Friday, July 13th

I got up at 10 am and most everyone was already awake. We sat around and watched TV for a bit and then left the beach house at 11:15 am so that we would have time to grab lunch. I got motion sickness on the way back and then was overwhelmed by the smell of fish when we got out of the car after arriving at the restaurant. But once we got into the restaurant, I felt fine again. The lunch was actually really delicious.

Afterwards, we headed back to the apartments to shower and get ready for work. I had about an hour left, so I ran to Paris Baguette and bought Rachel a cake and messaged people about throwing a surprise birthday for her since her birthday was the next day. I actually almost ran into her on the way back to the apartments while I was carrying the cake, but luckily she didn't see me because I would have had like no way to explain away the cake. Anyway, I spent the PM shift organizing the party, coordinating with everyone else. After work I tried to delay Rachel as much as possible, telling her we should watch Big together after I showered. But everyone came to my place during that time and hid in the bedrooms, so when Rachel came over, I faked that we were watching Big for a couple minutes until everyone poured out of the rooms. I'm pretty sure she had no idea. We ate the cake, ice cream, and other snacks, and ended up watching Mean Girls.

Saturday, July 14th
I blogged in the morning. Exciting I know. Then I went to work early because Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited our pavilion. He stopped by South Korea on his tour of Asia simply to fly down to Yeosu to see the USA Pavilion and then he went straight back up to Seoul to leave Korea, so I already had respect for him just for making the trip. But I have to say I was truly amazed by the pride he showed in our pavilion. I figured he would give another generic speech of encouragement and congratulations, but he was so moved by getting to see the pavilion he was actually holding back tears. He told us that we weren't even supposed to have a pavilion at this expo, but that his department had decided to take on the project even though it wasn't one of their responsibilities simply because they wanted to have the US represented at the Yeosu Expo. He was also an oceanography major, so he probably was actually interested in the theme as well. I was just really really impressed by him and his sincerity. After his visit, I worked the PM shift.

Sunday, July 15th
I had the AM shift and no recollection of what else I did.

Monday, July 16th
I had the AM shift and then I went downtown with Grace, Esther, Dana, and George. We got 칼국수 (kal-guk-su) for dinner, which was homemade I"m pretty sure and surprisingly good. After that I went with George to Cafffe Ti Amo for gelato and then we hit up the arcade so he could play some arcade games. We headed back to apartment at 9 pm and ran into Spanish speakers randomly on the way back. I admittedly didn't talk much, but it was good to at least hear Spanish again for once so that I could practice since I've had zero Spanish practice for so many months. After we got back to the apartments, I watched an episode of Big with Rachel while we did stuff for Yonsei since we're both studying abroad there for the year. It's been so great to have someone else be doing the exact same thing as me because we can help each other out with all the confusing stuff related to studying abroad.