Amsterdam

This past weekend I went to Amsterdam to visit Andrew and did all the typical touristy activities. We visited many of Andrew's favorite coffee shops and bummed around the Red Light District for a bit. The weather there was wicked cold, but we still rode bikes everywhere. When I got into Amsterdam Central Station, I immediately bought a bike and Andrew and I took off to his place. For most of my weekend there we rode around and he showed me the city. At night we went to many of Andrews hangouts with his friends from school. One night we even went to a Spanish girls birthday party with all her spanish friends (guess I went to Amsterdam to hang out with more spanish people). We went to the Anne Frank House and on a canal tour for 10 euros each that we immediately got off of because it was terrible. There was a light festival at night, which was pretty sweet. The best tourist attraction was the Heineken Experience where we got double the drinks because the guy at the desk was a nice guy who apologized for us waiting behind an annoying Dutch tour group. Throughout my weekend there, I ate a bunch of Stroopwafel and tried raw herring which was subpar. I tried to extend my trip because when I booked it I didn't realize I would essentially be done with school, but it was too expensive. It was a nice safe trip compared to Lisbon and I had a great time. I have 10 more days in Madrid and then am off to Rome to meet up with Andrew and his friend from home. It's crazy than in a little over two weeks I'll be wrestling twice a day, while being jetlagged, trying to unpack my stuff from storage  and trying to drop weight. I am still planning a few excursions around Spain including maybe Salamanca, Granada and a quick train ride over to another royal palace in Aranjuez. Got to get back to studying for my tests for tomorrow and Friday. Barack never blogged haha
Joey

El Escorial y Valle de los caídos

Friday I missed the excursion to San Antonio de Florida in exchange for researching and writing my econ final paper that was due that midnight and was 60% of my grade. It was a little stressful but went well. Saturday I got up early to head over to El Escorial. There we checked out a huge monastery where all the kings of Spain and their families are buried. Then we had huge steaks for lunch and hopped on the bus for 15minutes to the 'Valley of the Fallen' where Fransisco Franco is buried. Despite the cold, it was a very cool place to check out for day on our last program excursion. I have finals this week in my Cursos Estudios Hispanicos and then will have one class left that ends in a couple weeks. Thursday I leave in the afternoon for Amsterdam to visit Andrew Cohen and Ilir is tagging along now on a last minute. It should be a good weekend to celebrate the end of finals and get ready for the home stretch of the semester abroad. 3 weeks left and going to make them count.

Fuck Lisbon

Jake here-it has been way too long since I last posted and I'm sorry... but I've been way too busy having a great time here. For example: http://www.facebook.com/ice.monster.tw/photos_stream Imagine any of those deserts .... best deserts I've ever had-famous place in Taiwan. So yeah, basically I've been enjoying a lot of the food all over Taiwan, particularly in Taipei. I've been having a lot of traditional Taiwanese dishes like Stinky Tofu, Hot Pot (http://tinyurl.com/cwlpsg7), 包子-pronounced baozi (http://tinyurl.com/cxsu8eh), and 小籠包 (xiaolongbao) which are steamed dumplings filled with meat or veggies with soup. If you love food and ridiculous weather (it was 82 today in Taipei) you would love it here. I've been doing tons of work for my upcoming final along with my research into Chinese Medicine. I received acupuncture for the 4th time two weeks ago... it was underwhelming this time. I had received such relaxing treatments before, this one just kind of left me feeling the same. My research has revealed a few American and European studies that prove acupuncture's analgesic properties (it doesn't prevent pain but changes the way your brain interprets them... people can actually have surgery with nothing but acupuncture for anesthetic, really cool!), but I wasn't in particular pain beforehand, so it is no surprise I had no drastic aftereffects. 

I've picked up a lot from my meditation classes here which have been really informative if not heavy-handed with the Buddhist undertones. I feel like a lot of people out West (used to include me) say that they buy into Buddhist philosophies... and there are some really great ideas on forgiveness, impermanence and all that jazz... but don't think that because Buddhism has great ideas doesn't mean that a lot of its followers combine it with a lot of superstitious behavior that is usually associated with Daoism. 

Also-being in a foreign country provides a unique opportunity to get into habits you thought you didn't have the time or motivation to start at home. I think I've worked out more often this fall than the past two combined in preparation for wrestling season this year. Weird. Sorry it was so long since my last post, promise it won't take that long again.

