A Change of Plans

I often feel that one of life's main lessons is to teach us that we can't truly plan for the future. With all the factors and variables in life, the only constant is change. 

For the past few months I've been raving about teaching in Thailand. I had a sweet deal through the LanguageCorps program where I could spend my first two weeks of training in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and then travel to Pattaya, Thailand for student teaching before finding a job in Bangkok.  

Well, as I've learned over the past few weeks (and I'm sure I'll continue to realize over the next few months) nothing ever really goes the way you plan. And it's a beautiful thing. 

I'm pretty excited to announce that I will not be traveling to Pattaya and then on to find a job in Bangkok. Instead, I will be staying here in Phnom Penh for the rest of the year!

 

Cambodia, you've won me over. This city has stolen my heart, and in it I see my future home. 

If this is any indication of how the rest of my time in Southeast Asia will be, I'm excited for a whirlwind experience and ready to face whatever changes come my way. 

Although I think this will continue to be a part of life I struggle accepting, for the moment--lesson learned. 

Here's to living with you, Cambodia. 

Coron, Palawan

We hopped off our [tiny] airplane and already felt a difference in the air—gone was the hectic, polluted air of Manila—we were soaking in the island breeze. 

After a bumpy ride through Palawan’s countryside [and past imported Aussie cows eating imported Aussie grass], we arrived at our hotel, the Princess of Coron.

After a quick nap, we hopped into our swimsuits and headed out to the Maquinit Hot Springs. Our mode of transportation was what Filipinos call a tricycle. It’s basically a motorcycle with a side car and roof attached to it (and it has 3 wheels). They’re fun to ride around in, even though they feel dangerous at times.

When we finally arrived at our destination, we were all amazed at the beauty before us at the hot springs. 

We wandered around and took touristy pictures—marveling at the amazing view, the clean air, the clear water, and eventually got around to taking a dip.

Whew, it was hot! The water was the perfect temperature to loosen up our muscles and push us into a deeper level of relaxation. We sat under the waterfalls and felt the water melt away previous stresses. 

About an hour later, we decided it was time to leave this magical place and head back for dinner. With rumbling tummies we were greeted at the hotel and invited to the owner’s birthday celebration and a ceremony blessing the hotel’s dining room. Oh. My. Goodness. The food was amazing. There were at least 5 different pork dishes in different sauces, grilled tropical fish, enough rice to feed a small army, and a giant smoked pig. 

It was a feast fit for royalty. Sadly, being as I was starving and jetlagged (so not thinking clearly), I only got a picture of the hog. 

After dinner, the day finally caught up with me and I was in bed and asleep by 8 pm.

Manila Gets Icy

So before my big adventure in Thailand, I figured it would be good to get a feel for the region by hopping around to a few different countries before settling down. First stop? The Philippines!

My flight arrived around Midnight, and of course I was starving. After getting through a [rather] easy customs and immigration scene, I finally found Danvic (my Filipino CISV friend). We headed to his neighborhood for [what we thought would be] a quick bite to eat and a couple of beers. 
As it was a Saturday night, we decided to have a little fun and ended up in the Imperial Ice Bar.

 Not even 2 hours off the plane and I'm thrust on a bar...

And then hung out with the DJ for a spell.

Around 3:30 am, we finally called it a night.. Exhausted, but happy.

 Not the start to the trip I had anticipated [falling asleep ASAP to try & beat jetlag] 
But if this is any indication of how my big trip will go, I'm ready for some fun. 
We're off to Coron, Palawan, another province in the Philippines in the morning! 

The Art of Leaving

Poet Elizabeth Bishop writes of how the art of losing isn't hard to master. 

I'd have to disagree and say that the art of leaving is much easier to perfect.

Since my first time traveling, I caught the bug: wanderlust.

That longing to be in transit; 

be liminal, at least for a few weeks. 

The past four years I've set out each summer

with a gypsy soul, my passport, and too many shoes

 to visit some random country and escape from "my" world.

I always wanted to leave--be somewhere bigger, smaller, better

anywhere but where I was at that specific moment.

I guess it's this initial pull to leave that led me to decide to pack my bags,

jump on a plane, and move to Thailand for the next year. 

