The Things They Don't Warn You About When Moving Overseas Alone

There's the picture-perfect concept of how much fun it is to explore new places on your own viewed through social media. While all great, those tend to be the highlights, the Instagram perfect picture captured, and the video clips taken at the right moment to then be posted on your personal Facebook for all of the friends that are living vicariously through you. In the moment, it was everything that you desired on that trip. It's the moments after the fact that tend to be less glamorous and picture worthy. The moments you find yourself laying alone in your new apartment, trying to figure out your new reality.

As I have lived overseas for about a month now, I have come in contact with a few things that I was not prepared to deal with alone. Where I can still connect with family and friends as well as coworkers who can help, some things are necessary to be dealt with on my own. Below is a list of things that I have gathered within this first month.

• You have to be okay with spending time by yourself most of the time.

• You will become your biggest fan and have to deal with all your own mistakes too.

• If you do not make any plans of exploration, you will be spending your time aimlessly scrolling on your phone or binging through yet another Netflix tv show.

• You're going to set your alarm one hour before you really should get out of bed just so you can catch up with your friends from the other side of the world and check in with the people you miss.

• Buying fresh produce from street vendors is going to be one of your happiest moments of living in a foreign country.

• Busses are your new normal and getting in a passenger seat in a car is only reserved for the dates you seek out.

• You're going to enjoy getting swept away in the busyness of the city, even though you've never truly enjoyed the idea of becoming a city girl.

• Your comfort foods are only going to last about 2 weeks before you take refuge in the "new normal" snacks you have become accustom to from the local 7-Eleven.

• You have to have some sort of spicy food during the day, it's your new addiction.

• Sunshine brings out the best version of you.

• Time zones are rough when there is so much you'd like to say to your girls back home.

• You will get angry at using chopsticks because you miss the easiness of a fork.

• You will be content with not knowing all that is going on around you and comfortable enough that it's not all your business to know what your coworkers are saying around you.

• Foreign teacher tired and teacher tired are two different things.

Where those are some of the things that I have taken a note of, I do enjoy a lot of what this city has to offer me. Exploring new places has been a fun task for me. I am taking every weekend to check off things on my list of places to see and things to get done. Living in Korea for this past month has been nothing but a dream- and it has only just begun!