After a long week of jet lag, falling asleep on bus rides, Sakura trees, department stores, onigiri, and travel all around Tokyo and to the mountains and Gokayama it was finally Friday. But on the bus ride to the KGN school where we would meet our host student, the week felt like it could never have been long enough. Coming to Japan I had the notion that the knowledge that I had accumulated over the past three years of Japanese would more or less come together as I interacted with my host brother, especially seeing as I would have had just spent the week traveling Japan. But as we walked through the school gate onto the front quart yard and I saw the group of students on the other end the red alert resounded with a deafening wailing in my brain and my confidence fell away into the abyss. We were instructed that we would find our host students next to our checked luggage from the flight to Japan. I located my suitcase only to find that no one was standing next to it. I turned around to find a short, thickset Japanese boy in a KGN uniform behind me. I asked “Daura?” The boy motioned to my left, “That is my friend, Daura.” Confused, I spun to see another Japanese boy in KGN uniform walking towards us across the courtyard. He was bigger than the first, and was wearing a white face mask like many Japanese do. By this time my confidence had diminished by a notable amount, but I recomposed myself and started towards my host brother. As we met in the middle of the court yard I asked for the second time, “Daura?” He nodded his head yes. When I reached out to shake his end he pulled his hand back shaking it from side to side. I can look back on that gesture now and confidently assume that he had a cold or something, but in the moment it only added to my confusion and embarrassment. We returned back to my bag and where I had expected there to be natural conversation there just wasn't. After a long silence Daura asked me in broken English whether I wanted to speak in English or Japanese. Shamefully answering in part English, part Japanese I said that we could use both. And then without another word, except for maybe a confirmationed grunt or two, we headed to the train with Kenji and his host brother Kazu. Kazu is the first boy who I mistook to be Daura who also happened to be Daura’s best friend. When Daura and Kazu banded together I took to the front with Kenji. We talked in English about how horrible our Japanese had magically become when we met our host brothers, and we fretted together about the weekend and meeting the family. My one interaction with Daura on the walk was limited and extremely awkward. I prompted him about his younger sister explaining that I had an older sister who was in college. This led to a brief conversation about our likes and dislikes, where I found each of my lengthy answers that I had prepared reduced to a choppy few word answer, or not applicable to the questions he was asking. When we finally arrived at the train stops it felt like I had just completed the Hajj. After a confusing reimbursment of my t-card, a long train ride, and a walk to his house filled with more broken and awkward conversation, I finally met the family and settled in. It was one of the longest weekends of my life, but it I survived and it was fun. Before I left for Japan everyone was saying how I would be practically fluent by the time I got back home, but that is not anywhere near true. I would say that speaking in Japanese was extremely difficult through just about the whole trip. There was never one moment where I could simply relax and Japanese words would magically flow out. I constantly had to focus to answer questions, to express my needs and opinions, and to understand the Japanese that as being spoken to me. Even now, on the very last day of the trip, I can only pick out bits and pieces of what my family and brother are saying to me. I think one of the most important things that I could say about this trip and my experiences is that I didn't really expand my Japanese in the form of learning new material or grammar patterns at all, rather I expanded it through gaining confidence in the basic form of speech that I learned to readily use through constant communication with my family.