In Which I Have an Accident

This is short, and just to let people know since I've been out of contact with most of you for the past couple weeks, last week I had an accident on the day I moved out of my apartment and moved up to my friend Jody's house an hour and a half away from where I was living. I pretty much totaled my car, my head went into the windshield, but luckily there was no concussion, and the man I rear-ended was fine too though his car needs replaced apparently. I have insurance. That should cover it, though my company seems to not know if it will cover everything to replace his car, although they said it would if I ever hit someone. Hopefully they knew what they were talking about then and the new guy who works there who told me it might not cover everything doesn't know what he's talking about. I had to go to the man's house and do a formal apology, which basically meant I bought him a thirty dollar gift box of cakes and treats and put and envelope on top with a hundred dollars in it and had to slide it across the tatami mat floor to him saying, I'm terribly sorry, by my own carelessness I've caused and accident, and this gift is to show you my feelings about the situation. Then he made us tea and we chatted. He's a farmer out here in Yachiyo, which is extremely country. But he's nice. The evening of the accident, he got in my car to wait for his tow truck and we chatted then too, so I wasn't too freaked out about having to go and do this totally humbling formal apology thing that's done here. In any case, the accident was because I came around a blind curve and he was waiting there right on the curve to turn onto a tiny dirt road and I tried to stop but even so slid partially into his back passenger side of the car. My head had a huge bump on it from going into the windshield for days but it's back to normal now. I was worried because my company kept saying if he sues I wouldn't be able to leave Japan as planned, but I'm not sure why they kept scaring me with that because I had insurance and all of my Japanese friends were telling me if you have insurance there's no reason the man would have to sue you. Maybe my company was just angry they had to deal with this and were trying to make me feel worse. Who knows? But like my friends said, the man's not suing, so now I have to hope my insurance covers everything for his car like it's supposed to do. I guess I can't come home saying I didn't do just about everything I could have in Japan, because between this accident and the mumps and a gazillion other unforeseen things, both good and bad, I feel like I've lived here longer than the couple of years it's been.

Anyway, I don't have a regular internet connection at this point, so please be patient. Some of you might not hear from me until I'm back in the states. Sorry.