You're not truly American Until . . .

The weirdest subway ride of my life to and from the World Cup Stadium made me realized how much September 11, 2001 has affected my outlook on every day occurences.

Canada vs. Italia at the World Cup Stadium.

Karen's cousin is on Canada's National Women's soccer team. So excitedly we made a trip to Seoul on Saturday. So unexcitedly, we got off the subway utterly embarrased and thought this was the worst of the day.

The subway ride to the stadium was relaxing compared to what we would face in the hours ahead. We rode for about 15 stops or so when a young man made a V-line straight toward the 외국 (foreigner, pronounced like wehguk). "사랑해요, 사랑해요! 외국 사람 좋아요!" (I love you, I love you! I like foreigners). Trying to be sly, I pretended to be asleep until Karen jabbed me with her fingers and kicked me with her rock solid shoes. So I "woke up" to a Korean man making ridiculour heart symbols with his arms and taking our hands in an effort to make a hand shake. I hoped that pretending to not know any Korean would get him to leave us alone. Unfortunately this attempt only made him try harder to make us understand what he meant. His eagerness led to an embarassing spectacle for us and a great show for all the other natives on the subway.

He finally got off a stop before ours.

We got off at the next stop, walked up the stairs, and there he was. "Go, go, go!" I said as I pushed Karen quickly up the stairs and out of the direction of our friend on the subway.

We made it just in time for the soccer game. Canada won. Woo hoo.

We meant to visit with her cousin for a few minutes. We couldn't find her. World Cup Stadium is big. We walked around and we stopped where we saw men with black vests, helmets, and white lettering "tri-city international."
"We probably shouldn't get too close, they might we're suspicious looking?
"What? What do you mean?"
"They might think we're going to bomb them."
They didn't pull out any guns and we didn't bomb them.

We ate, bought groceries, and got on the subway.
"It smells like pee in here," Karen said. And it did.
"It smells like pee really bad," Karen said. And it did. There was a man sitting at the end of the subway. A man that was sitting by him got up and moved. There was a puddle. I thought it was a beverage. It was at one point. The puddle kept getting bigger. A little girl pulled her pretty pink princess suitcase around. As children do, she carelessly walked around the subway getting ready for her stop while her mother woke up her other daughter. The girl walked back my direction with her suitcase. Trailing on the wheel of her suitcase was a stream of liquid. I pulled Karen's leg back so she wouldn't touch it.
"What is it?"
"It's pee."
Karen looked down. Our groceries! My feet! No one said anything.
"Get off! We have to get off now!" I said.
Close to tears I pouted as we went toward the "washroom."
Back on the subway, I was a little relieved. Nothing worse could happen. Up the stairs and we're stopped by Immigration police. Nope, not us they were looking for.