jrkorea's Diaryland Diary
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no flight
i get to the airport. early. today's the big day for finally going to Seoul. erm. not yet.
waited at check-in for ages (don't even get me started on heathrow). the check-in lady tells me i'm not on their system. my ticket isn't valid. the retarded travel agent in korea fucked up. i have to go on standby. british airways is on strike so now all other airlines flights are fully overbooked. i wait and wait and wait at standby but no seats. 10 or 12 others are in the same position and everyone is moaning like fuck about how they have to get on this plane. like, hello, we are all in the same situation just shut the fuck up.
i didn't get on the plane. i'm back in wimbledon with justine. i'm on standby tomorrow for the next flight which is also fully booked. maybe i will never get to korea and start a new life in london. maybe i can find a job at heathrow since i'm getting to know it backwards. whatever. why can't anything ever go smoothly? i'm totally over getting annoyed about it. you just have to laugh. i can't do anything about it so i just have to go with the flow and hopefully things will work out tomorrow.
bad luck comes in threes but i have already had 5 lots this month. yay for me, i don't do things by halves.
i'll probably miss my training at work, i have to start monday fresh off the plane and totally unprepared. i'm a bit nervous actually, not sure how to deal with kids. i think i'll hide in a corner and glare at them until they go away.
8:32 p.m. - Thursday, Jul. 24, 2003
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creative repacking
this is on the way from lisbon to london.
So the dumb bitch at the airport says to me, do you realise that you have a luggage restriction of 23kgs. I said er...ok. She said, do you realise you actually have 47kgs. I said, er...no. She said, it will cost you 260 euros. I said, %^@*&$!! she tapped her fingers. I said, I'm off to start a new life in a foreign country. She said I can give you 30 but the extra will still cost you. I said, excuse me a minute and ducked around the corner with my goodbye club, Jonny and Kris.
We removed all the light stuff from my carry-on for them to take home and send to me later (this got rid of 7kgs). I then took all the heavy stuff out of my suitcases and put it in the carry-on. I now had 40 kgs of redistributed weight and rechecked in with a different chick who didn't even blink an eyelid. Of course my carry-on bag turned into a drag-along bag but it's just so dumb since nearly everything ended up on the plane anyway.
I had to do the same thing when I was in Japan. I repacked my bags right in front of the stupid cow's eyes, saying here is the same weight fool can I now put it on the plane. Oh yah, no problem.
Morons.
11:20 p.m. - Tuesday, Jul. 22, 2003
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farewell lisboa
All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.
But the dawn is breaking it's early morning,
The taxi is waiting, he is blowing his horn
Already I'm so lonesome, I could cry
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you wait for me,
Hold me like you'll never let me go
I'm leaving on a jetplane,I don't know when I'll be back again.
Oh babe I hate to go
Well I'm off. Farewell Lisboa. I won't have a computer anymore so not sure how regularly I can update.
Stay tuned.
9:15 a.m. - Tuesday, Jul. 22, 2003
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leaving in the morning
Went for a long walk all around the old town with my entourage, Kris fresh back from Glasgow, Jonny and Lidia.
It was a nice last day. Took a few pics but nothing important. Climbed a big hill, sat at the miradouro, ate swordfish for lunch and went to see a burnt out church while mass was in progress. I loved it when Jonny said "This is my first time in a church, I swear to God", then jumped up quickly and ran out.
Kickin' back now, bags are mostly packed, I'm leaving for London in the morning.
8:47 p.m. - Monday, Jul. 21, 2003
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the naked truth
The three crazy Spanish nurses (Lidia, Javier and Pepe) took me to Praia do Meco on the Costa da Caprica today.
We drove for miles and miles to get to this beach. Spanish people are really interesting when listening to Spanish music, even in a car. They all start spontaneously clapping at the same time to the same parts of the song. This is especially interesting when the driver of the car is doing it too and you wonder who is holding the wheel.
When we got to the beach we walked for miles and miles to find a secluded bit. The more we walked, the less clothes I started to notice on people. Soon it struck me. Oh, I thought, it's a nude beach, how very continental Europe. Then, the more we walked, the more nude men I started to notice. Oh, I thought, it's a gay male nude beach, how very "crazy Spanish nurses".
Unfortunately for Pepe, three of the four of us prefer men so we deposited ourselves on a nice spot of sand conveniently located near a nice spot of ass.
It was an interesting day. I don't think I've ever seen so many exposed penises in one place before.
In any case, there was no way I was exposing any of my white bits to these tan gurus so I kept my bikini on.
One of my regrets about Portugal is that I'm leaving without a tan. I realise that many people probably consider this to be a fairly shallow regret. Well, I have many regrets about Portugal, this is the only one I feel like discussing right now, so tough.
