Ruh roh!

I have no idea where to start this; so much has happened, and in the next 80 hours I'll be traveling from Atlanta to St. Augustine to Jacksonville to Chicago to Seoul to Daegu.

To cut the story down considerably, I came to Atlanta to get my Korean work visa; I started driving from St. Augustine Tuesday evening, after the most triumphant Hogwarts team won at trivia, and stopped for the night in scenic Adel, Georgia. I drove the rest of the way to downtown Atlanta in the morning and had my one-minute interview with the Korean consul-- he had four of us in there, talked to me first, heard about my degree and experience, and told me I was cleared.

I had originally planned to drive back to St. Augustine today and wait for the passport to be mailed back to me, but the only way I can be in Daegu on time to train on Monday morning (September 1, the start of my contract) is to wait until tomorrow at 2 p.m. and pick it up at the consular office.

So I checked into an EconoLodge on the south edge of the city, where I sit even now, at 12:30 a.m. Thursday, and went to the Braves game... I kind of wanted to have my last big fun thing in the US to be something I really love, and I hadn't been to a major league game in nearly twenty years.

When I got back to my room, I found that Fred, the representative in Daegu, is booking me to fly out of Jax at 7:27 a.m. Saturday! So I'll have from 9 or so Thursday night, when I get home, through Friday to wrap everything up at home. It can't possibly be done, my friends.

I'm going to be flying out of Jax to O'Hare, where I'm supposed to sit from 8:57 to 1:00 p.m. central time, then have a lovely thirteen-hour-and-fifty-minute flight to Seoul, where I touch down at 4:50 p.m. Sunday Korean time, take off at 7:20, and touch down in Daegu at 8:15. (If you're scoring at home, according to my body clock Seoul arrival is at 3:50 a.m., departure at 6:10 a.m., Daegu arrival at 7:25 a.m. I expect to be tremendously alert during the layover in Seoul.) The entire trip from Jax to Daegu is theoretically 12 minutes short of 24 hours. Add on getting to JAX and from the airport in Daegu and it will total... uh, carry the three... exactly six weeks.

So I suppose I'll get to my new apartment at 8 or 9 Sunday night Korean time and start training at school the next day. At least, as I'm still under 80 years old, I shouldn't have any jet lag.

Actually, I already have jet lag just from driving to Atlanta. Ruh roh.