So back to the art of leaving

It's simple...

you pack a bag, grab your passport, and hop on the next plane out.

Even when I'm unsure of what to expect, afraid of the unknown,

my feet always walk me on the plane and off to my next adventure. 

This time is no different. 

Even though I hated hugging my family and friends goodbye

[or rather, see you soon]

and it hurt my heart to leave my beloved Athens,

My feet magically walked me onto the plane

[with my heart torn between the call of wanderlust and the comfort of staying with those I love]

Ready to start the next big adventure. 

As Edward Abbey writes,

“My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation’s history, 

or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. 

I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time."

Time to push myself to not be limited by one culture 

[hopefully I'll pick up some of the language too]

So there you have it: 

The art of leaving isn't hard to master, 

Especially when you're on the cusp of such an exciting adventure.

Here We Go Again

New year, new blog design, new ambitions.

Here's to my final semester at the University of Georgia.

4 years has flow by WAY to quickly.

Hoping to keep my sanity until May 10, GRADUATION!

 

Much Awaited Update!

Per usual, I'm horrible at keeping up with my blog... But tonight I'm staying in to "read and catch up on school work"--aka blog. Basically I'm going to break up our adventures by theme if you will.

Back to Day 3- Wednesday May 16, 2012:
Wednesday night our trip planners/directors decided to have us meet the Stellenbosch students we'd been Skyping with before we came to study. Nobody realized it was going to be a "serious" discussion about racial issues and society, but it turned out to be pretty fun! We even got some of the locals to go have a drink with us and then go clubbing.
--Needless to say the first night out in South Africa was a little wild. We went to a few clubs and one even had sand on the floor of the entrance and really awesome lights upstairs around the bar.


The next day we had our first encounter with Kayamandi, the township located next to Stellenbosch.

Kayamandi is a predominantly black township (I use their terminology, not my own) that is filled with shacks, government housing, and a few 'normal' houses. It's crazy to see the difference between the white buildings of Stellenbosch University and then the next minute to be looking over an entire town of shacks with barefoot children running around.

Kayamandi

Shacks that people live in

The kids loved having their picture taken

Friendly woman who wanted her picture taken

It's crazy how the views from Kayamandi are so beautiful-- the people living in Kayamandi might have the best views in the Stellenbosch area. While in Kayamandi we got to see Prochorus, the non-profit we'll be working with during our first week of Service-Learning. We also got to meet Bonez, our tour guide per-say and the coordinator/head teacher of the computer class at the library. Our group will be working with Bonez to help him teach the upcoming computer class covering Microsoft Word and Excel.

After our walking tour of Kayamandi we went to watch Academia (our student residence) play another residence in a game of rugby. What an intense game! I felt like I was at a lacrosse tournament with fields being right next to each other. It feels like everyone in this school plays rugby!

Tackle

Hookers in the air

The Scrum

Hooker in the air again

Hello tree-thighs

That night we just hung out and watched movies-- After a crazy Wednesday night, we needed a day/night (or 2) off.

More to come in the next post about our first weekend adventures!!

South African Adventure take 1

\Day 1, Monday May 14, 2012:

After over 24 hours of air travel, too many airplane meals, and some serious jet-lag, we FINALLY made it to Stellenbosch, South Africa. It didn't really hit that we were in Africa for a while because Stellenbosch is so similar to the States and Athens especially. Today was a day of rest and relaxation where Margo, the Post Grad & International Student Coordinator's assistant who helps us, took us on a tour of the campus & surrounding town. 

Academia, where we live

center of campus

Reagen hanging out

That afternoon we napped, went for dinner (at an amazing pizza/pasta place) and then had our night out on the town. Needless to say, we might be far from Athens, but we always know how to find the bars..And some hilarious people. One guy we met was drinking a Smirnoff Ice, so of course we made fun of him relentlessly and by the end of the night, the “smirnoff was talking” and he was getting a little too sassy to be straight. Either way, he was a great sport about being humiliated by random American kids.

