Telling people that I live abroad usually results in some comment that includes, “Oh, I am so jealous!” The ability to travel to another country, to experience and ingest a different culture in its entirety, to live in a mysterious world where everyday arrives with some sense of wonderment cultivates that jealousy.
What is often overlooked, however, is the fact that living life in another country comes with the same responsibilities and pitfalls of living in your own country. That the banality of life still exists and can still be incredibly annoying.
Case in point: my weekend started on Friday night with a few drinks and home by a decent hour, snuggled in bed, only to be woken at 3.30am by yet another drunk Korean man at my door insisting that he lived here although the alarm going off on my keypad should have alerted him otherwise. Thirty minutes of arguing and telling him to go home while he continued to code in wrong numbers, ring the doorbell from hell, and POUND on my door resulted in only a cheerful, “Hey buddy, this isn’t your room” punishment from security.
After only a few hours of sleep, it was up bright and early to trek across Seoul to meet with a group to go to an orphanage two hours outside of the city. Yet, our ‘organizers’ were no where in site and thus began only the first of many complaints about the organization running this volunteer opportunity. The complete and utter incompetence of the woman set to get us to and from the organization started with us missing our bus and me being called “Larry” all day due to her mistranslation of my name into Korean script. Many other instances, of which I will spare you, left me and everyone else wanting to smack the obnoxious smile straight off her face.
After a long day where success was only found in the smiles of the many orphans we played with, I was completely exhausted and dreaming of my bed. Unfortunately, I returned home to find my door’s keypad completely unresponsive as a result of zero battery power no doubt due to the jackass who couldn’t leave it alone the night before. My key, a mere 15 feet away and tucked nicely in a drawer in my apartment, did me no good as did the building security guard who just looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and said he could do nothing for me. So, at midnight I called my very generous girls who were still out partying in Seoul and asked if I could crash at their place in hopes they would rage all night so I could sleep.
I woke, crossing my fingers to find my building management open, to be denied once again and had to call Kelly on the weekend and ask her to call me a locksmith. It is now 3pm, I am 65,000 Won lighter, but I am once again in my apartment…my apartment that I don’t really like in the first place, yet have never wanted to be in so badly before.
So you see kids, living abroad isn’t all magical and glorious. Life can be just as annoying here as anywhere although I am pretty sure this weekend in Korea was worse off for me than you lovelies getting to enjoy the snow, the beauty, the good news of Kiki’s acceptance to DU (what! what!), another Bronco victory (!!) and each other.
Be assured, today the jealousy is all mine.
