Homesick

***This is a refurbished blog from when I was in South Korea. I started it quite a few times, but didn't ever get it to the point of postworthiness. (You like that? I make up my own words, because I can! English is an "open lexicon." I can do what I want, and if enough people start doing it too, then it becomes a recognized word. Take that!)***

Back to the blog...
I was getting homesick while being abroad and it was being triggered by the oddest things. I started collecting some pictures of the things that made me miss home.

Some things were obvious triggers. The local Starbucks...

For those of you that don't know, I worked at Starbucks for two years. Being in a Starbucks made me think of dear friends and great coffee dates. It brought back memories of Starbucks runs on road trips, working the morning rush, watching the sunrise over the Ross store in Solana Beach (We used to pretend that the Ross was really a majestic mountain... at 4am you'll believe almost anything.), and sharing illegal Frappuccino remnants with Erika and Jayma. I thought of my father's love of espresso and my mother's lack of love for whipped cream on her Frappuccino. (A note for all Starbucks employees: Don't even think about whipping my mom's frap!) While I hate to admit it, I love Starbucks. It has really become that "third place" in my life.... I fell for all of their marketing. I'm hooked. I drank the Kool-Aid... well I guess I drank the latte.

Shopping in Seoul, I ran into a HUGE home sickness trigger. Alisa and I saw our childhood heroes, the Blues Brothers. Growing up we used to watch the Blues Brothers every year for my sister Petra's birthday... starting at a very young age. We didn't find out until all of us girls were adults that the Blues Brothers is rated R! My parents had no idea. We had been unwittingly watching a rated R movie as a family for a decade! So seeing the boys I knew and loved in Seoul, brought a little bit of home back to me. [Here is Alisa showing off her dance moves. Don't judge. She has mad dancing skills!]

Even the subway terminals caused me to long for family... or, at the very least, Family Game Night! We have traditionally played Trivial Pursuit as a family since the days when Disney Trivial Pursuit was as cool as cool could be. Please try and tell me that this subway tile was NOT inspired by the fabulous Parker Brothers game!I know! Right? Thanks to my detective work, you, dear reader, now know that the same architect designed the Seoul subway system AND the Trivial Pursuit cheese wheel.

You're welcome!

Now that I've been "home" for over a year and a half, there are some things that I miss about being in South Korea... but, those are for another blog.