Soy Muy Alto

Internship with WorkXpress

2008-10-24T11:07:00.001-07:00

Currently I am a business intern at WorkXpress, www.workxpress.com, which allows organizations to produce, without the need for programmers, sophisticated, customized software applications at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods. WorkXpress is located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and is about a 25 minute drive from Messiah College. In case you are interested, their application information can be found at http://www.workxpress.com/applications

europe and roadtrip photos

2008-09-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

okay, so i finally got my the rest of my europe and roadtrip photos up on facebook. so here are the links to view those albums:

Europe:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044618&l=7871e&id=55303386

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048883&l=1aa99&id=55303386

Roadtrip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048887&l=a1463&id=55303386

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048890&l=c60bf&id=55303386

also, i'm not the only shorts boy with a blog. My twin, alex, who is studying civil engineering at cal baptist and plays waterpolo there, has a blog called The Rocks Cry Out. In this blog he dives into some theological debates with his friends, he elaborates on some of the books he has been reading, and he also really takes a fresh look at the bible and what it is saying to us. in other words, you should check it out. here is the link:
http://ashorts.wordpress.com

roadtrip photos

2008-08-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

calfornia coast line on the way to the allen's in ventura
southern california, part of our 8+ hr drive to the grand canyon
in arizona, a pic of alex's rock layers

a sign we passed with $3.75 a gallon right after we paid over $4 (we've paid within a range of $3.49 to $4.59 on this roadtrip).
on the way to the grand canyon in arizona
our campsite off the side of the road right outside of the grand canyon national park

one of my favorites
lookin into the grand canyon

to get to utah, we had to drive around the tip of the grand canyon, which took forever

arizona, on our way to utah

arizona

southwestern utah, on our way to zion national park
our campground in bryce canyon national park, utah
alex cooking, i believe spaghetti

part of our trail

after our 2.5hr hike in bryce canyon national park, utah

awesome.
our campground in moab, utah

entering arches national park, about 7:30ish am.

the double o arch (i think)
the landscape arch in arches national park, eastern utah

alex
arches national park
the delicate arch
utah
another rainstorm, this time i think in colorado. the running joke on this roadtrip is everytime i drive it rains (pretty much true, until we got to illinois, we had rain in every state, but this picture is while alex is driving).
the rest stop in wyoming where we spent the night in the minivan and got up at 6:10am due to the sunrise coming through the windshield.

crazy horse. we didn't want to pay $27 to get in, so we took a photo from the parking lot
mount rushmore
nick at wall drug
our campsite in wall, south dakota

south dakota

2008-08-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

howdy. right now alex, nick, and I are chillin at our campsite in wall, south dakota. here is an update since the last blog: in arches national park, alex and i got up little bit before 7am, had breakfast, then took a tour of the park. in order to see some of the arches you had to walk, so we did at one point a 2.5hr hike to see some of them. after arches, we drove a long time (and got stuck in traffic and got in a rain storm in colorado) and picked up nick about a half hour after his flight got in. we couldn't find any campsites in denver, so we decided to continue driving on up north (to see mount rushmore in South Dakota). we ended up not being able to find one, so we pulled over at a rest stop somewhere in wyoming and we slept in the van. not the most comfortable but it got the job done.

since we were in a van and surrounded by semi's, we ended up hittin the road about 6:30am. so after driving for quite awhile this morning we saw the crazy horse monument (cost $27 to get in, so we took a picture from a distance), mount rushmore, some lakes, then booked it east across south dakota cause we are seeing a buddy of mine from my china trip tomorrow in sioux falls. oh yeah, on the way to our campsite here in wall, we stopped at wall drug. we started seeing signs for this place about 30-45minutes before we got there, and it was pretty nuts.

i tried to upload photos. but it was taking too long. sorry.

CA-Arizona-Utah-and tomorrow Colorado

2008-08-08T19:56:00.001-07:00

so. after kicking starting our trip to the allens, we had a long long drive on 6th to the grand canyon (close to 8hrs i believe). once we got to the park it said one of the campgrounds was full, but the one 25 miles down the road was open. after getting to that campground, we found out that one was full. but a ranger said if we got down the road another 5-8 miles, we'll start seeing some dirt roads and to just pull off there and camp for the night. so that's what we did. that morning we checked out the grand canyon for awhile, then drove on to Utah (another long trip) to Zion National Park. After driving around zion for a little bit and eating some pb and j for lunch, we left for Bryce canyon national park, where we camped for the night and checked out some of the view points.

