When I first moved to Korea, I had to learn how to drive all over again. I also had to learn to read enough Korean to not drive in the BUS ONLY lane and not to go through the exact change toll booth unless I had exact change. Traffic in Korea is like a river. It flows. It moves easily around obstacles and often overflows its banks. If a car decides to pull over and park in the far right lane (which happens frequently) ...all three lanes of traffic to the left squish together and move over just enough to get past it. It is crazy, but it makes sense in its own unique way. You pay attention to the space in front of you and everything else will take care of itself. That means that if a car in front of you needs to get over, they are just going to do it. But that also means... if YOU need to get over... you can just do it. I love driving there.
Driving in America is intimidating. The cars are much bigger here. And there are HUGE trucks everywhere. And everyone drives so fast. And I'm not used to having to watch my back. Also, I'm kind of a conservative driver. I never speed anymore. So I'll just be driving along, happy as someone who now lives peacefully in her very favorite country near family, and THEN, I'll look in my rear view window and see some giant red monstrosity of a vehicle that we call "a truck" come careening towards me and my precious cargo. I start panicking and making a list of people who could possibly want to harm me. You know, for the police report later. I try to memorize their license plate number in the three seconds before they switch lanes like a maniac and speed off into the distance.
And then my kids say, "Why are you breathing like that? You're weird." And then I'll say, "YOU try driving in America." And then they'll say, "YEAY!" And then I'll say, "I'm just kidding. We're going home to eat cookies." And then they'll say, "YEAY!!" Hmmm. I never realized before why my kids like going places so much. It always ends in cookies and snuggling safely on the living room floor.
PS -- These cookies? It's the First Friday. That means I go to swipe an incredibly well done card made by my talented cousin Pam and make it into cookies. These cookies in fact.
I really wanted to make some thank you cookies for a guy. And she had the perfect card for me to use as inspiration! Do you want to see what cookies she turned into a card? I know I do! Click HERE to see her cardified cookies. I'll give you a hint.. it's adorable!
