We Meet Again: Hey Sister Seoul Sister

A wonderful consequence of living abroad is the simple fact that you meet people from all over, from so many walks of life. And if you're lucky, you meet those people with whom you just click and become fast and forever friends. I've been fortunate enough to be still be able to call the friends I met in Korea my dear friends even as I've moved back home, but all the distance doesn't allow for all of us to interact in the same way as we did before, obviously.

All that means that when we can reunite, we are bound for the best of times. One of my Seoul sisters, Erica, was recently in town and we picked up right where we left off and got to spend our days doing what we love best, being outdoors and under the sun!

Erica and I playing at Central Park, August 2013

Friendships like ours are just another reason why I am such a proponent of living abroad. Erica is also an advocate of an international lifestyle, and through our experiences, both shared together and retold, our collective understanding of life and humanity and the awesomeness of the world is enriched and compounded and made beautiful. When we were walking around nyc, I asked Erica if she felt weird being in the US (she's Brazilian-Italian and has lived in so many countries), and she responded so simply, saying that the more countries she visits and the more cultures she experiences meaningfully, the more she's able to see what makes us the same rather than different.

                                 

Erica and I on my last night in Seoul, March 2013 

Not to say that we should become one homogenous world, but its that desire to known our neighbors as our neighbors and not as something exotic that we aspire to. Each place has its own history and has something unique to offer to the world, and should be celebrated of course, but I think you can appreciate how a place is different from what you know without seeing it as other.

                                         

With some of our other Seoul sisters, Andrea and Julie, on what has become one of my favorite days in Korea, February 2013

I have so many friends who share my love of travel as our perspectives tend to run along similar lines, but in particular, it was so great to have one of my dearest friends from Seoul around for a few days. Because no matter how many stories you tell to others in order to explain what you've seen or how you lived, they remain mere stories and somethings can't be explained in words. With Erica, there was no need to explain anything because she lived through it with me, and reminded me of the who I was at a specific time of my life. As we swapped stories and memories, she was able to make Seoul come alive for me again in a way that nothing else has. For a few days, it was like I was able to visit Korea again.