Quick Post Sevilla and Córdoba

Last weekend Andrew came in from Amsterdam to join our weekend excursion to Sevilla and Córdoba in Andalusia. The weather overall was very nice. We saw a cool gothic church and garden with peacocks in Sevilla. In Córdoba we saw a Synagogue and la Mezquita. La Mezquita was probably one of the cooler tourist destinations I've been to. It was a huge, unique mosque converted into a church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque%E2%80%93Cathedral_of_C%C3%B3rdoba. The nightlife in Sevilla was very unique as people piled into the streets to hang out when the bars got too packed. Overall a great weekend and a great final excursion for our program. Works starting to pile up and the semesters winding down, which is a little depressing. This thursday we are having a thanksgiving dinner and then Max, Ilir, Matt and I are taking off on a 6hr road trip to Lisbon. Then we have final exams Dec 3, 4 and 5. Then I take off the next day for Amsterdam to go visit Andrew

Joey.

Copenhagen for the Week

I missed classes on Wednesday and, despite losing points,  do not regret it one bit. I took my flight at  730am to Copenhagen, Denmark for a Sensation White concert on Saturday. The other members of my group stopped in Berlin first, which I decided to skip. On Wednesday I got my whole plan down on all the tourist attractions I wanted to visit on a list, where they were so I could be as efficient as possible. We took it easy that night and, while my friend was in class all day Thursday I got going tearing apart Copenhagen given my limited time for tourist activities. Despite the expected dreary weather of the city, it never set me back from doing any of the activities on my list. I took the train early in the morning and stumbled upon the canal tour of the city. The boat was covered and heated, which was awesome. I decided it would be the best to start off with so I could get an overview of the city and then go from there. It was a great decision, as I got an amazing perspective of the city from the canals, as well as, a boatload of history from the audio. The tour made multiple stops that you could get off at for an hour and fifteen minutes until the boat came back around again with another tour. I got off at all, but one stop and basically saw every section of the city. I went to a church and the royal palace along the way. This took up the whole day and I got back at night, made some dinner at the dorm and headed out for the night with my buddy and his friends. Now that I knew the small city pretty well, the next day I got out midday and climbed to the top of the Rudetaarn and saw the whole city. Then I walked over to the second amusement park ever, Tivoli. It was closed so I didn't pay to go in, but it was something out of a Hans Christian Andersen story. I then went back to the dorm to meet up with my friend to head over to the Carlsberg beer factory. We took a self guided tour and bought some cool Carlsberg shirts. The man at the desk informed us that at night they were going around the city to drop off the Christmas beer, which was apparently a big deal. After going back to the dorm my friend made sure to take me over to Christiania. This was a tiny hippie sector of the city with an interesting history behind it. It was pretty crazy and sketchy, especially at night. It was definitely worth the trip. We then ate and went out for the night, obviously getting the Tuborg Christmas beer.  The next day my friend has a juijitsu tournament so I slept in and then met up with some Wesleyan friends. We got lunch and coffee. Walked around the city for a bit before I headed and back to meet back up with my friend. We chilled for awhile and then headed over to the concert. I was supposed to not stay in his dorm that night because of a bad situation last year. There was no security so I was easily able to crash in his room after Sensation. I'm hanging in the airport now waiting for my flight to Frankfort. We're boarding in a second so I got to get going, but overall it was a great weekend and am very proud of how well I was able to "conquer" the city in the few days I was in Denmark. Just realized my 21st birthday's in two days and this weekend Andrew Cohen comes to Madrid for our trip for Sevilla/Córdoba.
Until next weekend,
Joey

