Not What I Expected

Trip Start Jul 28, 2006
1
86
Trip End Ongoing


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of Japan  ,
Saturday, July 29, 2006

I have worked for two years for this trip. I have become homeless, sold many of my belongings and left my beloved Westie, Bonnie, with her surrogate mom. I have turned my life upside down to have this one precious year with my son, Matthew. I have planned and researched and will spend thousands of dollars. I had such high hopes. Yet things have not begun as I had anticipated. I am sad because the relationship I had hoped would be the ONE endly badly less than a week before we left. And Matthew, my travel buddy, has fallen head over heels in love and has already told me he will not finish the trip with me. Four months is too long when you are young and in love, so he will probably leave me 4-6 weeks early. I can empathize--the first month I was away from his father I worked 10 grueling days bussing tables at a restaurant at the Iowa State Fair and spent all of my hard-earned $300.00 on phone calls to him. But our sadness permeates this trip and the joy and excitement I had hoped for has been replaced with breaking hearts and pain. Our theme of ill-fate almost got the best of us on our initial air flight. While we left Portland at 8:00 am to drive to Seattle and make our 2:45 flight, a wrong turn almost caused us to miss our plane. But we DID make it--just barely. Perhaps our luck is changing. We arrived in Tokyo exhausted around 6:00 pm Saturday (4:00 am Friday morning our time) and after a long bus ride checked in to the Tankawana Prince Hotel. Matthew spent most of the night on the phone with Leslie. I slept in between phone calls. He slept some. Tomorrow we will begin with a tour of Tokyo.
Slideshow Print this entry Tokyo hotels

Comments

cswitzer
cswitzer on Aug 15, 2006 at 08:30PM

pictures
Dear Sheri,

I love all the pictures of you and Matt! Thanks for sharing your journey with us at home. I hope you are feeling better than when you started. I just got home from Philly where I spent a week with Erin and her boyfriend, Joe. It was quite nice.

I look forward to your next blog.

Charlotte Switzer

Add Comment