Nov
05
Back home again in Indiana
It has been nearly seven months since I was in Indianapolis last, so I decided that it was time for a visit. I planned my trip to leave Austin last Tuesday, early in the morning. I set two alarms for 4:45am, knowing that one would probably end up failing, and went to sleep. Next thing I realized, I was waking up, but not to the sound of the radio. I squinted to look at the clock. Fuck. It was 6:40, ten minutes after my plane took off.
An hour and 25 dollars later, I boarded the next flight out.
I thought I had been getting cold symptoms the day before, and by now it was apparent that I wasn't going to be training at Aikido of Indianapolis tonight.
Over the next few days, I spent a lot of time reading, walking around downtown Indy, visiting coffee shops and art galleries. Katie came up from Bloomington to visit, so we went up to Broad Ripple for lunch and then to the IMA for about fifteen minutes before it closed. I saw an impressive performance by The Impossible Shapes in Fountain Square with Erik, at the Big Car gallery opening. Front row, too. I'm going to have to buy one of their albums.
The following morning, I woke up at 6:00am (with a working alarm clock) to drive out to Central Illinois Aikikai in Champaign-Urbana. Frank Doran was there for the weekend, teaching a seminar. The original plan was for six of us from the dojo to go, but one by one bailed out for various reasons, leaving it to just Susan and myself.
We still had a lot of fun, spending a few hours in the nearby bars, The Office and Crane Alley, and of course the aikido classes were awesome. Doran sensei has a unique teaching style which is quite different from the usual japanese shihan. Also, there's some pretty good thai food at Siam Terrace, especially considering this is a tiny midwestern town.
Back in Indy for my last day, I had much to do (and eat, apparently). Breakfast at the Canary Cafe, lunch with Tyson at Yat's, training at the old dojo with Donovan and Susan, dinner at the Oaken Barrel, and yet more beer with Ray and brent.
The return trip was luckily much less eventful, and then, back to work.