Bittersweet

I have realized that I have reached the hallway point of my trip and I’m both sad and happy. I’m happy because the day I return to my family and friends is getting closer and closer. We are able to FaceTime at least once a week, but it’s just not the same as physically being with them. While I have been here, I have missed a lot of family events: my brother’s birthday, spending Mother’s Day with my mom, my dog’s first birthday, and I will be missing my close cousin’s high school graduation. It doesn’t feel right that all these things are happening in my family and I’m 5,175 miles away, 16 hours ahead. Going home also means that I will be going back to eating Mexican food for most of my meals. I cannot wait, my stomach has been sad because it’s been lacking in beans, queso fresco, and tortillas. I have already let my family know that the first thing I want to eat when I go home is chorizo with eggs, beans, queso fresco, and my mom’s homemade tortillas; best believe I will savor that meal for as long as I can. Even though there are many reasons for me to be happy to almost be back home, there are also many, many reasons why I get sad when I think about leaving.

I have made multiple friendships here and those friends are all from different parts of the world. Will we be able to keep in touch? We have bonded from all being in the same boat as exchange students; we struggled through adjusting to the change in school system and the change in culture together. It will be sad when we part and have to deal with adjusting to being back home alone. I know it will be hard for me, because no one from home has experienced what I have experienced from coming and living here. Seoul has also been my home for the past couple of months and will continue to be my home for a couple more. I have become familiar with the roads and I don’t need my phone, or my translator app, to get myself places. I am comfortable ordering things at restaurants and cafes in my broken Korean. I have found cafes that I love to study at every week. There are multiple restaurants here where I am recognized by the owners because of how often my friends and I go. I have something of a routine here: every time my friends and I go out at the end of the week, we have dinner and walk to the Baskin Robbins nearby to have some dessert (it’s cheaper here than it is back home!). I won’t be able to do that when I go back home. I will have to adjust to not being able to walk everywhere, I won’t be able to constantly use public transportation because its not as efficient at home as it is here, I won’t have multiple cute cafes to study at, and I won’t have my favorite chicken place to go to.

There’s a lot that I will miss about Korea, and there’s a lot about home I can’t wait to get back to. But I still have 2 months and 2 weeks left, so I will try to enjoy my time here while I can.