Saturday, March 28, 2009

I'm In Korea!

I'm exhausted after more than 20 hours of traveling.

Han picked me up from the airport (THANK YOU!!!!) and brought me to meet my friend. Now I'm at that friend's house, and his mother made a delicious meal for me. I just had a shower and now I'm about to go to bed. All is safe for now.

This weekend Han said he'll take me to a hostel and probably help me find a prepaid phone.

Later, I'll post the entries I made in my journal (thanks Anna) on the planes.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Almost There

It's been too long since I posted last. I'm sorry. 미안해요.

I went home to Rochester on Sunday and stayed until Wednesday. I went to the doctor, the dentist, and the eye doctor. I got new reading glasses, finally!

While home, my mom helped me a lot. She bought traveler's checks and some Korean money for me, and helped me get a C-3 short-term visit visa. I can now enter the country without a return ticket. Once I'm there, I'll go to the American embassy and talk to them about how other Americans have extended their visas in the past, then I'll try to do that. The most likely option is a student visa.

Also, because my birthday is March 25th, I celebrated with my dad and stepmother at their house. My stepmom made hamburgers and we had cake and ice cream :) As I left, my dad was waving out the window until I was out of sight, which is our family tradition when someone goes on a trip or leaves after a visit.

I celebrated Christmas, my brother's birthday (February), my birthday, and Easter with my mom and brother. We went to Chili's and got that DELICIOUS molten lava cake thing, which is kind of tradition for us. I had lunch at Pizza Hut with my mom and my old friend. That's another tradition.

I returned to East Lansing with a car full of years' worth of things from my house to add to what I had already in my apartment. After the heart-wrenching deconstruction of my beloved high school bedroom, I watched as people who had seen the ad on craigslist.com and a few of my friends picked meticulously through my belongings. I had no idea how to answer the recurring question, "how much do you want for this?" because I don't know what things are worth. Most of what I have was handed down to me or given to me as a gift. The things I bought are so old I can't remember buying them clearly. One man came back today (two days later) asking to see my bed, so I told him it was $40 (a fair price because it's in good condition) and he came back later again to look at the mattress. Then he said $40 was way too much for him and walked out, leaving a strong smokers' smell in my bedroom and my nerves shaken. Be careful of craigslist. I made a bit over $500. My life to this point is worth $500. I don't care.

It's still surreal. I'll take what's left to the goodwill store down the street tomorrow morning. Tonight I still have to finish packing, meet with one of my students to say goodbye, and go to a bar with my roommate to get a drink in public as I turn 21 at midnight.

Tomorrow I will go to the goodwill store, the secretary of state, I'll meet with other students to say goodbye, get lunch with my friend and say "see you later," get in my brother's car, and go to Dearborn to spend the night. Then on Thursday I'll fly out of Detroit at 10am.

So surreal.