Hi friends, Again, it's been a while since I last wrote, and I apologize. My reason is not a lack of interesting material, that's for sure. In fact, just the opposite is true- I have had a very easy time staying quite busy here. To be honest, I was not expecting to love China. I expected to learn a lot and for this experience to be very interesting, but it was not in my list of expectations to absolutely love my lifestyle here or to find a group of friends who are entirely genuine and inspiring. Writing from a Sunday night- [View Full Entry]

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Hey All, I’m back on campus and taking a deep breath as I decompress from our homestay that, as you can tell, was chockfull of adventure. Happily, I can tell you that despite the little side trip to the hospital, it was truly an enjoyable experience. One unexpected plus is that my Chinese is actually improving. I can now string together elementary sentences such as “My horse is fat,” and “My dad is busy.” I can say the same things about your horse and father, and even about his/her horse and father. Don’t act like you’re not impressed. [View Full Entry]

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Hello Family and Friends, It hardly seems appropriate that my first entry from China should come from my fall break when there's so much to tell about campus, classes and new friends. Everything in Zhuhai has been happening very quickly, and I've been managing to stay so busy that after only two and a half weeks of classes, break really snuck up on me. It may seem too early to be on vacation, but the Communist Party of China had its 60th anniversary this past Thursday, and yesterday was the mid-Autumn festival. These things must be celebrated, thus the early break. [View Full Entry]

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Hey everybody, get ready for a rundown on my latest adventure. Last Thursday was a holiday in Spain because it was St. Joseph’s day, and therefore also Father’s Day. Also classes were canceled. Well, if you don’t have classes on Thursday, it’s not really worth sticking around for Friday, right? A week before hand, Amanda and I decided that it would surely be a better use of our time to go see the Fallas festival in Valencia. It was kind of late in the game to decide to go to the festival as all of the hostels were surely booked [View Full Entry]

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Hey Everybody, I know that it’s been far too long since I updated, so I just wanted to make a quick post to let you all know that I’m still alive and doing just fine. I just completed my third week of classes and for the most part they are going well. I’m in three Spanish for Business Use-type classes, a Literature class that I absolutely love, Translation, and a more intensive Grammar class. Those are all geared towards foreigners, and on top of that, I’m in one class within the regular university called Spanish Politics and Justice. That’s kind of [View Full Entry]

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I have been on a whirlwind of an adventure these past couple of weeks. I have arrived in Pamplona, and I’m very happy to be in one stable place with my suitcases completely unpacked. That said, Norway was absolutely a blast. So, let the run-down begin. After my last entry, I spent three days going to school with Tessa and visiting the English classes that she teaches. The students stay in the same classroom all day and the teachers rotate. Tessa has 13-16 year olds, and they all had really good questions about the United States, as well as some fun [View Full Entry]

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Dear Friends, I am tired out from a very satisfying, long walk in the fresh air. Today has actually been pretty low-key, but I think I will be ready for a good nights sleep tonight. As most of you know, I have traveled quite a bit this week, so I guess we can start with Philadelphia. I had a five-hour layover there on Wednesday, and luckily, my friend Winn goes to school at Haverford, which is about twenty minutes away from the airport. For those of you who haven't heard me talk about Winn, she is originally from Ohio and was [View Full Entry]

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After returning from Thailand, we were in Bangalore for a little over 24 hours before we turned around and headed out on a mini-field visit to Shravanabelagola (say that three times fast!) in northern Karnataka. The purpose of this field visit was to learn about Jainism, an ancient religion that got its start in India. The main thing that I got out of the visit is that Jains place high influence on non-violence and peace. The concept of non-violence extends to all living things, including plants and tiny insects. Therefore, Jains don’t consume root vegetables because by e [View Full Entry]

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I have to say that Delhi has been my favorite part of India thus far. When planning for this entire semester, the one thing that I absolutely knew I had to see was the Baha’i Lotus Temple in the capital city of the nation. We arrived in Delhi on a Friday morning, settled into the YWCA hostel, and then split off to enjoy our free afternoon. Tessa and I, feeling adventurous, hailed a rickshaw and asked the driver to take us to the house of worship. We thought we would spend about an hour there and then move on to [View Full Entry]

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We left Visthar early on November 10th and headed to the Bangalore airport where we caught a flight to Hyderabad. We were all exhausted when we got there, and luckily, they had a fairly relaxed day planned for us, we visited an art museum and then had time for an afternoon nap. We stayed at a Catholic run retreat center that was fairly comfortable. Our purpose in Hyderabad was to study Islam since roughly 80% of the city’s population is Muslim. For the most part, our lectures were given or facilitated by a Catholic priest who is a scholar of [View Full Entry]

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