4. Obstacles..

-5^C
Bright sunny day, feels like -12^C with wind chill.

After a few fine days of beautiful weather hovering around the 7-14 degree mark, yesterday the temperature plummeted back down under the zero. At the moment the wind blowing in my little valley makes it so much worse.. and I’ve been told that there’s more to come! We may not see snow again, but now is the time the wind picks up to freeze all extremities.

On Saturday night I went down to Yeongwol to meet up with a few of the lads and have a quiet drink. They said they weren’t up for too much since they had a huge night on Friday night (Alex’s birthday, which I couldn’t attend – due to bus mix up), so we had few drinks and ended up staying out till about 2 in the morning. Mason, a 22 year old from somewhere in the southern part of America, decided that he’d trust Stevo with his hair.. so inevitably he now has a style that would make Mr T. very angry! The next morning I woke before everyone else, as is my curse.. I cant sleep after I’ve had a big night.. so I woke at 730am with an intention to get the 10:10 bus back home and have a proper sleep. First though I decided I needed a burger – bring in obstacle (preventing me to get home) number one: Lotteria opens at 10am. So I was waiting for it to open with my bottled water and the groundskeeper at my second school (Nokjeon) saw me and decided to take me to coffee. So off we went.. and it all passed in a nice little daze. Before I knew it I was enjoying my burger.

The next bus was at 12:40, so I decided to go into a PC Room for a little while to listen to music and lay back on one of those comfy chairs. By this time it was noon and I was making my way to the bus terminal: introduce obstacle number two: Brett. Brett called and said he was coming into town and that we should have a coffee. At first I declined; wanting nothing more than to go home and sleep, but then I called him back and accepted (we only live once, right?). See, Brett couldn’t make it to the bar the previous night as he had some bird to celebrate Valentines with. So off we went to a number of coffee places until we found one that was warm and had comfy couches. By this time (around 1:30), we had woke Stevo and Mason and told them to meet us for a coffee.

As we sat there sipping on coffee and milkshake and generally feeling like crap, Brett (in a very small voice) piped up: “I kinda feel like a beer”. Barrel in obstacle number three: a thirsty Aussie. We all had heard the rumor that more alcohol cures a hangover, so we decided to put it to the test. We called Kurt over as well, since the beer was out.

Now I’ll have to cut this long story short, a quick and simple summary of how these first three obstacles led to so many more after that. Poker cards were dealt, we ended up having four 3L pitchers of beer and staying there till 5pm. We hadn’t eaten much of anything all day, so off to Hoorarah for some chicken, but it was closed so off we went to Isaac’s Toastery and had a sanga.. then to another bar where the Soju began. We finally got to our ‘local’ – or one of – and had our chicken. I stayed until 10pm since my bus was at 1015, and left them after that. I got a call at nine this morning asking where I am, and to be at school by ten. So the moral of this story is that curing a hangover with beer works, but you just have to know when to stop again.. an actually do it!

PS: Momma, don’t worry.. I really don’t drink all that much.