Departure to Los Angeles

One of the best memories I have of my night heading out to the airport is right before departing.  Our bathroom has a light on the left and right of the sink, and I had just trimmed my hair with Tella's help and was shaving.  The left light was burnt out, so I asked for her to hold up my phone with the flashlight on where the light usually was so that I could have an even beard.  At this point, I don't remember what originally caused Tella to start holding back a smile, but when I looked left I saw it and it struck my funny-bone.  I immediately had to stop shaving because I smiled, and that prevented me from putting the razor where I had planned to on my lip.  Once we both laughed and calmed down, I started shaving again.  Unfortunately, the previous laughing fit had Tella attempting to stifle her laugh/smile, which made me smile, which made me stop shaving, which made it all the funnier.  Eventually, after a few iterations of this, I DID end up keeping back laughter and shaving, which was probably good as my beard had been uneven.

The moon was brighter and bigger the night I left--which was nice as I drove.  As the moon got low on the horizon, it turned yellowish, and it happened to be right in front of some wind turbines; I needed to pull over anyway to wake up and stretch, so I got the following photo:

Once we got to the airport the following day (having slept briefly in a hotel in Limon), I held Tella after unloading my luggage; it was a little rough seeing Tella off and knowing how long it would be until we got to see each other in person next, but the actual flight and everything went smoothly.  Once in Los Angeles, I used Lyft for the first time and got a ride to Phil's house (he's a student of Nakayama Sensei).  We had a good time chatting and eventually headed out to class.  Nakayama Sensei didn't know I was going to be there, so I enjoyed getting to surprise him and train with his crew.  

We followed up training by their typical evening special gathering: ACDC (after class drinking club).  That included excellent food, dealer calls poker, and some coins Nakayama Sensei lent me (which I returned with quite a bit of interest).




Once we called it a night, I crashed hard in Phil's spare bed and boarded my big international flight the following day!  Then began my international leg!

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