Barcelona, Segovia

I had a blast in Barcelona last weekend with a couple friends from the trip. I probably won't be able to remember everything, but am going to try. Day 1: We got in Thursday night and had a slight issue with the metros being closed, but got to our hostel safely. We decided to take it a little easy and got out of the hostel at around 2 and wandered around Barcelona a bit. We had a few drinks in a bar i the Gotic area and after a few hours called it a night. Day 2: I stayed in a hostel with one of my buddies from the trip and his friend from home came and shared a room with us for the rest of the trip. It was raining when we got up and the three of us grabbed a quick bite to eat. The rain stopped pretty quickly and we were able to attempt to navigate the city during this somewhat dreary afternoon. We decided to head over to the Picasso Museum. I really didn't appreciate Picasso as a painter until going here. It wasn't a huge Museum, but was very worthwhile. I did take a picture of a guy from Michigan/Amsterdam doing a handstand in the museum. We returned to the hostel late and took a nap before going out with people at the hostel to a bar and then a club on the beach. The hostel we stayed at was a "party" hostel the every night had planned trips and met up with the people staying at the 4-5 other Sant Jordi hostels throughout Barcelona. We met a bunch of cool people from around the world and had a great time. Day 3: We went to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia and Parque Güell. The inside of Sagrada Familia was very cool. It is still under construction as Gaudi got hit by a tram and then came Franco's dictatorship before it could be finished. We met up with some friends at Parque Güell. We walked around, were in a music video, and climbed a big hill where we could see the whole city. After another much needed nap,  we went out to get some nice seafood. Then my friend and I decided to go out to an Absinthe bar the was well over 100 years old. There we met up with two guys and chilled for awhile before moving on with the night. Day 4: We walked around the old Gotic part of the city, which was certainly worthwhile. From there we worked our way over to Barceloneta, an area with beaches created during the Barcelona Olympics. We spent some time on the beach and then got a great deal at this hole in the wall place that I found. We got a ton of meat and sides for 11 euros. I was full for days. We got some churros con chocolate from a street vender, which were amazing even given my food coma state. Back at the hostel, we decided to take it easy before our 6am train the next day. So we went next door to a bar due to the light rain that had a 30,000 euro bottle, got drinks, played some pool and called it a night. The Monday morning train was nice and quick (2.5 hours). I went straight to class and then headed home for a much needed nap. Overall, it was a great weekend, despite being a little sick.

Yesterday three guys and I took a 20 minute AVE train over to Segovia. We saw a really sweet Roman aqueduct, an old gothic church, and went to the top of a castle. The castle had about a 50-100 ft deep moat. We got a cochinillo for lunch, which is a roasted baby pig, and was delicious. We headed back around six. I proceeded to pass out at 8pm and wake up at 1pm today (I think I'm sick). Nonetheless, a good day trip and looking forward to my parents and a friend coming up this weekend to check out Madrid. Classes are going well and hanging with everyone from the trip, in general, has been great. Sorry that this is poorly written my brain isn't really working now after my 17hr sleep.

Valencia

I am starting to get busy with work here so this post will be quick. This weekend in Valencia was awesome, as we got our whole program back together for a 3 day vacation in this historic city. I would say everyone on our trip would agree that Valencia has a much cleaner, prettier look and design to the city than Madrid, though the nightlife was not as great. As a group, we went to a modern art museum Sunday that was ok and took a tour of the city on Friday. On Saturday we spent the whole day at a science museum/aquarium combo. Though we probably spent too much time there, it was still the most interesting stop on our trip. One night we ate dinner at an Irish bar where we got free Paulaner hats and mugs for buying a beer. Then I proceeded to teach the bartender how to make and drink an Irish Car Bomb. Overall a crazy, tiring weekend and am very happy to be on the best program in Madrid. No other trip gets stipends, reimbursements for almost everything, free fancy meals, planned trips with guides and private buses, etc. Everyone here is always jealous when we talk about what perks we get with our program. Going to stop procrastinating now and get back to work.

Cocido and other good stuff

Ate this for dinner tonight and it was insane! Probably the most unique and best dish yet. Especially because it was a home cooked old family recipe of my host dad. They also serve me strange things such as a small Mediterranean shark, rabbit stew, blood sausage and baby eels (gulas). There's definitely more but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Additionally, they won't tell me what most of the stuff is until I eat it and they find it extremely amusing for some reason, despite the fact that I am never reluctant to try anything. It was weird watching the son eat the rabbits head yesterday though. It's a nice change of pace from all the cheap döner kebabs I eat for lunch at school.
Valencia is this weekend. Barcelona next weekend. My parents come visit. Then Sensation White in Copenhagen. So should be a fun next couple of weeks. Time for bed.