this morning (the 8th), alex and I did about a 5 mile hike throughout one of the canyons in bryce and we did it in about 1hr 40 minutes (it was a canyon, so lots of ups and downs). we left bryce about 11 (after sneaking into a nearby hotel to use their showers for their pool) and got to moab, Utah around 4ish. about 5 miles down the road is arches national park, which we are going to check out tomorrow morning, followed by a 300 mile drive to pick up nick at the airport in denver, colorado.

i don't have any photos uploaded to my computer yet, so no dice on uploading them to this blog. alex and i are at a cheapo campsite in moab, and randomly get wireless internet, so that is how i am posting it. it is sprinkling right now, which is our 3rd night in a row with some sort of rain. seems a storm is following us on our roadtrip, there was some thunder and lightning earlier but we are hoping that dies down. there is also a relay for life deal going on about 100 yards from us, which means blaring music and lights, which we are also hoping will stop soon. well, its a little past 9pm, which means it is getting close to bedtime (i know, its early, but we are camping, meaning, no lights, and we are getting up before 7am tomorrow to get an early start on arches). ok, bye.

USA! USA! USA!

2008-08-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

I am back in the states, and it is good. i flew in on the 31st (london to detroit to LAX to San Jose) but didn't make it to san jose until about 12:30am. unfortunately, i still don't have my luggage.

after the hague, we went to paris and then london. currently i am at my friends, the allens, in ventura, but once i am finally settled down (which will be beginning of september) i will put some photos up of those cities and explain what I did while i was there.

As of yesterday, Alex and I started our summer roadtrip from CA to PA. Nick is meeting up with us on the 9th in Denver after he gets back from his missions trip in Costa Rica, then I am dropping them off at the airport in Philly on the 20th. Alex and I are at the Allens last night and this morning, but we've got a long drive ahead of us today as we are off to see the grand canyon. i'm not really sure what our internet access will be like but i'll try and post updates when i can. alright, later.

clogs, windmills, and rain

2008-07-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

musuem with Rembrandt

amsterdam

boat crusie in amsterdam. lots of house boats
the boardwalk in the hague. and where i went swimming
why do they make the spoons so small?
urinals. am i using it for real? that is the question
at the pottery place
me and ben

getting my hair played with by women = awesome

me and tanner lookin tough
flower seller
clog place
cheese factory
fishing village
windmills. never knew this but they help with pumping the water out so the netherlands, which 60% of it is below sea level, doesn't get flooded all the time.

the last two days have been pretty touristy, but fun. yesterday we spent the day in amsterdam, and don't worry it was in the good part of town. we went to the Rijksmuseum, which is known for its Rembrandt paintings. afterthat we went to a diamond place, a pottery place (don't remember what it is called but it is known for its blue pottery), took a boat cruise down the canals, and also went to Anne Franks house. Last night (and the night before), I, along with about 5-6 other people, took a 25 min. walk down to the coast of the north sea and took a swim. water was actually pretty nice and it has been a ton of fun.

today we left nice and early (7am) and went to the flower auction, which is housed in a building that covers over 250 football fields. after that we went to a clog making place, a cheese making place, saw a bunch of windmills, went to a fishing village in northern holland and ate some more haring (still gross) and spent the rest of the evening walking around near our hotel, eating dinner, and studyin up for class tomorrow. tomorrow we have our last corporate visit with Shell and their strategic planning branch, a few classes, then off to paris on wednesday.

the netherlands

2008-07-18T02:14:00.000-07:00

utrecht (i think this is how you spell it)

raw haring with onions. quite the delicacy here in holland

eating at a pancake house for dinner
in utrecht
dinner in utrecht with marco, denny, and jan
playin soccer, i mean futbol. i had one of me playing but for some reason it wouldn't upload. but no worries, i'm awful at soccer.
random deer park here in oistervijk. i have no idea how they get these deer to stay inside the fence

in the fire station with our dutch friends

as you can probably tell, this uniform was way to small for me.
jan learning how to use chopsticks

US vs the Netherlands. as you can tell, we were gettin pretty bored waiting for our train

denny, jan, myself, and marco. overall a great day.

