Seouled Out!

Alaina:

Tim left you hanging with his last post...so let me tell you about getting stuck behind the metro exit. The metro exits are turnstyles and you have to put a little card on top to get through. I was already super stressed because we had no idea where we were going and we pretty much threw a dart and decided to go where it landed (Better pack a sweater - that's for Suzanne and Stephanie). So we get off the metro and approach the turnstyles. Tim breezes right through and I put my card on top and then run right into the bar because it does not move forward. This red letters keep popping up with different numbers every time I tried again. Pretty much, Tim was useless. (He is now nodding his head yes). I was practically in tears and all he did was take my bag for me...and shrug. Finally a Korean lady came and she couldn't even get it to work!! After many tries she motioned for me to go under the bars. At that point, I didn't care what happened me. I crawled under and said "If I get arrested, I hope they deport me to America."


Tim:
Ok... As mentioned in the previous post, we stayed with our extremely generous friend, Helen Rader, while we were in Seoul. I called her on a pay phone, which I haven't used since 1995, to get directions. I figure she's going to tell me the subway stops and direct us from there. Instead, she proceeds to dictate Korean to me and what I should say to the cab driver. Even as I'm writing it down, I'm thinking about how disasterous this is going to be and I imagine myself telling the taxi driver to take us to Pyongyang (North Korea's capital for those of you who don't go to Patterson) instead of Seoul Foreign School. So I have literally written phonetic sounds - not words - on a sheet of paper. I get in the taxi and sheepishly say what I think is "Please take us to Seoul Foreign School" and the district it is located in. I'm sure it sounded more like a question than directions, but apparently it was close enough and the taxi driver smiled, repeated it once, and dropped us off right in front about ten minutes later.... no big deal.

Alaina:

We were so excited to be in Seoul especially because we got to talk to our parents for the first time! My parents were super excited and my mom screamed a bit - but she was just excited. After talking to my parents, Tim called his. His dad answered the phone and I said "hiiiii" in a very high voice. Tim's dad replies (totally serious) Oh! You have one of the kids with you!!! (Not only do I look young, apparently I sound like a young Korean child).

Love you all!!