Jon Wesley

Hello everyone, As this post indicates, I am of course traveling again and for anyone who doesn't know, I am studying this summer in Taiwan at Tunghai University and then in Beijing for the rest of the year. If I don't lack the discipline, this blog should be somewhat continuously coming till...next May. Any bets? At any rate, Kim and I arrived after a lengthy flight early yesterday morning. After finding another hostel (the World Scholar's House host had apparently forgotten our online reservation) I managed to stay awake until 2pm and then slept until 3:30am. That said, I think the jetlag will wear off by the time we head down to Taichung for orientation on the Saturday. I was expecting quite a bit more of a shock from both the jet lag and the whole ... read more

I suppose all stories must end at some point, and this particular one does so here. During the first week of the TEFL program, I considered cutting the whole thing short. I found the whole experience much more empty than I had hoped and there much to be done at home. After all, I had not spent a week in Denver before I left for Paris. I was seriously considering leaving, so I looked on the program website for specific information about refunds, continuing the course elsewhere, and all the specifics that quitting would entail. Pulling up that website was a strange experience. It was the same website I had stared at on so many occasions over the year, thinking of far away and exotic places, new experiences, and big things to be started abroad. In ... read more

Well, there probably won’t be too many more of these blog entries. After spending sixty-four days in Europe, I have sixteen left. It feels like I got on that early morning plane to Paris not long ago. That interminable eight hour layover in Detroit feels like it passed in the blink of an eye. As some of you know, I feel ready to go home at this point. It is as if a thousand little voices are calling me back to where I belong. All those little things that, when you add them all up, comprise your life become magnified and aquire a new significance. Like breath of fresh Colorado air. A tasty morsel from “the Met”. Mt Ranier presiding over Puget Sound like a king in white robes. The early morning moon rising over an ... read more

I must say that I am really excited to be back in Barcelona, mostly because my experience from here on out is going to be quite a bit different from the way the trip has gone till now. For one thing, I have something to do, something to work on. More importantly though, it will be a much more personal experience in terms of meeting people. I started my day at 5:30 Barcelona time since I did not know how long it would take me to get to the airport. So I hopped on the metro for about 15 or 20 minutes to Victoria station, caught the Gatwick express that took me straight to the airport without any stops. You really have to hand it to the Europeans for their mass transit. The novelty of being ... read more

For some reason I feel a little strange writing something without posting it right away. It is not really that the actual writing is any different, but posting it feels odd because it isn’t really current anymore. It almost feels kind of dishonest, like a baker selling yesterday’s bread. That is, however, what I am pushed to due to the lack of good internet access in London of all places. Well… I could have as much internet as I want at the hotel (which, after hostel hopping, has been glorious) for 15 pounds a day. So I remain wifi less. At any rate, London has been an interesting change from Ireland and the continent. The first thing I noticed when I arrived after a frustrating flight with Ryanair, your leading low cost airline, is the abundance ... read more

Well, another phase of the trip has come and gone. I just saw Mike off to the airport bus and Mat left earlier this morning. At this point I’m feeling like I have put some miles under my feet. From Paris to Montgaillard to Bordeaux to Pau to Biarritz to the Pyrenees to San Sebastian to Barcelona’s L’Eixample, Ciutat Vella, Montjuic, and Barceloneta to Shannon to Limerick to Cork to Killarney to Dublin. I think I’m learning to enjoy the journey and the pleasure of movement, and to relish the expectation of the next destination as much as the memory of the last. My plans have changed somewhat. Tired of being tourists, Mat and Mike (as you might have guessed from what I just said) are headed home, leaving me with a good deal of time ... read more

I almost feel like saying I’m back in Ireland, but then I’ve never actually been here. The trip from Barcelona went off without a hitch, despite having to take an hour and a half long bus ride up to Girona airport at eight, catching the flight and taking two busses to Newcastle west where Laura and Nate picked us up. Maybe it’s the absence of a language barrier, but the Irish really have seemed much friendlier than the continentals. Anyway, Mike arrived two days after Mat and I did and we drove south into Cork for the day. We walked around for a bit but really did not end up seeing too much since the guys were very focused on pubs and getting their fill of stout. I think we are planning on going to Cork ... read more

As expected, I have not had as much internet access here traveling around Spain and the internet cafes do not seem to have caught on to wireless internet access, so I have to type on their computers. I´ve written a few entries on my laptop and in my journal that I´ll just paste on to the blog when I get a chance. At any rate, I have been a bit more immersed in everything since I left the chateau; actually, a lot more immersed, which has led to a bit of culture shock. What is shocking for me is not the language or the even the stress of arriving at new cities literally knowing nothing. Both in Bilbao and here in Barcelona, Mat and I got off the bus and looked at the maps to find ... read more

The journey to Bilbao was actually pretty painless. I was anticipating major trouble since, in their foresight, the Spanish and French trains run on different gauges and the whole Spanish public transporation system is not supposed to be very good. You would not know it from our trip though. After an interesting trip to the train station, we just rode the train for forty minutes to Irun, which is the first town on the Spanish side of the border, and hopped on the bus to Bilbao that left ten minutes later. (Patrice got pulled over by the flamboyant French police. Instead of pulling him over in a car, the tight pants and high boots wearing cop stepped out from behind a building and pointed at the car. Poor Patrice managed to talk his way down to ... read more

Well, I think we’ve been being at least a bit more like tourists and less like lazy aristocrats as of late, though I say this even as the scent of our second to last dinner prepared by Alain is wafting into the game room here where I’m writing. Three days ago we drove to Pau, which is a city of about half a million people situated about an hour and a half’s drive southwest of the chateau. We did not have a whole lot of time since we ended up leaving kind of late, so we mostly just saw the moderately famous Chateau de Pau and had lunch. The Chateau itself was pretty neat, aside from the fact that it had to be seen in a guided tour that was kind of bothersome both because ... read more