so i recently realized that I haven't updated this blog in quite some time. the last three weeks we have been in a conference center in oistervijk. during this time we have had class everyday (monday thru saturday) from 8:45 am to 12:15pm. the classes here, international trade and finance and global marketing, have been pretty interesting but at the same time, i'm glad they are over. in the course of these past three weeks, i have had 4 tests, one 6 page paper, a multitude of small assignments and article summaries, and a 30 minute presentation. but don't worry, it hasn't been all work and no play here. most days a group of us will get a ultimate frisbee game or soccer game going, which has been a great way to relieve stress and get some excercise in. another cool thing is we all have bikes here, which is great cause we have been able to tour around towna and see some of the neighboring town. the weather here is kinda funky. most days it has rained for part of the day, then been sunny and nice, but the last 3-4 days have been overcast and rainy. but due to the fact we have had two finals in the last two days, we've been quite busy studying and haven't been too distracted to go out side.

i think i mentioned this in a blog post before this trip, but in january, myself and my roommate and buddy, Denny, hosted a dutch student, Jan. Last week, our group visited his university in Ede, had a tour of the school along with some presentations, and then we went to a nearby town, Utrecht, for a city tour and dinner. what was sweet about all this is Jan was there and we were able to catch up with him and several other dutch students we had met. then this past tuesday, Jan and Marco met up with denny and I for the afternoon and evening. we hopped on multiple trains until we reached were jan works, which is at a firestation. after a quick tour of the station, we proceded to put on the uniforms and pose in front of the firetrucks (see photos above). after that we had chinese food and headed back to oistervijk. i think we were together from 1:30pm to 10:30pm and i'd say we spent about 6 of those hours on a train or in a train station. but it was cool to see the majority of western and southern holland in that time period and we had lots of time to catch up and stuff.

tomorrow we head out to the hague for a few days and amsterdam for one. after that paris for a few days (where we will finish up our final class days) and london for several days (where we will have our last final!!) then home on the 31st.

photos

2008-06-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

i'm in geneva, switzerland right now and just finished my first class (of 4) this morning. geneva really isn't that cool, so if your planning on coming to switzerland, bring lots of money (8 dollars for a frapp at starbucks) and don't come to geneva. we are driving all day tomorrow to koblenz, germany, then taking a rhine river cruise, then driving to the netherlands where we are going to be for the next three weeks. MOM: yesterday we went to mt. blanc and chamonix in france. absolutely amazing. so beautiful. we took a trolley-tram thingy all the way to the top. so so cool.

I have a couple albums on facebook, here are the links:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044618&l=7871e&id=55303386

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043454&l=f7e36&id=55303386

the joy of switzerland

2008-06-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

denny, yomi, and john walking through lucerne

looking out over the lake in lucerne, switzerland. alyssa, myself, sara, and denny (all from messiah).
denny jumping over me
this is what happens when you study too long. denny and I had our hair done by the two girls in our group project. went to visit our program director and decided to take a photo with us.
we just finished a group project in our global business strategy class were we had to come up with a strategy of bringing a car into china. me, with denny and two girls, did our project on the smart car (which is pictured). 13pg paper and 10 min presentation.

denny and I on our way to switzerland
in the mall in moscow
in the train to moscow
i stole some photos from denny. this is our group in the presidential's palace in lithuania.
a place were we went one afternoon. although i hate diving boards i did jump off all three levels of this platform. doesn't look that high but the middle one was about the height of a normal high dive.
dad, you would love this place. absolutely amazing. water was "warm" based on what i'm used to at home, so i went swimming at least 5-6 times in the 3 days we were here. i went one morning before breakfast also. way good times.
in a jesuit church in lucerne
yomi (from nigeria, goes to messiah), in lucerne, switzerland
downtown lucerne
a sweet memorial in lucerne to french soldiers who died back in the 1800's
house we saw in town.
our hotel. i was in the building in the right.
my view out my window in lucerne, switzerland.
we had lunch in liechtenstein. got to check off another country.

me and tanner.
on the way to switzerland. we stopped at a rest point and ran around in the snow.
up at a lookout point in austria. i tried to imitiate a photo of my little brother, nick, when we are at niagra falls back in the day.
me with marianna (from brazil, goes to messiah) and wairimu (goes to messiah, from kenya) havin fun bowlin in austria

the hills are alive (or something to that effect)

2008-06-19T23:25:00.001-07:00

so the internet is kinda slow here, which makes it pretty difficult to upload photos. in the place of photos, hopefully i can give you a general idea of what has been going on in austria through my words. we arrived in austria sunday night, and some of us decided to go for night hike since there are some amazingly beautiful mountains here. we started off on roads, ended up on some trails, then went off the trails, and eventually some how made it back to our htoel. overall pretty fun.