Oktoberfest

I headed out to Munich for the weekend to meet up with Andrew Cohen for the opening weekend of Oktoberfest. I headed to the airport Friday early in the morning only to realize that the metro/bus lines in Madrid were on strike again. I decided not to try to risk missing my flight and hopped in a cab. I got to the airport with a couple hours to spare so I took a nap and set an alarm. My flight was bumped an hour earlier and i woke up panicking and running to my gate just to make my flight. I took the train to the subway stop recommended by the hotel website. Despite that my hotel was right next to the stop, I still got lost and wandered around for a couple hours before finally arriving. Andrew and I checked in got dinner, some drinks and called it a night to get up early for the festivities the next day. We got to the park around 8am and waited in line at a tent that served Paulaner. The tents were extremely elaborate and were actually more buildings than tents. Luckily we grabbed a table through the mad rush of people in our particular beer tent. We welcomed some Italian friends we made in line to sit with us. Then proceeded to welcome a Scottish couple, an Australian couple and a small group of Italian girls to join us as well. With our table full, we conversed and ate a little, until right before noon, the Mayor of Bavaria gave a little speech in German and then said "O' zapft is!", which means it's tapped. The waitresses came out with liters and everybody went nuts. The day as a whole was a very awesome experience and I would definitely like to come back at some point better prepared with my own pair of lederhosen. When we left the park at the end of the day, Andrew found some liter mugs that we snagged as our souvenirs for the festival.  Today we walked around the park again a little later until Andrew's train got in. I got an slow-roasted oxen sandwich and an Oktoberfest shirt. The hotel we stayed at was right next to the BMW museum and the Olympic grounds from the '72 games that are surprisingly well maintained. These two places were great for passing some time until my flight. The hotel was also very close to Dachau, but I wasn't particularly in the mood to have a depressing day. Overall a very 'memorable' weekend and will hopefully have some pictures up soon!

9/20 Update

So much has gone on I can't even begin to touch the surface of how much fun our whole group is having here. Not one day has ended without something eventful taking place. I'll start with the basics... Class has taken up a lot of the daytime during the week as most of my classes are spread out throughout the day until around 5-7ish. Since my house is an hour away I can't really go back and nap, which kind of sucks. I am not exactly sure what is going on in one of my classes and am surprisingly relaxed about this seemingly shitty situation. I have been attempting to workout and even played squash with Bohao today (he was a table tennis pro in China or something). At night we always go out and do something so still sleep has not been in the picture here. Toledo was a nice day trip last weekend, but in my opinion, was very similar to Santiago with a couple of synagogues as well. This Tuesday a group of us went over to Santiago-Bernabeu for the Real Madrid vs. Manchester City game. This was by far the craziest, most exciting sporting event I have ever been too. We scored 2 goals in the last few minutes to take the game from the reigning English Premier League Champions. On Sunday a couple of us went to the most famous synagogue in Madrid for Rosh Hashana. We got questioned individually and fairly intensely by some Mosad guys, which was very comparable to customs coming back from Israel. There were a crazy amount of cops outside the temple for security. Nevertheless, we paid, got in and saw the Ashkenazi service that went by surprisingly quickly. Tomorrow morning I am flying out of Madrid to meet up with Andrew Cohen in Munich. The opening ceremonies for Oktoberfest are this Saturday and hopefully we can make our way into one of the beer tents bright and early.  I have trips planned for Sensation White in Copenhagen and Amsterdam so far. We are going to book Barcelona tickets soon and Andrew and I are thinking about going over to Italy in late December. I'll give another post ideally on Monday regarding Munich and the festivities.
Joey

Hey all, sorry it's taken so long since my last post. I try to do one every week but last week was the first week of classes, so yeah.

We've basically been studying a lot and meeting some of the late arrivals in our program-some really cool people. But the coolest discovery I've had has been away from the Americans and my new friends: traveling alone in a foreign country, let alone one where I stick out so much would be difficult. But all it took was one instance of struggling to ask for correct change in a convenience store. I was really struggling with a particular grammar construct and kept asking for change from the cashier incorrectly. I distinctly heard multiple people giggle and say "foreigner". I wasn't that offended, really I found it funny, but I think I am starting to grasp what it is to be an outsider. That experience coupled with the stares I get from small Taiwanese children as they call me "white person" has been strange.

