BORED OUT OF MY MIND...

So I've been waiting in the Rome airport now for the past 13 hours and have officially felt what it feels like to be homeless...




Yep... thrilling. I got here and had to try and find a place for me to lay down because when we arrived it was about 3 am in Korea. There was literally NO ONE around. So, luckily, I found some chairs that had the armrests broken and slept there for a few hours. It was funny though, because when I woke up, I poked my head up from my row and seriously the ENTIRE area was filled with people exactly like me. (Or maybe it was a clan of REAL homeless people and I had no idea...hmm.)

HOWEVER.. I DID say ROME airport, so yes, I will be traveling around Italy this week! :D It's winter break at our school and we found cheap tickets to Rome from Seoul, so put 2 and 2 together and you get one REALLY tired Erds, who's incredibly sick of airports. It won't be long now until one of the girls going with our group gets here. Oh, you're wondering why I didn't travel with them? Ha.. well, it's a LONG story and maybe I'll explain later, but pretty much when you book a flight, make sure you read through your ENTIRE itinerary when you get it in your email.. yeah.. it could save you lots of money and headache.

Ooh, but on the flight I found some interesting things in those magazines. You know the ones where everything is completely overpriced but they're hoping poor souls will actually buy something due to boredom? Ha.. yep. Well, I read COMPLETELY through the magazine because unfortunately our plane isn't quite up to date with the whole technology thing and so for our entire seating area, we had to share a small tv probably a little bigger than the individual ones you get on MOST flights. yeah.. so I had no say in what we watched. In fact, I didn't really watch any of the movies.. except for the looney tunes cartoons that came on later in the flight. I VERY MUCH appreciated that! :D BUT, like I said, I found some interesting articles and artists and would like to share them with you. You know, if you ever feel completely bored, check these out!

www.tracingtea.com ---> Crumpets anyone? I read an interesting article about these guys who are traveling across 3 continents and doing a documentary on tea! They're keeping a blog as they travel through the spring. haha.. That would be an amazing trip, if I do say so myself!

www.richardhutten.com ---> He's an artist with some pretty sweet ideas. Sort of crazy, but I loved the leaf magnets. Haha.. I guess some companies have filled their ceilings with these small 3D leaf magnets.. awesome. (they didn't have them on the website, so I posted a picture of them.. crazy cool!



www.yukenteruyastudio.com ---> Yuken Teruya is pretty awesome! He takes everyday objects and makes are out of them! Check out his toilet paper roll designs. Wow. Here's a picture...



Alright, I'll leave you now with a quote from the "AMAZING" information videos they show on the airplane.. this one had to do with emergency evacuations, if there were to be any.

"When leaving the aircraft, high heeled shoes should be removed."

Haha.. Seriously? I think if the plane's going down- I'm jumping with my shoes ON!

Hugs, Blessings, and EXTREMELY long layovers,

Erds

TO THE SLOPES!

This past weekend was, yet again, another first for little Erdmann. The dorm students had a ski trip planned at Muju Ski Resort. (This place is probably the biggest ski resort in all of Korea.. so you know what that means?? crowdiness to the MAX!)

It's 6:30 AM, and everyone is gathering at the bus in front of the school and getting ready to head out at 6:30. I, on the other hand, am just waking up and beginning to run around in a frenzy due to the fact that I did NOT wake up to my alarm clock. (I knew it was a bad idea to reset it after waking up at 5:30 to turn the alarm off on the halls for students leaving for sports. I should have stayed awake. Oh well.)

Alas, I made it to the bus just before 6:30 and we set out on the road to Muju. On the way there our group stopped at a place to rent ski gear and it's here that I tried on my very first pair of snowboarding boots. There was a glow around me as they fit snuggly to my feet.. and I do believe I heard angels singing. ha.



Anyways, we reached Muju and a group of us "chaperoning" the trip decided to head up to the slopes. Not really understanding which are the easiest ones, we go to the one called "rookie" and figure it's easy enough. First, we wait in a line that looks like this:



My reaction:



Well, Dains and I have NEVER done any skiing/snowboarding in our lives and so everything about this venture to the top of the hill was slightly more than intimidating. I click my snowboard to my boots and I'm READY! Err... Ok, and.. GET UP! ....Hmm... Something must be wrong with my board because I can't for the life of me stay up. Or maybe it's because we're not really snowboarding on snow, it seemed to me like we were boarding down a huge slope of concrete with a bit of powder SPARINGLY sprinkled. It was solid ice! Hmm.. I eventually get up and me and Dains pose for a picture:



Alright, so let me, again, just say that I've NEVER gone skiing or snowboarding and so the entire way down the first hill it was .. UP.. DOWN.. UP.. DOWN.. UP. DOWN. UP. DOWN. UP. DOWN. And so forth. My arms got a workout.. that is FOR SURE.

What's today? Wednesday night.. So 4 days after that fateful day, I'm STILL having trouble using the muscles in my arms. Ha.. It's funny because you'd think that my legs would be sore, but no, not at all. It's all my arms and wrists.

HOWEVER, I was determined to get this thing, and so gradually I could stay up on my board for a few seconds, and then a few seconds more and then there was a moment where I actually stayed up for a good 30 seconds! Breakthrough, FINALLY! So about halfway down the hill (after much humilation from the many stares from Koreans passing me on the ski lift right above me) by Joe, I GOT IT! I didn't really do anything fancy, but I could actually stay up on my board and slowly move down the hill. This was monumental, folks.

So we reach the bottom, after a good 40 minutes, and realize that that was actually an intermediate course. Ha.. awesome. So we find the BEGINNER slope and all of us feel MUCH more at ease, and I could stay up for most of the way down. I did have some nasty spills.. face planting into the snow. But hey, I'm still in one piece! :D

Oh, and here's a picture from the top of one of the slopes. As much as I'd like to say I did THIS one, I actually had a hard time moving to the edge of this one.. seriously, it looks like it just drops off!



It was an amazing day, indeed! We ate Domino's pizza for lunch and only had a few injuries on behalf of the students. I'll definitely go again, but, maybe after my arms are fully functioning again.

Hugs, Blessings, and muscle spasms,

Sarah