Wow I haven't written on here for a while... hopeuflly I'll get back into the habit soon

February 25, 2008 in Taipei, Taiwan

So I have neglected to write in this for a month... both because I have been really busy and because I forgot about it haha. So I'll run through the last month really quickly.
After Dublin I went back to Spain for a week to get my Taiwan visa, besides a couple bumps there was no problem getting it and I just feel more in love with Madrid and Spain. Then on January 31st me and Aliyah jetted off to Berlin for two nights. Lucky for us (sarcasm) they had a PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION STRIKE for only the 2 days we were there, which means we had to take taxis which cost a lot. After having fun trapsing around Berlin for a bit we headed off on to Athens, Greece. Our hostel was basically empty so that was kinda boring but we got to see all the fun things like Zeus's Temple and the Acropolis, and also eat some good gyros haha. Then we took a 20+ hour train to Istanbul where we stayed the longest of our trip. The hostel was fun and we met a lot of nice people there. We went all over Istanbul, including the asian side (its on two continents). We went to a lot of bazaaars and saw mosques. We were even allowed into one of them so I could finally see what it is like. After that we took a plane to really really really expensive London. We took the tour bus cuz we had only one day there and wanted to see as much as possible and had fish and chips for dinner. Then we headed back to Madrid and I spent my last night there and headed home via Dublin the next day. My mom and dad picked me up at the airport and we went to dinner. I spent the next couple days in my parents in Crown Point and then headed to Depauw for a night with Carly and then to IU to see all my friends there for a few days. I then came home and packed and headed to Chicago for my flight to LA where I had to change planes in Taiwan. I had to wait about 5 hours in the LA airport, it wasn't that bad. I then got on the extremely long flight to Taiwan at 1130 at night and LUCKILY I got 4 seats to my self so I was able to actually lay down across them all and sleep. Also the service was very nice and I get Malaysia Airlines an A+ and I think they are my favorite now. I was picked up at the airport by a couple of students and then we came back and I was showed my room and everything.


TAIWAN
So my room is a normal size room with 4 beds up in the air and a desk space underneath each of them... so far my roommates are pretty nice so no problem there. The one problem is that my school here is on a mountain... and they decided the male dorms should be at the top. So there is actually a bus that runs from the top to the bottom but it only goes until 11 and and sometimes it doesn't go all the way to the top so I still have to walk a lot which is going to be A LOT OF FUN when it starts getting really really really really hot and humid outside. So far I haven't started classes yet but I did take the placement test today so we will see in a few days how I did on that. So far though I am LOVING Taiwan so much better than China. Its a bit more expensive but a much better experience. Also So far this program is much much much better than my program in China, and the students here are a lot better too and I have already made at least 10 new taiwanese friends that will help me out with my Chinese a lot...
So thats all I have for now, once I get all my pictures posted (Krakow, Prague, Dublin, Madrid, Berlin, Greece, Istanbul, London, IU, Taiwan...) I'll put the links up here that you can see them at. Bye for now

Only 3 weeks left...

Starting from the top...
My hostel in Taiwan... called Taiwanmex (owned by a mexican)
Chang Kai Shek memorial
random sign that says I love Taipei
more of the memorial
the hostel cat that liked to sleep in our room
(left to right) Manila, Me and Lisa eating lunch in the Philippines (we were sitting with our legs in the water), and then me trying to do my best at making tea at a tea house
and the last one is LOVE in front of Taipei 101


November 28, 2007

Nothing much has happened since I got back from my trip, just a lot of school, homework, tests, and studying Chinese. The Taiwan program finally got all my stuff in the mail so I should find out within a week or so if I am accepted to that, then I can finally start finalizing my plans for winter break. I found two more cheap airlines that offer a lot of flights, basically ANYWHERE in Europe and then Morocco and Turkey on top of that. The only problem is that I'll have to be doing a lot of this traveling alone and I don't speak any of the languages of a lot of the places I am looking into going. My list so far of confirmed trips is Spain, Morocco, Spain again, France, and Norway... from there I'll head off to London or Dublin. They have flights to anywhere in Europe from those two places so I was looking into traveling to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, the Czech Republic and some others, depending on the dates of Taiwan. So that is going to be fun to plan.
www.easyjet.com
www.ryanair.com
www.wizzair.com
all cheap tickets to wherever you want

Also I got in touch with some people from Egypt and it should be pretty easy to transfer my application over to the summer, so hopefully that will all work out in the end and I can still graduate on time.

I still haven't gotten my pictures up from Taipei and the Philippines because facebook isn't working, but I'll post them here as soon as it works. And I'm getting sick... yay...

General things about the trip

I really liked Taiwan... I'll probably get in trouble for saying this since I'm in China now and they might block my site or something... but we shall see

Here is why Taiwan is better than China:
People wait in line and are considerate of one another.
People follow traffic signals.
There is not garbage and pollution everywhere.
Nothing is censored (like news and wikipedia)
People wait in line for the subway and wait for the people to get off before getting on in an ORDERLY manner.
The government doesn't tell the people what to think.

Also since their news isn't censored, I got to read about China's attempts to block Taiwan from joining the United Nations in Taiwan because nothing about this can be read in China because its all blocked. And I also read about China refusing to send any mail from Taiwan to people in China that had a postmark saying "UN for Taiwan" and made the people receiving these letters sign something saying they renounce all attempts by Taiwan to join the UN which just kinda seems childish to me and counterproductive.

I really hope the Taiwan program comes through because I would like to study there and get more of the other side of the China - Taiwan problem.

About the Philippines...
It was kinda scary at first, but I think thats just because everyone was making me scared with their stores but I really liked it though. I kinda wish we spent more time there and less in Taiwan... but that just gives me another excuse to go back to the Philippines in the future haha. And now I can say that I have eaten pigs blood and brain YUM!


Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow!