday and 27 hours later four out of five Quists stumbled into hotel rooms in Nagoya, Japan. We only stayed the night, but I haven’t slept that hard in years, at least without anesthesia. The next morning we rolled out of bed and caught a train to one town where we caught a taxi to Hikone, where Natalie awaited us with equal amounts of eagerness to see us and irritation at having to get up early. She’s been studying in Hikone since September through the Japan Center for Michigan Universities, an arm of Michigan State. It was so good to see her! And immediately we invaded her life, dropping our piles of luggage in her room, dragging her off to see Hikone Castle, and embarrassing her with our American tourist ways. She gets over it whenever we buy her food though, so it’s okay. She helped us order food and buy train tickets. It is an amazing thing to see your own child speaking proficiently in a language you can’t even begin to comprehend, like she is ...