monday schedule was breakfast, devotions, class, class, then lunch, then free time, which i spent walking around town and catching up some homework and studying.

tuesday: breakfast, devotions, test, professor lead discussion on grad school, lunch, and that night as a group we all went bowling. my score wasn't spectacular but overall it was a great time.

wednesday we had breakfast, devotions (which i lead with a girl from our group), class, class, lunch, and then we had a corporate visit to Swarovski Crystal. the girls loved it, i was kinda bored. they also had a section of their plant dedicated to art, which of course was modern art, and was weird.

thursday was more of the same, with class, except today we went to a mountain lake about 45minutes from where we are staying. and let me tell you, the water was freezing. we had a fun time "swimming" but it was fun to be outdoors, play some frisbee, and walk around town. we have a big project due on monday so a lot of our free time the past few days has spent working on this project.

today we had class this morning and this afternoon i have no idea what i'm going to do. not much to do in town, so might go for a hike, work on the project a little bit, and i need to get packed up because we are leaving for lucerne, Switzerland tomorrow, with a stop at Arlberg Pass along the way.

2008-06-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

innsbruck, austria

innsbruck, austria. euro2008 (soccer) is still in full swing and a few games are hosted here (including one on thursday, should be nuts). boy do they love there soccer here. dad, you should definitely come here. hahaha.
entrance to Dachau. after taking about two photos, i decided to take the rest in black and white.

these building was used for interrogations and solitary confinment.
the "showers." probably the worst experience i've been through. . these were made to function as gas chambers, but supposedly the nazi's never used these specific ones for that. needless to say, thousands still died here. ceilings were about 6'10", it is rare for me to get claustrophic, but it was definitely a very unnerving experience standing in this room.
the beds. if i remember correctly, the barracks were each made for about 500 people, but they crammed at least a couple thousand in each one.

stolen photos and a full stomach (finally!)

2008-06-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

so i stole a bunch of photos from friends. this one is of me and ben outside a mall in russia (don't worry, i didn't go there by choice, they made us go. i swear)
in the overnight bus from latvia to russia. 17hrs. so fun.
after another one of our all day bus rides (and i really mean all day), we decided to take a stroll through the countryside in the netherlands and happened upon these cows.
walkin through moscow
creating fun in moscow
group shot. i'm the short one in the front.
in lithuania

on our boat trip down the moscow river

me and denny on the baltic sea

i just ate a huge meal. I am so happy. the serving sizes here are a slightly on the smaller side, so i'm kinda hungry all day. but since tonight was our last night in prague and I had alot of extra crowns (the currency here), i pigged out at dinner. Had this huge pancake thing with pork inside, also ate what was left of the meals of the two girls i went with, then had some ice cream. life is good. since my last blog a couple of days ago, not too too much has happened. we've had a couple of classes, we went on a corporate visit to black and decker and saw the assembly lines that made dewalt tools, went to a five story club, ahhh, what else? walked around the city a couple a times, watched some soccer in the town square, a bunch of us played ultimate frisbee for a couple of hours today. that was definitely what i needed. I think i have a mild form of ADD or somethin because i'm realizing i can't focus in class or on our tours, and i think it is because i've really had no opportunity to exercise. at college, i'm either lifting, running, playing tennis, or a combo of those everyday, and here that isn't happening. i'm trying to pushups/crunches every night, but it isn't enough. so a few hours of running around throwing the frisbee this afternoon was amazing.

tomorrow we are off for another all day bus trip. we are going to innsbruck, austria for 5-6 days, which should be cool. but on our bus trip we are stopping off at Dachau (concentration camp). should be pretty intense and depressing but it is a significant part of our world's history, so I'm glad we are going.

and happy fathers day!

Praha (prague) and memories

2008-06-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

denny.
we rolled into prague tuesday night and denny and I took a few hour stroll through the city. definitely brought back alot of memories from when I was here in high school.
i have a photo of me on this bridge when I was 16. I couldn't remember what statue it was, but looking forward to comparing them when I'm home.

Euro2008 is in full swing (soccer tournament). Denny and I saw the start of the France-Greece game in the middle of prague. While I was eating dinner with the Dagens the Czech Republic was playing. didn't get to see the game but i'm betting this plaza was packed.

inside the main cathedral in prague

overlooking the city of Prague. Kaylin (Mt. Vernon), Molly (Westmont), myself, and Katie (Biola) in the back, with Drake (Anderson University) and Ben (Messiah) in the front.
once again, I am tall and the world is small.
having dinner with the dagens.Haven't seen them since I was in the Czech Republic with Atascadero Bible Church for a missions trip in the summer of 2003. We had pizza and caught up for a little over an hour. They are on their way to Rome for a few days for vacation, so God definitely had a hand in us being in Prague on the night they were in town.

