Hello, First, I would like to thank everyone who has emailed / messaged / called to check in on me. I'm fine, as far as terrorist activity goes. I'm in Bangalore which is in South India (about where home plate would be if you made a diamond between Bangalore, Calcutta, Delhi, and Bombay. Nothing has happened in Bangalore since late summer and I'm sure they will be locking down; before we've had major increase in visible police force / road blocks on the streets when attacks happen. I am trying to respond individually to everyone but thought this would be a [View Full Entry]

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*Note: This is all written/posted much later than when I experienced it so it will not be as good as if I'd written it right away. Also, I'm working on posting my Thailand-trip pics and they should be up soon.* I rode into this industrial town called Butterworth on the overnight train from Kuala Lumpur. I opted for a nicer class of train this time with only two people sharing a compartment with bunks and a sink. The other person in my compartment was an older Muslim gentleman who was very friendly. I think he was from Malaysia. He was fasting [View Full Entry]

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*Note: This is being written posted about a month later as I've been without internet/electricity some times and just busy other times. I'm not posting much in the way of story to go along with the pictures because more interesting pictures/stories are waiting to be told and I can't skip ahead. I'll do my best to catch up now though! I arrived into the main train station in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday morning. I'm in need of a shower after the overnight train trip but figure everything is alright because the station at KL has pay showers, right? Wrong! They were [View Full Entry]

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Today Paul and I left Singapore for Malaysia where we will split up. Staying in Singapore was a lot of fun and a good starting place for the whole Asian adventure. Paul is headed to climb some mountain in Asia. He says it is the the tallest mountain in SE Asia... I'll just take his word on that. I am headed to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. I am going to take a night train from Johor Bahru to KL and it will only cost me the equivalent of about US$12... For a bunk with air conditioning... For a seven [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Singapore from Tokyo at about 11:30 pm local time. The airport is pretty modern even if it does use the teal green and pinkish color theme (not unlike the Miami airport, except you don't feel trapped in the 80s). There are tropical palm trees everywhere on the road out from the airport though this shouldn't be a surprise as Singapore is located very close to the Equator. In fact, this is the closest to the southern hemisphere I've ever been... yay. I made it through immigration and customs without any trouble, got some cool Singapore Dollars (SGD) from [View Full Entry]

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So... I'm off for my semester abroad in Bangalore, India. I'm nervous and excited and a ton of emotions all at once. I know that it will be exciting but it does sadden me to be away from the family at home and the friends in DC. I'm first headed to Singapore, flying OKC -> Houston -> Tokyo -> Singapore over the Pacific Rim. My classes at National Law School of India Univ. in Bangalore start in October so I will be seeing some sights in SE Asia for a bit beforehand. I'm not really sure where I'm going yet, but [View Full Entry]

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One of the excursions from CEA was to the Normandy and Brittany regions to visit Rennes (the capital of Brittany), St. Malo and Mont St. Michel. Rennes is a nice-enough town. It has a beautiful parliament building that was recently rebuilt after a fire for a gigantic amount of money (I can’t remember exactly how much). Another interesting thing here is that signs appear in French and Breton (see the picture). St. Malo is on the coast of the English Channel. It used to be an important wealthy area, mostly because of the profiteers (a nice French name for pirates) who [View Full Entry]

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Well, I’m going to go ahead and post these pictures without much text; they may never get posted if I wait until I have time and am in the mood to write something. I’ll try to add some description in later. ------------- London is an AWESOME town . . . but very expensive. My favorite things in London were getting to see my cousins, Sunday services at Westminster Abbey, and seeing Ewan McGregor act live Guys and Dolls. It was really weird to be in an English speaking country after not being in one for so long. I took the Eurostar [View Full Entry]

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This weekend I got to visit Barcelona. I was pretty excited because this is the first time I had gotten to use my rail pass and travel outside of France. It was a real adventure, as I have never taken a train anywhere before. One tip about trains: you have to watch those train ticket salesman . . . they are kind of like airline people, and will sell you a more expensive ticket than you need. They told me it would cost like 60 euros each way for an overnight train from Paris to Barcelona (on top of the mega [View Full Entry]

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This weekend was one of the excursions sponsored by CEA, who arranged my housing and enrollment in Paris. The trip was to the Champagne region, with main stops in the cities of Reims, Épernay, and Meaux with a night being spent in the small town of Montmort. First we visited Reims. The Cathedral at Reims (Notre-Dame de Reims) is where the Clovis was baptized on Christmas Eve in the year 496 by Saint Remi, thus establishing a Christian tradition for the Kingdom of the Franks. Clovis wanted to be baptized and a huge crowd had gathered because it was a huge [View Full Entry]

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