Day 2, Tuesday May 15, 2012:

We met with our “helper” Margo, who took us around to get the necessities: student ID card, internet access, South African Rand, cell phones (of course), and an orientation session. Breakfast was served at the prettiest little restaurant nestled in an alley (I plan on returning to this restaurant & I'll take pictures just to show how adorable this place is) where we got to eat the first REAL meal in over 24 hours. We had a South African breakfast, which is almost exactly like an English breakfast complete with yogurt & granola, freshly cut fruit, fresh squeezed fruit juice (Which was beyond fresh and delicious), eggs, mushrooms, shoulder bacon, boerworst (sausage), and cooked tomatoes. While we were eating all of the delicious food, we got to talk to our coordinators and each other to get to know one another a little better. (As if flying for over 24 hours together isn't enough bonding time). If you know me, you know no meal isn't complete without some shenanigan causing: luckily this time it wasn't me, but Jack who had an accident. When serving me some bacon, he dropped a piece of bacon in the jar of berry juice. This probably doesn't sound very funny, but we were all jet-lagged and exhausted, so we got the contagious giggles and I probably didn't stop laughing for a good 10 minutes.

Basically our trip revolves around food... Which shouldn't surprise you since I'm on this trip and I love to eat. After breakfast and a couple more orientation sessions, the group headed back for a much needed nap to get ready for the night ahead.

Our driver was a nice, but very strange Afrikaner from near Stellenbosch who loved dubstep music and had some very interesting theories on America and politics. Anyway, before I get to our dinner conversation I'll fill you in on our actual dinner. We went to the Africa Cafe in downtown Cape Town. Dear goodness I've never eaten so much in my life. The restaurant is decked out in African cloth and inspirational words all over the tables and walls. I wish I had gotten a picture because it was BEAUTIFUL. The women serving us first washed our hands, then we began our 14 (yes FOURTEEN) course meal. We had traditional African dishes from around the world ranging from cheesy flat bread, vegetable soup and stir-fry vegetables to lamb stew, fried rice and some lentil dish. Every single dish was phenomenal and I couldn't stop eating even though I was beyond stuffed. I sat a the end of the table with Reagen, Jack, and Blayne our driver from earlier. We had some pretty interesting discussions... Blayne thinks the Illuminati is behind the 9/11 attacks and that the US government killed Michael Jackson because he converted to Islam and was about to go on world tour. I still can't tell if he was joking the whole time or if he truly believed this stuff and was that off his rocker. I guess we'll see if he drives us again (I kinda hope he does so we can try to understand the complexities that goes on in his thought process...). Anyway after that we were all exhausted and had to meet at 8 am the next morning for the first day of class!

 

Day 3 Wednesday May 16, 2012:

We had an early start (We had to be at the front of our residence at 8 am) for a morning full of class. (gag). After our first lecture from Dr. Finlay, which was really interesting and I'm actually really excited for all of these classes, we were a liiiitttllleee bit tired. Dr. Crepaz came in and although his course content is really interesting, I couldn't seem to keep my eyes open... Even as he was STARING AT ME IN THE EYES. We were making eye contact and my eyelids were so heavy I couldn't keep them open. Not the best first in-class impression.. oops! I'll talk more about my classes later because I know that nobody cares about what we're actually learning in South Africa, it's all about the adventures and sight seeing, duh! So, on to our first BIG adventure!

Well first-- lunch. We have access to Neelsie, the student center here, to get food and such, so we decided to get lunch (hamburgers of course!) and eat outside of the student center (which we call Tate 3). Jack got the biggest burger I've EVER seen in my life. It had 2 chicken patties on one bun, a burger patty and a fried egg and an onion ring on the other patty, salad on the side, and sauce everywhere. It was ridiculously huge and looked absolutely scrumptious. On the way to our sunny little picnic patch, Jack's hand slipped and he dropped half of his food on the ground. EVERYONE around us just stared and gave us dirty looks, so we just hurried away. Lucky for Jack, he still had half of his food, so he had an ENTIRE hamburger to eat. 

Adventure time!!!

Yeah, it doesn't look like much, but it's very big

See this mountain?  yeah, we hiked it. TO THE TOP!!

I obviously am out of shape because I was one of the kids bringing up the rear.

But we made it!!!

Caroline and I at the top!

Anyway, I'm a bit tired (exhausted, actually) so I'm off to watch Invictus with Caroline! I'll update what we did the rest of the week tomorrow!! 

XOXO, KB