It isn't these experiences that are making my stay in Taiwan so memorable, I've had this happen when I would go compete in Curacao or Ecuador for Karate. It's that plus the absolute warmth that everyone in this country has welcomed me with, including those kids (who love to wave hello) and that cashier. Plus I get some amazing photos of some breathtaking scenery from some long hikes, or if I'm just lazy I can just look out my window. I'll upload a few as soon as I can

End of Week 1

I am settled in my home for the semester and classes start tomorrow in Getafe. It's about a 1 hour commute to school and I am enrolled in 5 courses. I am beginning to become more familiar with the city as we wander around each day. On Thursday night two guys and I played a drinking game with three local spanish girls, which was definitely a fun change of pace. We went out with out our 'monitores' on Friday night and due to the very large amount of girls in our program they negotiated some pretty awesome deals at the bars and discotecas we went to during the night. Yesterday I went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum, but didn't get a chance to checkout the Edward Hopper exhibit. According to my family, it is one of the top three museums in Madrid and I got to see a ton of famous pieces by painters such as, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse,  Monet, Manet, etc. As I have said many of my previous blogs, the night life here is insane and every night there is something complete new and unique to do throughout the city. Last night a group of us hung out in the park drinking, which is a very typical thing for young people in Madrid to do. It is called a "botellon" and, with its growing popularity, it has recently become illegal. It's definitely a good way to save money, as going out at night in Madrid can get pretty pricey. I also watched the FIBA world cup 3x3 basketball tournament down the street from me over the past two days. It was a two day tournament and Split, Croatia played Ljubljana, Slovenia in the finals, thus qualifying them to play in Miami in some sort of finals. This morning a group of us got up early to head over to Santiago Bernabeu, where Real Madrid plays, and bought tickets in the nosebleeds for next Tuesday's game versus Manchester City (the top team in the premiere league) at 8:45pm. On a side note, euros are complete crap for the sole purpose that the one and two euro bills are not in paper form, but coins. Therefore, you get stuck with a ridiculous amount of coins at the end of the day, though is subtly genius as it encourages people to stimulate the economy due to their great annoyance and inconvenience (obviously not working here). There are many signs of Spains failing economy that we have been keeping track of. For example, on my way to class the other day I saw a government employee raking the sand in a very small childrens' playground next to my house. Also, apparently, the Mexican spanish I have learned throughout my life is far more different than Spain spanish to the point where the madrileños sometimes can't even understand what I am saying and have even gone as far as to point out the different dialect. Despite this slight inconvenience, I feel as if my spanish is improving a little bit and certainly notice my main issue being a lack in vocabulary and a small issue with correctly conjugating verb tenses. I think that's all for now and will likely post again after our day excursion to Toledo next weekend at the very latest.

Madrid So Far...

So it's my second day in Madrid, and though we are all still getting accustomed to the city and university, it has been a very fun and unique experience so far. Yesterday we picked out some classes for most of the day and everyone was pretty tired for the most part. We went to this sandwich place and for a couple euro you could get the biggest sandwich ever. I ate half yesterday and the other half for lunch today. This morning I got a little lost and was late for my language written exam for spanish class placement. I blew through it and still finished before half of the class. While speaking with our program director regarding reimbursements for activities throughout the city, she brought up multiple times that orgies would not be reimbursed and we were all dying of laughter. After that we took the train back into the city and a couple of guys and I bummed around, what we found out to be, the gay community. This made sense because we went to the area where the guide book told us we could buy shoes for one of our friends. We stopped at one point and had a calamari sandwich that was insanely good and a Spaniard at the restaurant told me I speak Mexican spanish. After hours of walking around joking around in the city, we parted ways. On the way home a man came onto the metro with an amp and an acoustic guitar and started jamming on the train, which definitely helped pass the time on the ride home. While walking back I ran into a little boy running around with his parents wearing no pants. At this point I realized how many little, 'cultural' experiences I have had in Spain and how little I am going to remember. Even in this blog post I am certain to have forgotten many little details about the culture and things I have seen so far. Nevertheless, I will continue to post what is going on to the best of my ability. Classes start next Monday so I hope this week should be pretty relaxing overall. Going to go eat dinner with my host family so yeah.
Joey

Leaving For Madrid

So we're taking off today and leaving for the airport in a couple of hours. It's crazy how time flies by, but I think we're all ready to get started on the semester in Madrid. Last night we had a goodbye dinner at what seemed to me like a very fancy restaurant. A small group of us hung out afterwards at a bar outside and the last night was instantly ruined by a Canadian girl in our group who thought the nights topic of conversation should be on the lines of things such as rape. Once she got on a roll there was no one stopping her (clearly she doesn't go out a lot). After about an hour of this one-sided lecture of her views on some pretty terrible topics of conversation, I had enough and proposed to leave. On a brighter note, I found out my host family who are two 43 years olds, Pedro and Christina. Pedro has two kids, a boy and a girl, 16 and 12 respectively, who visit on the weekends. I live on Avda. de Bonn, 21 - 7 D and live pretty far away from the other students on the trip, as well as, a 50 minute commute to the university. I am excited to get settled in and explore the city for the next couple months. I am definitely looking forward to get out to Munich for Oktoberfest in a couple weeks, and will try to get another post in once I get everything situated in Madrid.
Joey

