Meeting the Important People

Friday we all went to the new city hall to meet with the board of education and the mayor. They sat us down in a nice conference room. I was the first person in the teacher line because Adam and Celeste aren't here yet. We stood up, bowed, and stated our self-ntroductions. Then each member of the BOE gave a self-introduction. Most tried to say at least "My name is..." in English. Enchou-sensei also gave a speech in Japanese which was not translated into English. Then they opened up the floor for the BOE members to ask us questions. After that session was done, most of the BOE left, and the mayor came in. We basically repeated the process, but I ended up having to say my speech twice for the mayor. He gave a speech, which was translated by Okubo-sensei. I was desperately trying to not fall asleep. I was also trying to keep smiling. The mayor actually sat with us for a good while. I was surprised that the meetings took so long. I thought that such important people would be in and out, but we must have been at least sort of important.
After the meetings, we were shown around the building to the different departments. There was a department to deal with the Fukushima disaster aftermath. (It's been 4 years, but it takes time for everything to go back to normal.) Most of the departments were open plan, each department sitting at a long table. We were also shown into another conference room. It looks a little like the UN.