(See part one here.)
September: In September, teaching started in earnest. I also started to actually make friends in my town. I had a reunion with Isaac, got super wasty at a welcome party, and babysat other wasties at a different welcome party. I bought a bike and got a phone. I decorated my little flat, explored my town, started going to KOTESOL workshops, and just generally got to know how my new life would be. I also traveled to Busan and the coast for the five-day-weekend I had mid-month for Chuseok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving. That was beautiful.
Smokey also passed away. RIP my little friend. I hope you're up there in Rat Heaven beating up cats and gorging on peanut butter.
October: The first weekend in October was a long weekend for me, so I took advantage of the opportunity to hop the only available low-cost flight and go check out Osaka and Kyoto, Japan. It was totally awesome. I ate delicious food for every meal (including far too many orea mochis), saw beautiful temples and castles, and relaxed by myself. It was a great trip, and good to get away by myself after the flurry of socialization that was my first six weeks in Korea.
I traveled to Seoul for the international KOTESOL conference and learned a whole lot. I started volunteering at the animal shelter here. I watched a bunch of people dress up as zombies and then chase runners doing a 5K. I met a sweet boy. I celebrated Halloween twice in two towns. October was definitely busy, but it was also pretty awesome.
November: November started with a bang for me. I saw my first Korean wedding and then traveled to Daegu for my first Korean opera. I also did a temple stay mid-month, which was a crazy experience involving many bows and a lot of delicious vegetarian food. Then we made kimchi, which was fun.
Thanksgiving happened and was sort of a nonevent, as I was at work and conferencing. I got a new coteacher. I visited the dogs again and got into the habit of seeing the boy each weekend. Yeah, November was pretty chill.
December: It started to be pretty darn cold! That led to me discovering the joys of ondol, Korean-style floor heating, and spending a lot of time wrapped up in my blanket on the floor while watching TV. I was (am) a happy little caterpillar in a cocoon. The first weekend, I went on an overnight trip with my school to the west coast of Korea, and it was beautiful.
I got a language exchange partner, and started sort of learning Korean in earnest. There were many festivals at school, and very little teaching, so I relaxed and got ready for camp. Anna and Ryan visited Daejeon, leading to a ridiculous night of singing and dancing. Then it was Christmas time, but it didn't feel like it, despite receiving lovely packages from both my mother and father. I went to Jecheon the weekend before Christmas, then to Busan for Christmas day at the spa. Both were lovely trips in and of themselves, even if neither was super Christmas-y.
I rang in New Year's Eve with some barbecue and the group of girls that somehow became "my group" over the course of the fall, though I could never tell you exactly when. We laughed and drank champagne in the street before heading off to our various beds and boyfriends, and I felt hopeful and excited for 2014. It was a good way to end a beautiful year full of new things.
July: My dad arrived right at the end of June and we headed off on an adventure. We spent a day goofing around Budapest on bikes, then headed to Romania. It was a lot of fun, and nice to spend time with my dad, even though he flew all the way to Europe for only a week!
My dad left in the morning, and that evening Lyla and I headed to Azerbaijan. After being super pleasantly surprised that our printable visas were actually accepted (thank goodness), we found our lodging around 5 AM and crashed for a few hours. Then it was off to explore the city for a few days. Baku is actually a shockingly beautiful, cosmopolitan city, albeit one by all accounts trapped in a tricky situation of a country. New bumps right up into old in a rather surprising way. It was about a thousand degrees the whole time we were there, but with a strong, cold wind. It was one of those winds that gets you excited, that burrows under your skin and whispers tales of the sights it has seen. We also took an excursion out to swim in the Caspian Sea at perhaps the most terrifying beach ever. The people! They were so kind, welcoming, and lovely. The food... oh, man, the food.
I loved Baku. A lot of people have problems with Azerbaijan, but I adored its capital.
The bus system in Baku is crazy: you get on in the middle, and either get off from the front, paying as you go (if you can) or get off, walk to the front of the bus in traffic, and then pay the driver if the bus is too crowded. Tickets also cost like 10 cents. It's madness. Much crazier than matruskas, but I have since used Filipino jeepneys, so I don't know if it's the craziest system I've seen anymore.
