in transit...

So it's been a while since I've been able to throw in an update on here, but I've been pretty busy over the past month...

Yesterday I returned home from a trip to Philadelphia that included a two day venture in Vermont with Jordan to see friend and ex-housemate Lisa, who will be moving to Turkey in late August to teach English. I had planned on visiting the Philly crew a while back but the Vermont idea was pretty much done on a whim...I think I needed to get a bit of spontaneity out of my system before settling down and gearing up for Japan. Jordan and I were a bit discouraged when the 2:05 AM bus came to the Philly Greyhound station and the driver announced that there were no seats available. It was a few hours later that we found out that the next bus would be at 5:30 AM. Having got no sleep the night before, we decided to throw in the towel. We both agreed that it was a good thing that we were too exhausted to be angry when we were denied access on a bus that we both had tickets for. But that's Greyhound for ya.

We ended up catching a bus at 2:45 AM the next morning. After 9 hours of observing a rotating all-star cast of bus riders, we arrived in Brattleboro, VT a little before noon. Lisa picked us and took us back to her temporary residence at a small college in Marlboro where she is working as a nanny until mid August. Jordan and I were amused when it was revealed that we weren't really allowed to be there, so we had to pretty much stay hidden while lurking around Lisa's dorm.

Aside from the bus rides to and from, Vermont was great. We were able go boating, do a good amount of hiking, drink some local IPA (and dance at the Mole's Eye while the locals tried to make sense of our physical gyrations to Salt-N-Pepa), and, finally, hang out with a cool six year-old.







In other news- Jon took off for South Korea earlier in the month. I'm glad that we got to hang out a good amount before he left and I'm excited to pay him a visit in the next few months (among other future endeavors together).





And last week I was fortunate enough to have a Japanese-themed party thrown in my honor...




Some recent Pittsburgh/Philly/Greensburg shots...







I'd say that tomorrow marks the beginning of my actual preparations for leaving. Most of my stuff is ready to be moved out of my apartment on Pearl St. and I've got JET's official list of things that I need to bring to Japan waiting for me in Greensburg. I've got week and a half before I'll be in DC doing pre-departure orientation stuff and I'm expecting this time to fly by. Actually, these next few months are going to be so full of new people and experiences that I'll probably forget what it's like to be relaxing on a couch in here in Pittsburgh. However, I won't forget the great send off that I've had. Over the past few weeks I've been fortunate enough to spend time with many of the people that I really needed to see before leaving. It's crazy, I've never said goodbye to so many people...it makes me think about what will change when I see friends and family again. But it doesn't really worry me because I know that I'll be keeping in touch.