Iliana

Iliana is pretty much my best friend in the whole world. We have had a lot of good times together. We have also helped each other through a lot of hard, stressful times, too. We have talked a lot about everything and I think she knows me better than most of my friends that I have been in school with since I was 5 do. It's really hard to realize that we have only known each other for a little more than 8 months. And it is even harder for me to realize that she is gone... I just don't believe it.

Today at a little after 1 o'clock I watched her being driven away from the Breezebay Hotel in Minatomirai. But, I guess I should go back and blog about yesterday.

Yesterday (Friday, the 8th) I had school in the morning. We didn't really even have school. The other girls just had physicals at school. I didn't take the physical because I told them I didn't want to and my teacher said that it was okay for me not to take it. School started at 9:50, so I got to school at 8:30. We had sport's festival practice in the morning. Then at 10, all the girls go to take their physical. I go to study on my own for an hour. At about 11 I told my teacher I had to leave to go to my Rotary Club lunch. (I usually leave at 11:30 for it, but I had extra stuff to do yesterday so I told them I was going at 11.) I walk home and drop off my school bag and my host mom took me to a picture shop where I dropped off a picture for them to print out for a gift to give to Iliana. Then I went to my Rotary lunch in Yokohama, which went fine.

My rotary lunches are all pretty much the same. Yesterday I wasn't asked to give a speech, so that was nice. I got my allowance and ate my obento. The obento was pretty good this time, too. Then after the meeting I got to meet and talk with my 3rd host father (Mr. Tateno) for a little bit. I was actually surprised because he is really young. We discussed the day I will change to their house, but that is about it. I guess they have a middle school aged child (boy?), so it will be interesting to live in a family with that age kids.

Anyway, more on host family number three once I actually know something about them. I went home from the meeting, changed out of my school uniform, finished packing my bag, and left to meet Iliana at Yokohama. When I got there she was in the T.G.I. Fridays with Ruan and Felipe so I went there to meet them. Then after a little bit the guys left and Iliana and I got to have some time with just the two of us. She wanted to go shopping in Yokohama, so we did. After she was done with that we went to her house.

I stayed the night there for her last night in Japan. I watched (I tried helping, but I didn't know how to do it the way she wanted it done) her pack up her bags and helped her go over everything that she needed for today. We had a nice dinner of yakitori, koroke, and sushi with her family. Then once everything was set for the morning we just talked. We finally went to sleep around 3 in the morning, but it was so fun to talk.

We thought about all the good times and hard times we have had and about how much we have learned here. We remembered our first weeks and the stupid, embarrassing things we did because we didn't know how to do it correctly. And we talked about how it will be to go home and plans to see each other again. But I still couldn't believe she was going to leave.

I remember the first time I saw her after our language classes were over in that first week we were here. It was on September 12. I was on my second week of school and as I was riding the train home I was thinking about how I wanted to do something that weekend. But the only people I knew at all were the other rotary students. We didn't have cell phones yet and I didn't know how to get a hold of any of them. Then as I am spacing out Iliana pops up out of no where and is like, "Abbey?!" What are the odds that she was in the same car of the same train as me? It was meant to be. Anyway, from there we made plans to meet on msn and hang out that weekend. It was funny because I didn't even talk to her that much at the first week of Japanese classes. From then on we have hung out almost every week. Or at least talked. Once we both had cell phones we text messaged almost every single day. I love that girl! We got to be really close friends, and we knew that if we ever needed anything here the other one was there for us.

This morning we got up at 8 and had omelet rice (Iliana's request) for breakfast. Then we made sure everything was ready to go and left for Sakuragichou Station to meet other people. Iliana had invited all the exchange students and some adults she knows here to meet her there to say goodbye. We (the exchange students apart from Iliana) had our rotary orientation meeting starting at 2 in the Breezebay Hotel anyway. We got to talk and take pictures and hang out for a couple hours before her host parents came to the hotel (which we walked to once everyone met up with us) to pick her up. We got to take pictures with all 8 of the inbounds of District 1590 for the year 2008-2009 for the last time.

Camille, Katja, Vincent, Ruan, Iliana, Abbey, Felipe, and Korn.

(From top to bottom) Ruan, Abbey, Vincent, Iliana

When her host brother came in to tell her it was time to go we all said goodbye. Some people cried a little, but I didn't. She got in the car and drove off. And then she messaged my phone like 15 minutes later.

Me giving my speech with no notes!

The meeting went well, and then I hung around Minatomirai with some of the other rotary students. Finally, as we were sitting on steps by the bay eating our combini food for dinner I started to cry. I know I will see her again. I know it's not good-bye for ever; just see you later. But it still sucks that my best friend is going back to Mexico. And I won't see her for at least a year. (Hopefully she will come up to Ironwood for my graduation next year.) And I will be the last exchange student to leave Japan from my group. I get to watch everyone leave, one by one, before I actually leave myself.

Needless to say, I am very tired now. Today was very emotional and I didn't get enough sleep last night. I miss Iliana already! And she is still in the airplane. It's time for me to take a hot bath and go to bed.