This blog is long overdue, as most of them were along the way. No apologies this time, I was kind of busy! I ended my time in Southeast Asia on a high note. I spent almost 48 hours traveling from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur on two back-to-back overnight trains. I met up with old friends and made several new ones along the way. I also had the pleasure of spending an 8 hour layover in Penang with a fellow American named Peter. We walked up and down every street in the city, admiring the unique architecture, sampling all the foods, and sharing travel stories. This was only two weeks after my experience in Cambodia, and it was the single most important thing since; Peter restored my faith in the godness of people. I've never before felt ... read more

I realize it's been an unreasonably long time since I last wrote, and for that I apologize. Southeast Asia has turned out differently then expected or planned, though I suppose I should know by now that's just how traveling works! Because I am a bad blogger, and I now have about 4 weeks worth of adventures to catch you up on, I'm going to do this in more of an outline form. Forgive me. *Please note how much time I spent simply taking various forms of transportation in this past month. I'm surprised I even ever got to breathe fresh air.... Thailand (round 1): -I took a 24-hour overnight train to Bangkok, stayed 6 days with a host wonderful host named Tuck, met several other Americans working abroad here, started running again, and indulged in the ... read more

Since I last wrote we have switched continents and definitely changed lifestyles. The last two weeks in Sydney were similar to the first one- rainy and cold. Much of it was spent planning for Asia, although I did get the chance to catch up with some old friends and teachers from when I studied abroad. It felt weird to say goodbye to our Australian housemates since we had spent so much time over the past few weeks with them, but I know we will meet up again in the future. The flight from Sydney to Bali was 6 and a half hours, and did not include a meal or movies. While JetStar offers the cheapest prices around, you really don't get much for your money. Once in Bali, we breezed through immigration and customs and headed ... read more

I am a horrible blogger. But you haven't really missed much. And to make up for being MIA for so long, I'm adding some more pictures (yay!). This is not even close to all of them, but my camera died mid-download, so I'll give you what I can :) Besides my parents, the Robinson/O'Shea clan, and the few people I have talked to online, no one has had any idea of our whereabouts for the past 3 or so weeks. Not gonna lie, it's kind of fun to disappear, at least for a little while. But because I know you have all been waiting in suspense, constantly worried about whether or not we had been eaten by rabid koala bears, here's what we've been up to: We visited with the afore mentioned Robinson/O'Shea clan in the ... read more

Sorry for the long silence! It's due to a cross between the excitement of my birthday weekend and the lack of computer access... Last I left off, if I remember correctly, we were having a ball with our South African brothers (who we are now proper facebook friends with and will be visiting in the future!). Well, we parted ways in Wellington, and Tay and I didn't quite know what to do with ourselves. So we decided to check out the Te Papa museum, which everyone we talked to had been raving about. This FREE museum was packed with art, history, culture, science, and basically everything New Zealand. I was thrilled to learn that they had the world's ONLY displayed colossal squid! We had fun wandering through the exhibits and experiencing things such as an earthquake ... read more