Jon prefers me with a tan (not that he's ever seen me with a tan) and I get to see him again in 5 days.
However I'm not tan obsessed. I am pleasantly aware of how unhealthy tanning can be. Anyone who knows my less than loving feelings toward a certain self-obsessed stick insect in England will know how I'm quietly looking forward to her sunbedded butt being shrivelled up like a prune by the time she is my age.
Koreans don't approve of tanning. We buy fake tan, they buy skin-lightener.
I'm in a sad mood today.
9:12 p.m. - Sunday, Jul. 20, 2003
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last saturday nite in lisbon
i'm quite surprised to find myself not having a going away bash. i'd always intended to do something but it's odd; i've said my goodbyes to many people already. i prefer the casual goodbyes as if you are going to see someone again next week. i don't feel like partying or celebrating. in any case, neither kris nor jon is here to make me go out.
it would have been nice to see a couple of people before i leave, especially joana and alvaro because I haven't seen them for a while.
my friend craig from england once sent a really touching email on the nature of constantly saying goodbye to people when you travel. i wish i still had a copy so i could post it here.
i guess i intend to leave lisbon with a whisper (whimper) rather than a bang. i feel neither happy nor sad about leaving. it's the right time to move on, as simple as that.
10:22 p.m. - Saturday, Jul. 19, 2003
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friday update
it's still friday night but after midnight. this is just quickie.
after writing the last entry i headed to parque de nacoes for what was probably my last time. it is a huge concrete park which was built to host the '98 world expo. it has beautiful views of the unobstructed bay, sparkling crystal water and cable cars that run along the shoreline. it's a nice place to go and chill by yourself.
i love it there because it's like getting out of lisbon and going to another planet.
too many things are running through my head at more than 24 frames per second. not at the front of my head where i can confront them but at the back of my mind, little whispers that i can't quite catch.
1:05 a.m. - Saturday, Jul. 19, 2003
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irrational
it's my last Friday here in Lisbon. I'm not planning to go out tonight since Kris is in Scotland, Lidia is working early tomorrow and Jon is in Seoul. I could call Jonny, Joana or even Carolina since I probably won't see any of them again after leave but I think I'll save it all for tomorrow nite.
I feel like staying in and being by myself. It's been a very intraspective last few days. I've been doing way too much thinking and generally avoiding the company of others.
Last night I couldn't sleep (again!), I am not getting to sleep till well after 4 or 5 am and then I wake at about 9am so my mood is increasingly irritable but I feel too drained (and, paradoxically, too calm) to do anything to fix the irritability.
I kept tossing and turning. I generally don't stress or worry about how Korea will turn out. I suffer from too much anxiety in general that I can sometimes just block certain things out. I had been worrying that Korea is the wrong decision but now I don't think about it at all; I probably will on the plane over there.
What I couldn't get out of my mind was Jon. And the weird thing is, the emotion I felt most towards him was anger, and a pure one at that. All this week I've been missing him so bad and feeling all loved up. I was shocked by the negative energy I was creating within myself.
I felt so angry that I wanted to lash out at something or someone. I wanted to cry but didn't have the tears. I was angry at him mostly because of some things that were said and done in our first month together, not all the shit that happened later. At the time I blamed myself and felt really low, he made me feel bad about things that I thought I'd dealt with. I now realise that instead of feeling crap about myself, I should have redirected the blame at him for making me feel so low when it was totally unjustified. i felt lied too and distressed and incredibly insecure. I internalised the hurt when I should have absolved myself.
a lot of this probably doesn't make sense.
anyway, i realise last night was a very irrational anger i was having toward someone important in my life but who hasn't been a physical part of my life for the last 2 or 3 months. we email a lot but it's not the same as spending 23 hours a day around the same person as we were. maybe i didn't get angry then because I had to suppress all that but now that he's not here it all just spilled out of me.
i guess i will have to talk with him when i see him again and explain to him why i feel hurt and angry. i don't feel it today anymore, only in the back of mind, but last night it was intense and i felt really frustrated and powerless.
jon has emailed, phoned, postcarded constantly emphasising that he wants to tell me lots of things but not till we're in person again. this has been getting annoying, i wish he would just write what they are or not say anything at all and wait. i kind of know what things he wants to talk about. mostly to apologise for being a dick i guess. however, i doubt we are ever going to have any of these talks. He talks a lot about wanting to talk. He's kept me waiting before for talks that never happened. he is the one who wants to keep the relationship going, i have doubts but i'm willing to try.
today i feel kinda loved up again; i've really missed him. for better or worse he was the hugest part of my life here and now i feel lonely without him. the anger is still there tucked away inside and i'll have to deal with it sometime but he's also my friend and i miss having him around.
3:05 p.m. - Friday, Jul. 18, 2003
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