stuck in the doldrums.

I'm sort of like a boat. A sailboat on a journey through an endless ocean that just had a good run, but has had its sails unfurl. Not just that, but the winds have calmed as well.

Sitting neither at a checkpoint or destination, I feel like I'm just in transit with no wind to fill my sails. It happens, I know and I should've expected it, but being young and hopeful I expected more.

Sitting helpless and set adrift I slowly repair my sails hoping to be ready for the day that the winds pick up again. But I continue to rip holes and it's exhausting as the heat brings sweat to my brow that drips like the salty tears of sadness. There is some hope because I think I see spots of land on the horizon, but is it just a mirage? I soon shall see and I know that one fine day, the cool breeze will pick up and I know that I'll be on my way again.

But for now I sit and wait trying not to be overwhelmed by the monotony of nothingness.

real change

You know, I should have figured this would happen.

I left for five months and now that I'm back, I see that things have changed and are continually changing... but at the core they're really just the same. For example, I came back to find that Pepsi and a few other soda companies have once again changed their labels. I've also heard that Jay Leno went away, Conan took his job, and Jimmy Fallon took his place. But, I don't have a tv so I haven't had a chance to witness this musical chair act. Washington State's sales tax rate has raised to 9.5% and what else? I don't know where people are anymore. Why? Some of my friends have moved around, others of my friends will be moving away. I'm actually in a funny spot right now too and I don't know exactly where I'll be either, in fact.

Right now, I'm living in a house full of people that I don't know. You see, I had to find and secure housing in Seattle while I was in Sweden and I used Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace in my search... which is fine and dandy, but I responded to maybe 10-12 different ads and there was only one person that really took me seriously for some reason. I thought the place would be great because I thought I wanted a place a little further from school and I really wanted to be in a house this time, but it is an hour walk to campus and a 20-30 minute bus ride. There isn't a grocery store close by either. Well, there is a Safeway one mile away, which isn't bad, but since I don't have a bus pass right now it really is quite the walk. There is also a PCC half a mile away, but it's expensive and the Whole Foods is maybe 1.5 miles away. It's just a pain right now because UW won't sell me a UPASS because I'm not registered for summer quarter. Oh, that's another thing that changed too. The UPASS is now $99. It used to be something like $44, but yeah-- no good.

So yup, that's the word.

Real change?
Have a nice day.

getting home

So, for those of you just joining me... this is me and my continuation blog after my semester study abroad trip to Gothenburg, Sweden and my other European escapades through Italy and France, 2009. (Yeon-Hee's Great Adventure).

And now to begin, maybe it's worth telling the story of me missing my flight out of Gothenburg to come home which ended up delaying me a whole 24 hours. I was gonna skip this, but what is something like this, if not a story?

Okay, so I spent the night before my projected fly-out date packing, cleaning my apartment, and watching movies with my friend, Mira. I think I only got in a 15 minute nap that night and then took the shuttle bus to the airport in the morning to catch what I thought was a 1.40pm flight out of Gothenburg. Boy, was I wrong and this really got me into a pretty big spot of trouble.













My flight time had been changed to 12.35pm and my bags were overweight. I didn't realize that my flight time was changed until it was nearly 12.30pm because I was busy trying to decide what to throw out of my bags. It was quite the task.

I had two luggage bags, one smaller black one and one large blue one. Both were allowed an absolute maximum of 32kg and I was a bit over on the blue bag. I had to reorganize a bit, so I threw a lot of heavy stuff into my black bag and I ended up having to throw away my new portable speakers, a few souvenir rocks, my kubb set, some random papers, and my sister's pants... among other things I'm surely forgetting.

I ended up staying in the airport overnight and I remember sleeping an uncomfortable sleep.













You know, one in which I am sleeping but watching over my bags at the same time. I had just changed all of my Swedish coins into Swedish bills and made my way upstairs to the couches to relax only to find myself teased by a vending machine that only takes coins and sitting and staring into the food court that can only be reached by going through security. The only other place to get some food was downstairs which was annoying to get to seeing as I wheeled each of my bags up the escalator one by one. And me, I was feeling quite tired and defeated by that time, so yeah -- didn't eat much.

My sentence structures are sounding really strange right now, but I'm sure you can forgive me seeing as I have already forgiven myself.

Oh, and so I ended up taking a flight the next morning to Copenhagen where I had my first real meal in nearly 24 hours, then had a 5 hour lay-over there before flying into Seattle.













Yes, so this experience was not the most fun, but it was something that needed to happen to me because it taught me some lessons I needed to learn. What lessons?

1) pack lightly/know your luggage weight restrictions/own a scale.
2) quadruple check your departure times, then check again.
3) currency exchange places don't change coins for you, so switch your foreign coins into bills before leaving that country.

re-integration

this is where the story resumes.
my life after 5 months in europe.
care to follow along with me in my journey?
i'll be writing... just in case you do.

/Yeon-Hee