On my way ...

Hello, hello all!

I am writing to you from Atlanta, GA ... where I will remain for the rest of today and will catch my flight to Seoul tomorrow afternoon. I had to stay over in Atlanta because I didn't have my passport and visa intact ... so now that I do ... I can finally decompress a bit. Plus I've got this amazing hotel room for one night with lots of time to just relax and think about things to come.

Crazy adventures are already abounding ... I have to be honest though, you should have seen me lugging my two gigantic 50-pound duffle bags to the bus terminal, it must have been a sight. Thankfully I'm able to drop off my luggage at the hotel and go with my backpack into the downtown area. On my way to downtown I find out my taxi driver is from Ghana, which is interesting and we strike up conversation about traveling and living abroad, he of course is the one living abroad from his home and I, on the other hand, am heading out myself. We finally find the building where the Consulate is located ... downtown Atlanta is crazy and nice at the same time, like any big city I suppose. After I picked up my visa, which was a huge relief, I grabbed a bite at the mall and just as I'm sitting down by myself, two random strangers ask if they can sit with me and I end up having lunch with a nice married couple from Las Vegas. Apparently there are at least a million conferences going on in downtown Atlanta so after I told them what I was doing here we continued on the small talk until I finished up and said good bye.

At this point, I fairly amazed just at traveling this short distance and the overall kindness of complete strangers. Maybe I have some sign on my head that says, "HEY, I'm here by myself, COME TALK TO ME!" And that's not the end ... as I leave lunch to pick up a cab back to my hotel, yet another random person strikes up a conversation with me and decides to walk with me for the next couple of blocks and helps me find where all the cabbies are located. It was funny, we talked about a little bit of everything and when I found a cab and decided to take off he gave me a big hug, probably just for talking to him and spending a few minutes of my day to chat ... and this was all before noon people! What a day already ...

What am I doing now, you ask? I'll field that question ... besides writing this little blog, I'm just relaxing and enjoying my last few hours in the States. Up to this point, I've been a little nervous about traveling by myself, but today is just another example that all I need to do is look around me and there I will find a new friend. That sounds pretty cheesy. Hang with me though, I'm only working on about 2 hours of sleep.

I should be arriving into the Incheon Airport at 5 pm Sunday, where I will then get on a bus for 3 hours to travel south to Daejeon. Then, Monday morning is my first day of work. I'll probably be going through training and orientation. My friend Steve and I figured out it will take me about 20 days to get adjusted to the new time zone, only 13 hours ahead. So if you really, really want to know about the future, don't read those horoscope things, just call me and I will tell you what's it's like.

Well that's all for now ... I will write more once I get to South Korea and get a little settled. I'm sure I'll have lots to write about. So until then ...

And in case you were wondering ... I didn't have an interesting picture this time, so I chose Molly's dog Lucy to do the blog justice ... probably the cutest dog, ever!