Globetrotting

I can’t wait until downtown Lincoln looks like this. It finally feels like all these changes are going to happen that people have been talking about for years. It certainly sounds like it at 7am. All I care about is the alleged grocery store that may be in the Civic Square building. I suppose the arena could be cool too. I remember when Starbucks first opened. It seemed so out of place. Today that’s not so true. I always thought of Downtown Lincoln, as place only locals could get to, patrons and venders alike. Somehow the franchise has caught up it seems, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

After a long search involving many persistent phone calls, we finally located a place to live downtown. Our apartment sits on the 6th floor of the historic Lincoln Building at 10th and O streets. We’ve got the 2 bedroom on the southwest corner of the building. It’s Melissa, me, and Kyle up here.
Our new address is 1001 O street # 604, 68508 zip.

Pictures to come. Come see us!

I have a Star Tran bus pass now. Now I can ride any bus, any time for 31 days consecutively with my monthly pass. Walking does me pretty good, but with cold weather coming I plan to take full advantage of Lincoln’s only public transportation option.

I heard that the city recently added some stops, or times, or something. They seem to go much further now, and cover most of the latest urban sprawl. At least there is some effort going into developing mass transportation in Lincoln. Most people are pretty disappointed when it comes to the general operation of our city’s busses. I just wish they ran until at least 9pm on the weekdays, and until 2am on Friday and Saturday. If so, people could use the busses as a means of personal trans-city travel, as opposed to strictly a jobsite commute. It will be interesting to see this system from the inside.

It’s nice to be able to read the labels in the grocery store again. Being back has meant Melissa and I are able to resume a much more wholesome vegan diet. There’s no whole wheat in Asia! We always felt as vegan’s in Lincoln that our options were so limited and we, as a city, were so behind. We’ll we were right. Even Iowa City is superior in its vegan friendly food options. The bottom line is there are not enough options in Lincoln, and there’s not enough of a commitment from the options we do have. Given that we’re going to start school and be here for a while we thought we might as well do something about it.

Enter the Lincoln Vegan Society.

I figure if the vegans, vegetarians, and people who want to eat healthy at least sometimes put our voices together business and restaurants will have to expand their options.
I think we need a complete list of vegan food available. I think this list will encourage more places to offer a dish, just to be a part of this local community. Imagine knowing that your local restaurant of choice had more that one Lincoln-Vegan-Society certified dish! I know there are enough people that we can make a difference. I think this could encourage better dinning, and better business for everyone involved. We’ve got a lot of ideas about what to do and how to do it. The ball is rolling.

If your reading this, and your in Nebraska, and we haven’t met up yet I apologise. We will soon! We’re headed to Omaha for a while and will be in Lincoln again afterwards.

Our first week back in Lincoln we’ve been trying to acclimate ourselves to “American time”, and American life. It’s been going allright. I think we both have felt pretty good, but we still find ourselves sleeping and eating at slightly strange and inconsistent hours.

It’s really weird to walk inside with shoes on.

Off interstate I-80, through the town of South Bend (pop. 92), over the railroad tracks, lies one of my favorite places in the world.

A beautiful community of homes, mansions, and cabins has sprung up around North Lake, just off the Platte River, over the past 45 years.

My Great Grandparents, Earnie and Zina Foudray, bought a little lake bungalow around ’65. As the family has grown grandkid by grandkid, so has the house. Now it’s a nice 5 1/2 bedroom house, that can easily host 40 Foudray’s.

My mom, brothers and I first moved to Nebraska in 1997, however there wasn’t a year before that when we didn’t make the long drive up from Texas to visit family and enjoy time off. As a child my summers revolved around getting to stay with my Dad in the Dallas metro area, and spending the rest of my time in the cool spring fed water of “my Grandma’s lake”. As my family has changed, and I’ve moved I don’t know how many times, the lake has always been a constant of my life. Out here as a child I had free reign to swim in the lake, camp on the river, climb the hillsides and play my heart out. If there’s one place where I can say, “I grew up here” I suppose it would be the lake.

