Greetings

Hello!

If you have received this e-mail, it means you are cool enough to partake in updates on my current adventure (to include parts of Italy (3.5 weeks), Barcelona (5 days), Senegal & The Gambia (8 days), Lisbon (1 day), London (2 days), and Ireland (3 weeks)). Be advised that unlike last year, I don’t expect to be writing about whacking lions, fighting bush fires or rescuing train wreck victims, however I do always manage to get into the odd scrape here and there. I can promise you a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and possibly a blow by blow of every bottle of wine and glass of Guinness to grace this throat. If you know someone who has not received this e-mail, please don’t tell them as I wouldn’t want anyone to think they are not cool! J

If you would like to stop receiving these e-mails, please send me the proverbial feck-off e-mail!

So it is the morning of Tuesday, November 6 and I am still packing up my apartment (yup, the week leading up to my departure was pretty busy, not to mention that karaoke was far more important than packing) when I discover that I have lost my Visa card. After some major, but short-lived panic (because I have no time for panic), EB and I mail my boxes (probably with my Visa packed in one of them) and board the airport bus one hour later than I had planned. Now, for those of you who know me or have travelled with me, you’ll recall that I am anal about arriving at airports at least (if not more than) 2 hours before departure. So, with the loss of my Visa (which I am also always anal about) and my arrival at check-in a mere hour and 10 minutes before departure, I am totally off my anal game (odd choice of words there, I know).

So off my game was I that when the check-in chicky told us we could go to the First Class Lounge (cuz I have a special card) I was all over it! I was utterly blinded by the free food and free internet and even convinced EB that we had enough time. I’m here to tell you that we didn’t, in fact, have enough time, folks! As we approached our gate with 20 minutes to spare (loads of time, I figured, even though boarding time had come and gone 20 minutes ago) we were joking about how they’d be paging us any time now. Even when a frantic looking airport man grabbed the gal beside us saying she was the last passenger to board a plane to Munich, we laughed about the fact that at least we weren’t going to Munich. Then we saw our own frantic looking airport personnel standing at our empty gate. She said "Are you Lee Eunbyeol?" EB nodded affirmative and we were ushered on to the plane in a wave of panic to the sounds of "Ee Eunbyeol shi kabang chim neriji baseyo" crackling over 5 radios simultaneously, which roughly translates into "Stop taking the bags off! I repeat! Stop taking the bleedin bags off!!!!" So that, in a very long-winded way was how the trip began!

Despite that near miss, we did finally make it to Firenze and are relaxing our asses off! The apartment we rented is not too small (at least by Korean standards) and the hot water sorta works (read that as scalding for three minutes and then freezing)! We are living right next to the market which means fresh pasta and pastry every day. Yesterday we visited Galileo’s tomb in the Basilica di Santa Croce (which was pretty cool because of the irony of the fact that the dude was excommunicated and then buried in a church) and then went to hang out the house of Dante Alighieri (which is one of my favourite places in Florence) and the nearby church in which he met his muse, Beatrice. Life is beautiful, indeed.

I hope you are all well.

J

P.S. I have tried not to think too much about work except I had dream in which Little John (who is 6 years old, by the way) brought beer to school to "drink after school with Kevin K" and I was forced to scold them, all the while having a hard time keeping a straight face and wanting to drink the beer with them.