Intercultural cake

Today started with me having a pebble removed from my knee that had apparently been stuck there since Friday. Now I'm hoping that the ointment will work the miracle of healing, otherwise I'll probably end up going to the doctor. 😬 I also have a swollen eye again, but there's always something wrong.

So much for the disgusting news! 😄

I've been here for a week and a half now, and what I've realized is that a month is too long to be alone and too short to really make friends - at least if you live alone. For a moment I thought that Interpals (a language exchange platform) could be a good idea to quickly make contacts here. But after the first three conversations I immediately had a really bad feeling, and as Jiyeon says so beautifully: "Feeling lonely and safe is better."

That's why it was really nice today that there were a few moments when I realized that I'm not really alone here! In the group lesson today we laughed so much together, and in the short break we all chatted animatedly with each other for the first time. And after the lesson I chatted for a while with the Italian woman (who works in Zurich and speaks perfect German 😄).

In the individual lessons, I then discussed my subjects and somehow (with the help of hands and feet) I managed to explain the topic of my bachelor's thesis. What a triumphant moment! 😁 If school is so nice, it's actually not so bad to be alone for the rest of the day.

After school, I walked up the Cheonggyecheon (the river) in the other direction until I reached Gwanghwamun Square. (Do the places look a bit familiar from the previous chapters?)

I wanted to go back to Sejong “village” (the part of town to the left of the big palace where I was strolling on the day of the Ramen rush hour). There is a street with lots of small restaurants. I was sure: today is the day, today I will have Korean food! 😄

What I hadn't taken into account, however, was that many restaurants have a lunch break from 3-5. And I was there at 4. But no problem: I remembered from my last visit that there was a small square with benches at the end of the street. I would just sit there and write a bit for my blog or do some homework (I had my school backpack with me), and then kill time until 5 p.m.

No sooner said than done: I stroll up the street and sit down on one of the free benches. Shortly afterwards, an elderly Korean couple comes along and she puts her husband down on the bench and goes to run a few errands. And as I sit there fiddling with my cell phone, the man next to me rustles something in a plastic bag and then hands me a small chocolate cake without saying a word (packaged as a snack, about the size of a milk slice).

I didn't want to be rude, so I accepted the cake and ate it politely. 😅 And then he handed me a small packet of almond milk and said that the cake was making my throat dry and that I needed something to drink. And that's what we started talking about.

He asked a lot of questions, like how long I've been learning Korean and where, how long I've been there and what I've seen, what I liked and tasted the most, why I'm traveling alone, where I'm from, and then we somehow got onto politics and the topic of separation and reunification (which has a lot of parallels in Germany and Korea), and the changes that Korea has gone through in the last 50 years, and what problems there are in Germany after reunification.

A few times I was tempted to take out my phone and look up words, but somehow it worked out. I actually had a really good conversation and it was so nice to feel the interest and friendliness and to have the feeling: Wow, I can do that! It's not grammatically perfect, but it works! As I left, I thanked him for talking to me. What a great, intercultural encounter!

Feeling very elated, I then made my way to a restaurant that I had picked out beforehand. Luck was on my side: I found it without any problems, it was open, the food was amazing, the people were friendly, everything was great! When I got on the train at around 6 p.m. and it was unexpectedly completely empty, my lucky four-leaf clover was complete. 😊 🍀