still the foreigner

Readjusting to life in Canada can only be described in one word: weird. Weird because I feel like a stranger in a place I lived for something like fifteen years.

I can’t remember anyone’s phone number anymore.

Receiving directions, I can’t remember where any of the roads are.  (It probably doesn’t help that directions in Korea never included road names—only landmarks—and I’m having to relearn the entire concept of street names.)

My first visit to Tim Horton’s was embarrassing because I couldn’t pay the $3.27—I forgot they didn’t accept debit cards, didn’t know they don’t take Visa (only Mastercard, they said, and for $3.27, who wants to pay with credit cards anyway?), and am still carrying around Korean won instead of Canadian dollars.

I’m still living out of my suitcases because I don’t have a bedroom yet.

And this morning I had to call my mom at work because I couldn’t find the frying pan.

It’s weird that I was more comfortable living in a city where I didn’t speak the language very well than here right now. How long is this adjustment period going to last? Having been through this before doesn’t make it any easier, but it does make it so I know I can get through it—which doesn’t help me find missing frying pans, but hey, knowing it will pass is good too.