It wouldn't be an offical Move without getting lost....

That's right, every time we have moved (to San Francisco, Wash D.C and now Okinawa) I have gotten lost while driving. Today was no exception.

When we moved to San Francisco, I was unfamiliar with the city and I was trying to follow John in another car through the city to our apartment, but he decided to travel through a yellow light that I could not make, and we got separated. I don't think he realized for a while that I was not behind him, and before I knew it, I found myself driving toward the Golden Gate Bridge and luckily was able to get off before the toll and find a place to stop and call John (who wasn't answering his phone for a while). He somehow found me and all was well.

In Maryland, I had only been there a week, and I had to drop John off at the Dulles Airport in Virginia. On my way home, I somehow missed the exit to cross back into Maryland and I guess that was the last exit for quite sometime.Of course I panicked because the freeway wouldn't let me get off to turn around and then when I finally found an exit, it didn't give the option to get back on. I was lost for at least an hour driving around (with no cell phone or map) and again, somehow found a road that led me home safe and sound 3 hours later.

So being in a foreign country, that defiantly spices things up a bit. I can't read the signs, and I can't speak the language. Anyway, John and I finally got our licenses to drive and picked up our car the other day, and it has been quite the adventure learning to drive all over again. I feel like a first timer with my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, and the best part about driving here is that the top speed you can drive on the island is 60 kilometers...which is like 37 miles an hour.....so stinkin slow! One base, you can go as fast as 30 km or 16 to 17 miles an hour. This will take some getting use to. Anyway, on to the climax of my post.

So today, John and I were very excited to take our new car out and see the island. We started heading south toward Naha, the capital of Okinawa, and on our way, saw an awesome park and playground and decided to get off the highway to find it. When we got there, we realized we were parked on a hill above the playground and the stairs going down to the playground were steep and plenty, so John offered to take the kids down the stairs, while I would drive around and park below. Luckily, I grabbed my iphone from his bag, but I thought it would be easy to find the road around the park to the bottom. To make a long story longer, i got lost....really lost. When John called me 20 minutes later to ask me where I went, I told him my situation (that there was no direct road and I couldn't find my way back to the upper parking lot) he reminded me of my GPS on the iphone (I'm still learning how to use it, since all the instructions that came with it were in Japanese, not to mention that all the street names and such are in Japanese on the GPS) so I turned on the GPS to see where I was. Here's the problem, I had no idea where I started from or where the park was from that point, so the GPS wasn't much help. After an hour, I finally was able to get back on a road that we had passed earlier, however, I took the wrong exit, which put me directly onto a toll road expressway....okay, before this time, I was calm and thought I could figure this out, but at this moment, I started to freak out. 1) because I left my wallet with John, so I had no money or Yen to pay the toll to get off 2) because I didn't have my new license with me, so that's a big deal out here where they can suspend your license for 1 month just for not having it on you and 3) I had Amelia with me in the car who was sleeping before, but was sadly awoken to her mother yelling at her husband on the phone because of reasons 1 and 2!

When I finally found an exit, I was crying and trying to tell the nice Japanese lady at the booth that I had no money. They had me pull over and I told them, I would try to get my husband to bring my money, so they let me wait in the parking lot for him. Another 2 hours later, John (his adventures are a whole 'nother funny story with the taxi driver) and the other kids finally found me and we were able to go home.

The best part about waiting in a hot and humid car with an infant...she had a very poopie diaper that was about to leak and John had all the diapers. There is nothing like a hot and stinky car to end an edventure like this one!