Soccer and economics

2008-06-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

in frankfurt, Germany
lookin mighty sexy outside the european central bank
some weird lookin street performers in heidelburg
Old town in Heidelburg
6 of us just happened to be wearing dark pants and a white shirt. guess its bound to happen when we all are living out of one suitcase each.
this and next photo are part of heidelburg castle

thought i'd throw in one last update in germany before we head off on our 9hr+ bus ride to prague, czech republic tomorrow. we had our test saturday morning, which was harder than the last (got a high B, means i got to study hard for the next one). we have a steady stream of homework now, which involves readings, small write ups on our business visits, and an economics essay and project coming up soon. I spent the rest of saturday walking around town, denny and I went and visited the castle that over looks Heidelburg (which we ended up seeing as a group on sunday. oh well). a few of us went out to a small club that night but our small group of americans were the only ones dancing. still had a good time though.

sunday we went to church. so far in my life I've been able to experience the great blessing of worshiping our Lord in English, Chinese, Spanish, Lithuanian, Russian, Czech, and now German. so awesome. despite that it was crazy hot in the church, had a good time singing and fellowshipping with German Christians. Sunday afternoon was spent touring the castle again, doing homework, and watching Germany beat Poland in soccer for the Euro 2008 tournament. a couple of us went to a bar (we didn't drink, policy of IBI) and watched the game. European fans are absolutely crazy. After Germany won, cars covered in German flags were honking and people screaming over an hour and a half after the game finished.

Today we had the opportunity to go to Frankfurt where we visited the European Central Bank and Deutsche Bank. These visits were beneficial because I know now I do not want to be a banker or be involved in any matter with banking. boring. the presentations were interesting (long) but overall was a good experience.

I'm spending the rest of the night studying and packing for our trip tomorrow. Hope all is well where ever you may be reading this.

whoops

2008-06-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

my bad. published the last post without actually writing anything.

tuesday morning we heard from an american making mexican food products selling to the russians. really interesting and he definitely knew what he was talking about. was interesting to hear about all the difficulties he faces working in the russian system and all the loopholes he has to go threw. it was also interesting to hear about how putin (the leader of russia) is disliked by much of the world, but the majority of russians like him because he brought some stability to the economy after about a decade of chaos.

after spending 2 hours in traffic (normal in russia) we made it to the airport and flew to amsterdam (tuesday night), ate dinner about an hour outside the city, and spent the night there. wednesday we took a bus for about 8 hours to get to where we are currently staying, heidelberg, germany. on the way we stopped at koln germany and saw a really cool cathedral (and even got to walk up to the top).

today (thursday) we had three hours of class (i got a 93 on my last test. holla. our next one is Saturday). we then went to a John Deere factory and had about 4 hours of tours and presentations. interesting, but long, so i got bored pretty quickly due to my short attention span. i've realized through my travels i really don't do well with guided tours. i space out about 10 minutes into it. so imagine a 2 hour guided tour through the factory. amazing, but long.

last night a bunch of us spent a few hours walking around town, and now i am currently hanging out with a few friends in a little cafe that happened to have free wireless. tomorrow we have more classes then a tour of a Dailmer (buses) factory. i'm spending the rest of the night checking up on the news and ready two chapters for economics. shoot me an email, love to hear from you.

2008-06-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

bored in traffic. i'm actually the only one awake.
parking in russia. cars on the sidewalk.

we flew into amsterdam and spent the night in a hotel about an hour outside the city. so beautiful.
we stopped in koln, germany for a few hours for lunch. sweet cathedral we found.

a sweet view from the top of the tower of the cathedral in the previous pics
germany
taking a stroll in heidelberg germany where we are staying for 6 nights
feeling mighty hick.
denny and i gettin ready to go on a visit of one of john deere's biggest factories in mannhiem germany.

weirdest thing ever. i actually have some down time to sit and think. its pretty much been non stop since we got to russia.

