Travel day

Well. It is time. I am actually going to Korea for real😳 Yesterday I was excited to the point of being obnoxious (and to the point where I don’t really think anyone in lab will miss me). Especially when they started sending me fake weather forecasts trying to make me believe that my flight would be cancelled :

But I sort of deflated when it turned out I need to redo a rather complicated (and urgent) study the second I am back in Ann Arbor, so all things considered it has been good for me to have a quiet morning at home to pack before leaving. To my surprise I managed to fit everything into a carry on sized suitcase! Adult and boring I guess....... so my 25 year old vintage O’Neill bag didn’t get to go with me this time

I have hugged Luca goodbye MANY times this morning and he even offered to have me borrow one of his stuffed monkeys for company in the big, cold, and lonely hotel bed❤️

And now I am buckled up in the airport bus taking me straight to DTW from downtown Ann Arbor:

I am relieved that I have a direct flight and I always enjoy being in the delta terminal in Detroit airport as it is actually quite nice (and as I am mostly there to fly off the places I look forward to). But I am not looking forward to not seeing a bed for another 22 hours......

What I am looking forward to though is an old dream of mine - to get to look into North Korea as I have booked a tour to the border including going through the old war tunnels. I am strangely fascinated and horrified about this closed country. How is it possible to keep a whole country so hermetically closed? And at the same time I ache for the people behinds it’s borders. I wonder how much tension there will be at the DMZ (demilitarization zone) these days. Hopefully not too much