Santiago coming to a close

I just proceeded to tell my professor off about the inquisition in my final paper (hopefully I don't fail as a result). The past few days have been more relaxed as we have gotten settled into Santiago. Sadly we will be taking off for Madrid on Monday, which will certainly be a very hectic few days/weeks. The other day we played basketball again and a really stereotypical french guy joined us. The past few nights have been pretty fun and chill for the most part. Now that we're done with classes everybody will definitely be up until sunrise tonight. We took a tour on the roof of the Cathedral and the view was indescribable. Obviously I forgot my camera so that was a little disappointing. I have been keeping down the food here a little better as I become more accustom to the food, meal timing/sizes, sleep schedule, etc. (minus the crappy pad thai I had the other night) Fun fact: even with the outlet converters the voltage here is way higher than America so my metal macbook never fails to shock me when its plugged in.
Joey

So the last couple days have been difficult because I've been sick since Sunday, but it got very interesting. After Saturday night at a Taiwanese Dance club (strange experience in its own) I got sick and had to stay home from our group excursion on Monday, but forced myself after those days to go to a few night markets with the group, to work out, and to witness one of the strangest places I have ever been to.

The night markets are fun, especially if you force yourself into the underground sections and explore the traditional Chinese fare available. You can see pig's feet, tail, chicken's feet, watch a fish get killed and descaled, watch shooting shrimp hang out, and then I watched them execute a chicken. Debating becoming a vegetarian it was pretty awful. The other place I went to alleviate my cold and throat issue was the Traditional Chinese Daoist Master/Doctor. It was cool, but something beyond anything I've experienced. This guy asked me a few brusque questions about my symptoms (luckily I had a translator), then asked about any other health problems I may be having (sleep issues, some back soreness). He had me sit down, take a powdered medicine and prescribed more of it for later, and had his assistants tape small amounts of powder to my acupressure points and then taped sensors with flashing lights over those spots. The different frequencies that the lights flashed at were supposed to activate my Qi and special internal organs since all of the frequencies of the modern world can block my Qi-flow. I walked out feeling less congested though I'm unsure of whether it was from his treatment or the medicine or from simply being dried out by having to sit still for an hour during treatment.

Jake

8/29

I figured I'd write a quick blog before heading out tonight. Last night, in the Plaza de Tom Jones, the stage still remained standing. As some Colgate kids ventured out with us Wesleyan guys we ended up stumbling upon another concert there. This time it was a Galecian Celtic-style band, which was awesome. We had some drinks and danced a little. I was at the head of a conga line during the encore. We met some German and Italians and spent the rest of the night at the bars and wandering around a bit. Today we had another tour of the city on the Baroque style, which was fairly interesting. After a nap, Jackson, Bohao, Ilir and I headed out to play some random spaniards in basketball. We played for almost 2 hours and I realized how out of shape I am in. I just got back from dinner and am going to hang out a little before going out as nightlife doesn't start until super late here.
Joey

Justification of the Inquistion

So last night, Monday, who came to Santiago de Compostela, but Mr. Tom Jones himself. A couple of guy and I headed off to find some dinner when we stopped off at a schwarma-like place, which was the best meal here yet. After that we went through the rain to see Tom Jones live. Though sadly he did not end up playing She's a Lady. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIfxBthfFkg After a very interesting concert we met up with some other Wes kids for a light night at a bar and called it a night shortly after. This morning after not reading the play and having to write a paragraph on it I proceeded to my second class only to sit for an hour and 45 minutes having the man deny and attempt to justify the Spanish Inquisition. He made consistent comments about truths and myths, one myth being that the Inquisition did not persecute Jews and Muslims. While walking out of class, a kid in my group commented how he would like to his perspectives on the Holocaust. I've been catching up on some sleep in exchange for breakfast/lunch today and am heading out on an official tour of the famous Santiago Catedral, where earlier in the week I saw an exhibit on the Codex Calixtinus. I will leave it at that for now. Also, the exercise room here is extremely pathetic, as a kid on my group and I attempted to be somewhat productive yesterday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Santiago_de_Compostela
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Calixtinus