From Russia with love

2008-06-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

cool building
McDonalds in russian.
outside the cool mansion thingy.
me and tanner

me and jenna (from messiah) on our boat cruise on the moscow river.
me and kaylin. yeah, she's that short
part of an outdoor memorial on the spot where russia stopped the german advance in ww2.

no trumpets in this park (actually means no honking)
tanner, myself, kaylin (mt. vernon nazarene), and sam (eastern mennonite university) at a circus in russia. way good times. saw a poodle do a backflip. who would've thought? unfortunately, no bears were part of the acts.
outside a sweet huge cathedral. my attempt at being creativee.
no matter where i go in this world, i never fit.
me and nick (from florida and attends eastern mennonite in virgina) in front of the sweetest cathedral ever.
one of stalin's creations in honor of himself. i think this is now moscow university.
tanner and john (biola) and john (messiah) in front of some sweet russian architecture
john crowell from biola. i love this photo.
out in red square. so cool.

me and denny. two small town boys livin it up in moscow.
on the bus ride from lithuania to latvia
russia!
me with yomi and wairimu (both from messiah)
bekah (messiah) and zach (mt. vernon nazarene)
more gold tops in russia
hill of crosses

me and john crowell (biola)
one of my favorites from the hill of crosses

one of our corporate visits. this is a company in klaipeda, lithuania who make these plastic polymer thingys that are eventually made into bottles, plastic wrap, etc.
me and ben at a pier overlooking the baltic sea (lithuania)
it seems like every restuarant we go to gets crazier and crazier. this one had a huge playground complex on it. this little ride was tons of fun. we even got our program director and my academic advisor, dr. webb, out on it
more hill of crosses
another favorite from the hill of crosses. i apologize for the disorder of my photos. still haven't figured out how to load them chronologically. if i had more time i could figure it out.

well, due to my lack of internet access in russia, i haven't had the opportunity to update this, but i've got like 10 minutes left on my tab in this internet cafe in my hotel so i'll do what i can.

monday and tuesday involved a lot of classes and few corporate visits (one was to Jazaki wiring where they made electrical harnesses for cars and another where they made plastic stuff) wednesday was a test (still haven't figured out what i scored). thursday we hoped on a bus for a 6hr drive to riga latvia where we had lunch then jumped on a sleeper train for a 17hr overnight ride to moscow russia. on the way to Riga we stopped at a place in Lithuania called the Hill of Crosses. An amazing history and also a beautiful location (check it out in wikipedia). the train ride wasn't to bad and the beds weren't too short but overall a good time. since being in russia we have been to the kremlin, toured around the moscow metro, gone to a circus, been to a couple different outdoor markets, seen lenin's tomb in red square (creepy), gone on a boat trip down the moscow river, gone on a bus tour around moscow, taken a ton of naps on the bus cause we hardly sleep, gone to a russian baptist church (2hr service), and walked around this huge mansion complex (oh yeah, also ate a ton of hot dogs). alright got to fly will update later.

Klaipeda and sanddunes

2008-05-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

me with kaylin. she is 5ft. I am 6ft8. such a good combo.

a racetrack for bikes right next to the Lithuania Christian College in Klaipeda
some sanddunes on the baltic sea we hiked around for awhile
more sanddunes with part of our group in the foreground.
typical trash and recycle cans
we hiked through on a trail that had a ton of wood statues and this was paft of one.

so we are staying at the LCC International University in Klaipeda and on sundays, there is a church service held at the school. it was pretty cool being able to sing worship songs next to Lithuanians (although some of the songs were in lithuanian). luckily an american professor preached today so we were able to understand. after church and lunch we took after for a little resort island thingy, where we hung out at a beach which bordered the baltic sea, we hiked around some sand dunes, then took this trail through the woods where we saw a ton of crazy wood sculptures. we must have come at the right time because you would not believe how many bugs were flying around. clouds upon clouds. luckily they weren't biting otherwise we would've been toast (and i would've been sucked dry). we got back around 7:30ish, and we where on our own for dinner (we got a money allowance here for about 3 dinners), so some of us went to a local grocery store and I loaded up on sandwich stuff. it is close to 11, although it feels much earlier. I'm off to study soon, so that is it for tonight. g'night.

Vilnius and castles

2008-05-24T11:41:00.001-07:00

inside the president's palace
inside one of the church's we visited

kaylin from Mt. Vernon, Peter from Wheaton, Zach from Mt. Zernon, and myself outside the castle.
the castle
inside a church
denny and I outside of the president's palace
old woman on the street.
Today was pretty sweet. After another breakfast of cheese, meat, and bread, and a devotion lead by Dr. LaFrance (talked about integrity and mentioned various examples in the Bible), we headed off the President's Palace (he doesn't work there, but lives there). We had a guided tour and learned about some of the ways the current president has impacted Lithuania's foreign policy. After that we took a brief tour through two cathedrals then went to Trakai castle, which was pretty sweet. After lunch (chicken and rice) we had a 3+hr drive to Klaipeda, where we currently are. it is almost 10pm but it literally looks like it could be 7pm out (it isn't really dark at all). Unfortunately the weather has been pretty cold and raining the last few days but it makes sense because we just found out that Lithuania means "rain".

