Hello everyone! Long time, no blog? Walpole did not offer any particular adventures worth note here, so please excuse the absence. But as many of you already know from facebook, e-mails, or personal conversations, I am moving to Thailand in one week! That's right, July 31st will be my last day in the States for quite some time. Differences in the travels this time include: ~Being accompanied by my boyfriend, John ~Living in one location/country for a period of time no less than 6 months ~Working to fund future travels (I will be teaching; subject and grade level still TBD) ~Bringing my laptop, which means more skype sessions and blog updates for you all! So look forward to more of my epic stories and amazing adventures, and get ready to live vicariously through me again ;) ... read more

Many of you reading this entry have heard some variation of this story already from me. For those of you who haven't, this is the version worth reading anyway*. I will warn you all, if you are uncomfortable hearing about the harsh realities of the world and prefer stories with happy endings, you may want to stop now and go find something else to read. On Tuesday, January 31, I got up and went for a 4 mile run. I started the day off with a delicious breakfast and a smile on my face. The previous few days in Cambodia had been overwhelming, but I was ready to start a new day with a positive attitude. I met my tuk tuk driver outside my guesthouse at 9:00 AM sharp and we headed off to Angkor Wat. ... read more

Happy New Year! Last time I wrote we had just arrived in Singapore from Bali. The plan had originally been to spend both Christmas and New Year's Eve in Singapore. This was of course all without knowing much about Singapore... Our host Sam was very nice, though this was the first time that we've lived with someone and their parents. But Sam's family was amazingly wonderful to us, especially since Tay was sick and it rained the whole time we were there. Due to these two things we did little besides try the local cuisine and plan our onward travels. Singapore is a very modern city, but we found it unfriendly and uninteresting (sorry to anyone who really loves it!). We decided 4 days was quite long enough before moving on to Malaysia. Our first night ... read more

G'day mate, 'ow ya goin'? So we are approaching the 2 month mark on our time in Australia, and we have already passed the 3 month mark on our total travel time. And since I last wrote to you we have done quite a bit of traveling: With Betty White finally, um, "fixed" we headed south again. Our first stop was in Airlie Beach. Now Airlie is a very small, touristy town, known mainly for its proximity to the spectacular reefs of the Whitsunday Islands. While we were not going on any of the popular sailing trips, Airlie was still a milestone in our trip. That's right everyone, we officially had our first negative couchsurfing experience. Now on the scale of things that could go horribly wrong while staying with complete strangers on the other side ... read more

In case you missed the memo- we are in Australia! We spent our first week in Sydney car hunting and doing a bit of sight-seeing. We found a little Mitsubishi hatchback within our budget with low milage (kilometerage?) and jumped on the offer. She's a bit old and shaky, but runs great and fits all our bags! We left Sydney early yesterday morning and headed north to Ballina- a 9 hour drive that ended up taking us 12 due to traffic, weather, and, of course, car troubles. Our car started acting funny about 7 hours in when Taylor went to put the blinkers on; basically, the car stopped and restarted itself while we were driving. So we pulled over into a gas station to see what was wrong. When we tried the lights the car died ... read more