It's only starting to hit me that in two weeks I'm no longer in Korea. I honestly have no idea what to do when I go back to Finland. How do things even work in Finland? Do I bow when I go to the store? Do I even greet the worker at the shop? How do I go to school? How does finnish university even work? The other day I even forgot where I live in Kuopio, because I haven't been to my own apartment in over half a year now. I actually had to message my friend and ask her what my address is and what floor do I live in.. And I'm pretty sure she thought I was drunk..
Of course it's nice to go back again and get to eat Fazer's chocolate and proper breakfast again. And I get to cook again! If I still remember how.. I haven't been able to cook or bake since the end of May and it has slowly started to drive me insane. Who would have known that there would be a day when I wish I could cook to myself again. I honestly hated it so much before. Now all I can just about is what I'm going to cook first as soon as I get to my apartment on the 22nd. I can't wait to be able to eat whatever I cook myself.
Now that my return to Finland is getting nearer and nearer I just keep thinking about the things that I miss there. It's funny how previously the only thing I've missed has been my friends and my family, but now I've started to realize that I've actually missed a lot of other stuff. Like normal bread. Bread, that is not sweet but salty. I don't honestly understand how Koreans can eat the "bread" they sell here. It's more like a pastry than a bread. I've also missed cheap fruit and vegetables. Bananas are no longer going to pay me 5,000 won but instead just few euros.
And talking about money.. I don't have to change wons to euros in my head anymore. I can just instantly know the price and whether or not it's expensive. And I don't have to pay to withdraw money from my account! Nor do I actually have to carry cash around or go to the ATM to check how much money I have on my account.
There are so may things I've missed about Finland without even realizing it. But there are so many different things that I'm going to miss about Korea too. Like how my school building right next door and Juicy (oh my dear Juicy please come to Finland) and the subway and the big city and the people I've met here and so many other things. I will miss learning korean and speaking english all the time. I will miss being surrounded by people who have no idea what I'm talking when I speak in finnish. I will even miss those weird guys that ask for pictures with you when you're out with your friends. I don't even know why, I'll just miss them, even though I always found them creepy.
I shouldn't think about the things that I'm going to miss yet, I still have few weeks left. But I can't really help but think that soon I'm out of Korea and I might not be able to come back here in a really long time. My time in Korea has been just amazing, even though sometimes I really haven't felt like that. But it has. I don't really know when it will really really hit me that I realize that this might be the last time seeing most of these people and the last time of me studying abroad (thought at the moment I am seriously considering doing a double degree which would mean a year of studying in belgium).
It still feels so unreal, that after almost 7 months abroad I actually have to return to Finland.
In the beginning of this year I definitely would not have believed how big of an impact Germany and Korea would leave on me and how much would happen on my 7 month adventure.
I still can't believe I'm actually going home.