Update 8/27

Santiago de Compostela has been great and we finally got the afternoon off so I had some free time to regroup and just chill for a bit. The eating schedule here is fairly interesting and I believe I am losing way too much weight. 125 almost seems realistic at this point. I have been so busy I haven't had any time to do anything let alone sleep and surprisingly don't feel too sleep deprived at all. I am looking forward to heading back to Madrid next week, but don't particularly want the awesome times here to end what seems like so abruptly. We are taking two classes here in Santiago and they are pass/fail so I ended up just winging my presentation today, which surprisingly worked out better than expected. Basically, all the Wesleyan/Vassar kids are hitting it off and having a great time. In addition, Colgate has a program that parallels ours and a couple of us have gotten to be friendly with them as well. With all the programs combined there are about 8 guys, most from Wes, which is nice because we are becoming what seems like a little, tight knit group. The night life here is insane and never seems to disappoint. We typically have gone out around 10pm for tapas and then after the bars Spaniards end up going out to the discotecas around 4am. Good indicators of a failing economy? Given how much more free time I have I will try to keep posting more regularly, but we'll see. Hi Dan
Joey

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=412260695487912&set=at.412260662154582.86582.100001119552151.505026501&type=1&theater

My group and I at Chiang Kai-Shek

Well it's been tough to write anything about my time here until now- We've been running all over the place. We went to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial a few days ago and that was great, and I'll post the pictures once I figure out how to do that. My roommate Mario should be moving in shortly-he's a really cool guy that plays some amazing music, I might post some on here with his permission. I managed to get sick within a week of being here, hopefully I'll shake off this cold and get better soon.

I've had a lot of fun so far getting to know the other people in my program (including finding out that most of the males in the program got interested in it by playing Dynasty Warriors), and exploring Taibei. The thing is, no one warned me how much I would realize my situation in the States is. I have great friends, a loving family, and that became readily apparent when it hit me that I will be here for another 3 1/2 months. All I can say is that I miss my parents, my brothers, my baby sister, and all of my extended family Everyone at Wes and friends from Glenview who have probably gone back to school, and those who are still waiting for that day to come faster. Hope you all are having as good of a time as I am.

Brief Update

Things are crazy here and people are always out and about. Therefore, I apologize for the lack of posts and will make one large one when everything settles down at some point. As for today we just got back from Portugal, which was very cool. I have a 10min presentation for tomorrow to take care of so I have to get going.

Day 1/2

Disclaimer: I've been up for well over 24 hours and nothing too interesting happened today. Sorry, Dan...

When I walked through JFK this morning, I realized I hadn't been there since Birthright and began to reminisce as I waited eight hours for my flight to Madrid. Once I met up with some Wes kids the time passed much more quickly. The inflight entertainment was made up of me sitting next to a fairly large woman with a little chihuahua and watching Hunger Games. We then had another five hour layover in Madrid for our flight out to Santiago de Compsotela (a small town in the northwest corner of Spain). When our flight arrived, we walked out on the runway onto a little prop and continued on our brief one hour flight to the final destination. After 10 of us, including myself, didn't receive their checked luggage, we hopped on a bus and proceeded to get our rooms in a dorm that is clearly in the process of being heavily renovated. Then we got a quick lunch of some very terrible pizza and other assorted cafeteria food. Our classes and excursions begin tomorrow and I'm certain there will be some more interesting stories to tell besides two guys on the program killing a bottle of duty-free cognac to pass the time in the Madrid airport. Heading off to some orientation info sessions now, so I'll leave it at this until mañana. Maybe Barack will write something about his Chinese-Taipei extravaganzas...
Joey

Just got into my hotel in Taiwan before orientation. I get settled and go to check my email so I can tell my family I got in okay and all is well. I find this message from my program: 

Dear all,

This is a notification of the coming typhoon "TEMBIN”,
which is very likely to massively affect Taiwan on Aug. 22nd
and 23rd, especially on the 23rd. 
We are keeping a close eye on the news and are currently continuing
to stick to our original plan for airport pick-up and orientation. In case
your flight is delayed, or if you must land somewhere else, please make
sure you stay in touch and update us your whereabouts as well as your
updated new flight information, if available.

Thanks for the welcome Taiwan

-Jake

Barack and I will be posting update's on our excursions abroad.