We are going to be here in Klaipeda for the next few days and I am in a quad rooming with a guy from Mt. Vernon Nazarene in Ohio, another guy from Biola, and a guy from Eastern Mennonite University in Virgina. All pretty cool dudes.

Since this is a university campus, they do have a bball court and a weight room, and although they are closed tonight, looking forward to being active the next few days. alright, i'm off, got to go read some economics, oh so exciting. later.

Long days and long nights

2008-05-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

a ketchup bottle. The language here is totally different than anything I've heard before
some of the cells where the KGB held prisoners (up till the 1980's i believe)
some blacks swams out on a lake right outside where we had dinner. can't say I had ever seen black swans before tonight.
ceiling of the overhang of a cathedral.

My first blog post in Europe. How cool is this. My 10 week trip began on Wednesday, May 21st. I left LAX around noon, got into Detroit, flew the whole night to London, spent 7 hours in the airport, and arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania around 10pm on the 22nd. Lots and lots of traveling and hardly any sleep. Luckily I had aisle seats on the 3 flights but still, no sleep. One thing I can say is that London is way too expensive (1 pound is about 2 dollars). For lunch I went to burger king and got a meal and it was a little over 12 bucks for a super small burger, a large fry and a soda (no free refills). if london is in your future travel plans, bring lots of extra cash.

There is 42 of us in this group and it is a pretty good representation of schools and states across the country. There is about 10 of us from California which is awesome. I am finally not the odd man out. And while I am still the tallest, there is about 5-6 other guys ranging from 6ft to six four, so that is cool (although one girl is 5ft so she evens us out). we will have different roommates everywhere we stay, but right now I am with John Crowell, pretty cool dude who is from phoenix, but goes to Biola in Southern California.

Our schedule has been pretty full since we got here. Today we had breakfast at 7:30am, had devotions and orientation after until 10am, we toured a museum that was an old KGB office/prison/execution chamber/etc, from there we had lunch (had pizza!), after that we went to the U.S. embassy here in Vilnius (really enjoyed this part. even though I almost feel asleep a couple of times, the lady was super interesting. she is a foreign service officer and definitely got me thinking out that line of work). after that we had class for 2 hours on comparative economic systems and our first test in that class is wednesday (told ya it wasn't all fun and games). from there we had dinner at a restaurant that reminded me of a hunting lodge. we got back to the hotel around 9:30pm and some of us decided to walk around town and I just got back from that (its about 10:30pm).

Tomorrow we visit the President's Palace, take a tour of Trakai castle, and take a bus to Klaipeda where will we stay at a Christian college there until thursday. Sunday is chruch, monday is a lot of classes and a corporate visit to Jazaki Wiring, tuesday is classes and a visit to a Free Economic Zone, Wed = classes, thursday we depart for Riga, Latvia to catch our 14+hr overnight train to Moscow.

Not sure on the availability of internet access, but will update this as much as possible.

So far, this has been awesome. Cool country, my group is pretty sweet, and the food has been good. Besides not much sleep, no complaints.

i'm in pennsylvania . . . aka i'm cold

2008-01-23T13:25:00.000-08:00

so. now that my crazy awesome adventures is latin america have come to an end, I am currently back at messiah college freezing my behind off. I am studying statistics this january, and will be taking 15 credits when the spring semester starts in february. since being back at school, i've been keeping busy by studying, class, working out, reading, hanging with friends, and readjusting to life at college. been running and playing basketball with the tennis team a decent amount, and lifting weights alot on my own. we have a new tennis coach this year and he is working us pretty good during our once a week practice with him at some indoor tennis courts off campus. i'm actually have practice in about an hour.

here is a link to photos from Christmas and the trip Alex, nick and I took up to Yosemite. we had a blast hiking around and actually spending time together (which doesn't happen much these days).
http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035754&l=aae3d&id=55303386

every other year messiah college hosts business students from the Netherlands for a month and requests that messiah students host them in their room/apartment, so we have a dutch student living with us currently. and for part of the time in america, they visit different cities/parks/etc. and they had a trip to philly last saturday, which me and my roommate, denny, went on with the dutch students. so that is what the pictures are of that i posted. denny also studied in china so we took it upon ourselves to visit chinatown within philly and eat some good chinese food. denny is amazing at chinese so i made sure to have him order.

