Betsy be Trippin'

I hurt my fool self Saturday.  It was completely random and, most likely, I couldn’t repeat it if I had to.

 

I took to the streets of Jincheon to start exploring my new “home.”  I walked quite a bit, probably 2 hours before I stopped in the pc bang to check emails and chat with my mom, but mostly to check up on my cats.  I was there about an hour and a half when decided I was feeling pretty hungry.  So I start for home and stop in the grocery store.

 

I consider myself pretty grocery-store savvy, but...and I can’t emphasize this enough, everything was in KOREAN...and my Korean skills are painfully lacking.  I managed to pick up a few familiar-looking things to keep myself alive and made a mental to note to start researching food words in Korean.  So, on to the apartment where I get in the door,  put my grocery bag down, reach into my pocket and realize….I left my jump drive in the pc bang.

 

Shoes go back on, back out the door, down the street, and up three flights of stairs to the pc bang.  So now the challenge was communicating what had just happened to the guy at the desk who only knew enough English to know that was what I was speaking and I wasn’t speaking Korean.  He seemed to think that I had lost files onto the computer and I couldn’t find the words to tell him I just wanted my jump drive back.  (The Lonely Planet Korean phrasebook does not cover “I am the idiot who left a jump drive in the computer.”)  It took 15 minutes, the worst game of charades EVER, and an ill-fated attempt at Google translate for him to finally walk over to the computer I had been using and pull my jump drive out of the USB.

 

I got back to the apartment feeling pretty accomplished.  I ate a quick bite and then decided I would walk in the opposite direction than I had in the morning.  So, I walked...and walked...and walked.  I was headed for the edge of town where I thought I had seen a “mart” and hoped it would have a small drip coffee machine to fill my deep-seeded need for caffeine.  They did not, but I did pick up a few hand towels (apparently Koreans do not use bath towels?) and a jar of peanut butter.  It had started to rain just a little and I decided to head back to the apartment.

 

Then, LITERALLY, across the street from the apartment I slipped on a crack in the sidewalk.  I didn’t fall, but the way I managed to catch myself pulled/strained/sprained something in the arch of my right foot.  It really hurt...bad enough for my to consider crying...but I sucked up all my self-control and limped across the street and up the stairs to my apartment. 

 

I managed to get to the bed and get my shoes off when I remembered I should wash my new towels before using them.  (Sometimes manufacturers spray a stain repellant on them before shipping to keep them clean, but then comes off in the wash.  You have to wash them first or they don’t absorb any liquid.)  I couldn’t stand back up!  So I rolled off onto the floor, and dragged myself back to the washing machine.  So, I had to do this twice because I used too much soap and after the first wash there were soap suds trying to come out the door.  (Never mind that the directions on the washing machine are in Korean and I selected a setting at random...since I’m the first GET in the school I guess that means I am also the first one in the apartment, so no helpful previous tenet to guide me.  Something else for me to work on…)

 

At this point I gave up...drug myself back to the bed, took a Unisom and two Aleve and tried to sleep off the pain.  It kinda worked.  I woke up at 3AM and it still hurt to walk, but I crawled across the floor to get the towels out of the washer and onto a bar in the window to dry.  Another Aleve and back into bed.

 

I spent most of Sunday doing nothing in particular.  I managed to limp back to the pc bang for an hour or so and then back home.  If I walk on the edge of my foot it hurts a little less, so I think I will be able to manage to get to school in the morning.  I watched one of the movies I brought...and I was so happy I did decide to bring a few, I realized how spoiled to internet I am.  Even if I didn’t have internet where I was back home a short drive would usually produce a wifi hotspot.  Here, even if I get to somewhere with internet it is probably wired and I would have to have walked there.  Not being able to log on to Facebook whenever I feel like it or be connected to something almost instantly has been an adjustment, but I will make it.

 

So a day of limited mobility did provide a chance to rest and recover from some jet lag.  I am still tired by 5PM, but it is getting better.  More than anything this is going to take time and patience.  Maybe it took hurting my foot reminded me of that.  I am in a place with a slower pace and I need to match.  Back in the States I was so used to being in high gear from the time I woke until the time I managed to cram in a few hours of sleep that I forgot just how much I do enjoy a full night’s sleep.  I was (and still am) used to having something to fill every waking hour and then some, and have time to just “be” is good for me.

 

I am better today...almost as good as new.  The good thing about hurting yourself as often as I do is that there is a quick recovery time.  I am headed to Cheongju today with some fellow GETs to do some hiking and probably other things.