Two days before I was set to leave, I had to say goodbye. I had gone to school the previous week and packed up all of my belongings, so the only people I still had to say goodbye to were the other foreign teachers in town. I met with them at a cafe in the afternoon and we talked and said goodbye. That evening, I had my farewell dinner with my host family, and my host siblings made a cute banner on the window that said "Bye, Kristy. We Love You." It was so sweet. We had pizza and cake and watched a movie. It was a wonderful final night.
The next morning, I finished packing, and my host mom took me to Chuncheon to catch the bus to Incheon. That's right about when I started having more issues than necessary. The bus had been suspended, starting that day. No signs, not notice, just done. Great. Now I have to drag all my suitcases through the train system. I love trains in Korea but when I have a lot of luggage, I much prefer to take the bus. I started with the ITX to Seoul and switched to the Airport line. Then I found out I was on the limited train, which didn't go to Incheon, so I had to get off and get on the next train. The place I was staying at that night was right by the airport, so I got off at the airport station and carted my suitcases all through the airport to get to the shuttle buses. I then got on and had to pull my suitcases up this huge step because there was no storage underneath. One of the men on the bus was nice enough to help me when he saw my struggle. I got off at my hotel and it was really nice. I got checked in, had dinner, and got ready to go home the next morning.
Because of the virus, I had to go through screening before I could even check into my flight, so I had to get to the airport even earlier. When I finally got to check-in, I found out that my flights had changed. I originally was going to fly to JFK and go to BWI from there. But I guess the flight from New York to Baltimore was canceled, so now I was flying to JFK to ATL to BWI. This made my trip even longer.
Getting through security was relatively easy. I did accidentally pack a pair of scissors in my carry-on that got thrown away, but oh well. I was packing a lot. The last time I flew home, there were so many shops and restaurants that I could go to and waste time until my flight, but half the place was shut down.
The long flight to New York wasn't too bad. The middle seat was empty, so I wasn't squished, and the food was decent. Once I got to New York, I just got more frustrated. I was a bit cranky because I didn't sleep on the flight. At the spot where I was supposed to transfer my bags, they told me that I had to drag them through the airport to recheck them at the check-in counter, just in case of flight cancellations. That instilled in me so much confidence that I was getting home. Then I had practically every one of my bags get flagged going through security again. They didn't like my camera, my bag of necklaces, or the food products I bought at the airport in Korea. Every one of them was opened, tested, and then rescanned. Then I got to repack them. Yay! If I thought Incheon had a lot closed, even more, were closed at JFK. I only found one place that sold food that was even open, and I found only one store that had snacks.
When I got on my flight to Atlanta, I was surprised by how empty the plane was, I was put next to two people and squished into one row. That wasn't going to happen with so many open seats. I moved to another seat and was on the way of my second flight of the day. Atlanta was a lot nicer place for my final layover. There were several places to get food and far fewer people. My final flight had maybe 30 people on it. I got a whole row to myself! Though I did have a slight scare because I missed the announcement about my gate being changed and I thought that it might have gotten canceled. It didn't but I wasn't happy because I had been up for too long by now. I had my final flight home and even arrived early. I got through baggage claim really fast and before I knew it, I was in my mom's car, on my way home. Sleep.