It’s a place where people wave to one another, and pick up their own trash. Eagles can be seen soaring over the river at the right times, and the sun sets in just the right spot. I’ve always been thankful to be a part of, and have a place like this, and I’m happy to be here now.

We’re back.

The flight home was nice. Well as nice as a trans-pacific flight could be I suppose. I could tell we were on the way home when the flight attendants had a bit of a drowned unenthusiastic tone about themselves, and the plane seat kind of smelled bad. Quite different then my last two flights on Japan and China Airlines.

Lincoln looks familiar, yet all these places I can recall so well seem like a whole new world. It reminded of me of going back to my old middle school. You know, when the ceilings feel like they’re right one top of your head, and the water fountains seem just above the floor. Though I knew my way around the streets of our town, but I could’ve sworn they were never this big. I had forgotten how huge and magnificent our trees are, and just how many of them Lincoln has. These wonderful October afternoons with a bright sun and cool breeze was a wonderful welcome home.

We’re just taking it one day at a time now. Adjusting little by little. Thinking about what comes next, and what just happened. It’s been nice seeing so many “things” missed, and realizing how many more “things” I have to miss now in this world.

Nagano was soooo much fun. I can’t even put it in to words. What a great last weekend we had in Japan. Our girls’ team almost won the tournament and they played really well. In the championship match they forfeited when the other teams captain broke her ankle, while playing in the pouring rain. The boys however, well, they had fun that’s for sure. They didn’t win a game but they did show everyone up on the dance floor. We had the loudest cheers and had a BIG party on the sidelines of every game screaming chants and cheers as loud as we could while serving cocktails to everyone. Saturday night all the teams got together for a big celebratory dance where the Saitama girls and guys shut ‘em down. Not only did we dominate, our circle was by far the HOTEST. I busted out windmills for the first time in several years, still got ‘em, and the whole party blew up. I don’t think we could’ve gone out in any better fashion.

Today is our last day in Japan. I can’t really imagine it. I guess I’ve been in denial about for some time now. I’m not really bummed about leaving; I just can’t imagine what these next couple days will have in store for me.

Last night we met some of our best friends for one last drink, and good time. They are all really going to miss us, and we are sure going to miss them. We’ve made so many good friends this trip, it’s kind of sad to leave them all. However that’s been one of them many themes of this trip. Moving on, and around, always saying goodbye to someone, and somewhere. Traveling is not about what you take with you, but what you leave behind. A circle has no beginning right?

Now I must prepare for that fateful train ride, and plane ride. I am so excited to see all of you! We’ll be in touch. We’re coming home.

We’re off to Nagano for the weekend! We are going by bus with about 20 JET’s and teachers from the Saitama area. Chris is on a soccer team that is playing in an International tournament of sorts. It’s destined to be a stellar time, and we haven’t been to this prefecture yet so that’s cool too. During our stay here we’ve had the opportunity to hang out with a good portion of these dudes and dudettes, who come from all over the world, so one last BIG weekend will be great.

I just finished the final Harry Potter book. Chris owns the whole set so I’ve been snagging a couple here and there the past couple months, as we traveled in-and-out-of, and around Japan. Since I’m a late starter (the first book released almost 10 years ago) I was able to start with The Philosophers Stone, and read straight through to The Deathly Hallows, which took me about 2 months.

It was a wonderful series. I felt that JK Rowling paid tribute to some of the greatest works of fiction of the past, while creating a world new to us all.
I must say that The Half Blood Prince was my favorite. It’s pretty dark, and goes into the history of the evil Lord Voldemort. The last two books are SOOO intense, my heart pounded relentlessly and my fingers shook while turning the pages, no joke. I hadn’t cried over a book in a long time, and I found myself tearing up several times through the last two. I highly recommend the entire series to ANYONE.