The rest of the month of July I spent hustling around Budapest trying to see people, taste things one last time, and sell as much of my stuff as I could. I had lingering meals with friends, and my eyes welled up with tears every time I crossed the Danube. I moved out to Magda's in the suburbs for my last week, and spent a lot of the time clutching my confused ratties to my chest. It was also a billion degrees. I ate sztrapacska fusion tacos, and got pissed that I had never done so. I cried in the back seat of a taxi at 5 AM, sober but desolate, until the taxi driver pulled over and shared his disgusting Hungarian cigarettes with me somewhere in the empty streets of the outer sixth district, street lights painting the cobbles that color that only exists in Budapest.
And then, on July 29th, I got up by myself, kissed the furries goodbye, got in a taxi, and left.
Viszlát, Budapest. Isteni volt.
I don't know when I'll see you again, but I know that I could never be the same. I would not trade one second of my time in that beautiful, maddening city. As Örkény István defines it: HUNGARY. A mania (med. fixa idea) with a population of ten million. It is now generally regarded as curable, though this would take away much of its charm.
August: I spent the first two-and-a-half weeks of August in the States, bouncing between my dad's new house and my mom's old one, with a brief interlude of sleeping on the floor at my sister's while her cats danced on my face. As usual, I saw my family and my Little, hung out with the dogs, and binged on American food. It was a strange time, being "home."
Ginger is offended by your existence; Mia is offended by nothing.
August 19th, I arrived in Korea for orientation. Orientation was a blur: I attended classes on teaching that I'd heard a million times, I attended lectures on Korean life and culture that left me somewhat apprehensive, I learned my first few Korean words, and I met a whole metric ton of awesome and amazing fellow teachers. I also danced as the butt of a dragon. Then it was off to Daejeon and Munji Elementary School (문지초등학교), celebrating my 27th birthday, and settling in to my new town. August, you are a blur.
September: In September, teaching started in earnest. I also started to actually make friends in my town. I had a reunion with Isaac, got super wasty at a welcome party, and babysat other wasties at a different welcome party. I bought a bike and got a phone. I decorated my little flat, explored my town, started going to KOTESOL workshops, and just generally got to know how my new life would be. I also traveled to Busan and the coast for the five-day-weekend I had mid-month for Chuseok, the Korean version of Thanksgiving. That was beautiful.
Smokey also passed away. RIP my little friend. I hope you're up there in Rat Heaven beating up cats and gorging on peanut butter.
October: The first weekend in October was a long weekend for me, so I took advantage of the opportunity to hop the only available low-cost flight and go check out Osaka and Kyoto, Japan. It was totally awesome. I ate delicious food for every meal (including far too many orea mochis), saw beautiful temples and castles, and relaxed by myself. It was a great trip, and good to get away by myself after the flurry of socialization that was my first six weeks in Korea.
I traveled to Seoul for the international KOTESOL conference and learned a whole lot. I started volunteering at the animal shelter here. I watched a bunch of people dress up as zombies and then chase runners doing a 5K. I met a sweet boy. I celebrated Halloween twice in two towns. October was definitely busy, but it was also pretty awesome.
November: November started with a bang for me. I saw my first Korean wedding and then traveled to Daegu for my first Korean opera. I also did a temple stay mid-month, which was a crazy experience involving many bows and a lot of delicious vegetarian food. Then we made kimchi, which was fun.
Thanksgiving happened and was sort of a nonevent, as I was at work and conferencing. I got a new coteacher. I visited the dogs again and got into the habit of seeing the boy each weekend. Yeah, November was pretty chill.
December: It started to be pretty darn cold! That led to me discovering the joys of ondol, Korean-style floor heating, and spending a lot of time wrapped up in my blanket on the floor while watching TV. I was (am) a happy little caterpillar in a cocoon. The first weekend, I went on an overnight trip with my school to the west coast of Korea, and it was beautiful.
I got a language exchange partner, and started sort of learning Korean in earnest. There were many festivals at school, and very little teaching, so I relaxed and got ready for camp. Anna and Ryan visited Daejeon, leading to a ridiculous night of singing and dancing. Then it was Christmas time, but it didn't feel like it, despite receiving lovely packages from both my mother and father. I went to Jecheon the weekend before Christmas, then to Busan for Christmas day at the spa. Both were lovely trips in and of themselves, even if neither was super Christmas-y.
I rang in New Year's Eve with some barbecue and the group of girls that somehow became "my group" over the course of the fall, though I could never tell you exactly when. We laughed and drank champagne in the street before heading off to our various beds and boyfriends, and I felt hopeful and excited for 2014. It was a good way to end a beautiful year full of new things.
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