Moving Day!!

Tuesday was my first day of summer vacation. While my friends were sleeping in and relaxing, I was preparing for a big day…moving day! Before I left for the States, I moved out of my old apartment so the girl replacing me could move in. Darren helped me move all my stuff, (since he has a car!), and I had a TON of stuff. I had a few suitcases with clothes and shoes, kitchen stuff, and bedding, including a comforter, memory foam pad, sheets, two pillows, a Spiderman body pillow, and two blankets. We managed to fit all of this into Darren’s car, with plenty of room to spare. Anyway, I moved all of this to Johnny’s while I went on vacation back home. When I moved into my new place here in Seoul, I had to somehow get my stuff from Johnny’s to here.

I mentioned it to my new director, and she immediately called a taxi company and scheduled an appointment for me. So, I took a combination of subways and a bus to get to Johnny’s house on Tuesday. Unfortunately for me, he wasn’t on vacation yet, so I had to move all my stuff down 9 floors by myself! It only took me 7 trips….I waited in the lobby until the taxi driver arrived at 2pm. However, when the taxi driver arrived, I told him I had bags and asked him if he would help me. He seemed surprised to hear that I had bags, but it didn’t register at the time as being a big deal. When I showed him my pile of belongings in the lobby, he immediately got angry. Every bad word I know in Korean came out of his mouth, and he was not happy.

When we carried the first load out to the car, he opened his trunk, and I realized the problem. His trunk was completely full with random boxes and bags. So, we had to squeeze everything into the back seat of his taxi. I kept apologizing over and over, but he wasn’t having it. When we were finally on our way to Seoul, I texted my director and told her that the taxi driver was really angry, and I wasn’t sure why. She immediately called my phone and asked to talk to the taxi driver. Come to find out, the taxi company never told the driver he would be helping someone move, so he didn’t know he should have an empty car. If he had known that, another taxi driver would’ve been sent to help me. All in all, I think it wasn’t a big deal, but the taxi driver was just upset that he hadn’t been informed. After he and my director talked, he was perfectly fine. He just needed an explanation, and my Korean obviously isn’t good enough to express the situation.

When I got to my apartment, the driver helped me unload my stuff, and one of my co-teachers, Ian, met me. He helped me carry my stuff up to my apartment. I told him I owe him a coffee one of these days for helping me move on his vacation. After that, I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and organizing my apartment. It wasn’t the smoothest day, but at least I got it all finished. Now I can officially get situated and start making this apartment my home for the next year!