alright. will try and post every once and awhile for those who are reading this. life isn't quite as exciting as it was last semester but enjoying myself none the less.

last day of argentina

2007-12-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

ahhhh. only a few more hours left in buenos aires. amber, jud, and geoffrey left this morning to go on to their own adventures (brazil, bariloche (southern argentina), and somewhere else, respectively), so we had some sad goodbyes last night and this morning. just finished packing, my suitcase is huge, and just killing time to when we meet up at 6:30pm to go to the airport. i believe our flight leaves around 9ish, arriving in houston texas at 6:15am, and getting home in atascadero much much later that night (houston to denver to LA to home).

would love to describe what this semester has meant to me, but its hard. i have made some amazing friendships and experienced and seen more in the last 3.5 months than the majority of people see in their lifetimes. its sad to have this time in my life end, but i feel blessed to have had the opportunity to have traveled, lived, and studied in latin america.

this past week has been eventful. had a spanish final on wednesday and turned in 5 essays (all in spanish) to my politics class. pretty sure i got an A in both classes so excited about that. last few nights have been spent just spending time with my friends from this program. its been great. but i'm tired, because this morning i got home at 4, saturday morning at 6, friday morning at 6, and thursday morning relatively late also. not much sleep, but well worth it. so many good memories.

well, this should be it for my blog. for those of you who stuck with me through this trip, hope my posts have been informative and you enjoyed the pictures. i'll probably start blogging again when i go to europe this summer, so i'll make sure your in the know when the time comes.

for friends and family in california, see you tomorrow. for my east coast peeps, i'll be in PA on the 7th (or 8th, can't remember), but classes start jan.9th so i'll for sure see you then.

chau.

photos

2007-12-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

so i forgot to mention in my last blog but me, camilo, and jessica went to this place called tierra santo (holy land). it is a theme park on the outskirts of buenos aires that is biblically themed. really really weird. we took a ton of weird crazy photos (as you will see), it almost felt wrong, but it was just too weird.

me and jesus.
i obviously fit really well

it kept getting wierder. they had ghandi's house, martin luther's house, and mother teresa's also.

giant jesus. with giant buggers.

the holy land

we couldn't help ourselves

pics from uruguay

one more week. crazy.

2007-12-09T14:27:00.000-08:00

well, it's sunday afternoon and i've got one week left in latin america. definitely going to miss it. looking back on every country, i think mexico was my favorite. everything about it was awesome. the food, the people, the music, salsa, the small town feel of guanajuato, it was all great. i loved peru but lima was pretty ugly. argentina has been fun but it doesn't feel at all like latin america. everyone else is white like me just they speak better spanish. but the steak and empanadas here are amazing.

last night my house mom cooked up some carne asade de la parillla. meat from the grill. i think it was the reddest meat i've ever eaten but it was so good. i had so many pieces. but i usually don't feel that bad eating a ton at dinner because breakfast consists of two pieces of toast and some fruit, and lunch i'm on my own so it usually consists of a $2 sandwhich in the university cafeteria. breakfast is at 9am, lunch at 1pm, and dinner around 9pm.

plans for this week. only three days left of school (mon, tues, wed) but they are going to be busy. we have a written/oral final in spanish and my politics class i have to write 6 essays (finished one, it was about U.S. intervention in the mexican revolution from 1910-1917) and my other ones involve such topics as the history of the formation of states (countries) in latin america, 4 interpretationes of classic populismo and how it relates to neopopulism (must have fazed out during this part of class, don't remember any of it, but you've got to the love the internet, comes in handy for times like these), and the effects of terrorism on the governments of latin america. yeah!!!! but once wednesday is over, i have no plans until my flight leaves sunday night. i think the rest of my group plans on being drunk those four days and not sleeping, but i plan on just not sleeping. should be fun. i'll be nice and ready for the 10ish hour flight from buenos aires to texas.

in case any of you are wondering, here are the classes i will be taking this spring at messiah:
applied statistics for management, decision making tools for management, business law, an honors class called personal narrative, pluralist world (sounds like a girly touchy feely class to me, but i have to take it to graduate, so let the sharing of emotions begin), music through piano (basic general education music credit, it was this or music through recorder) and judaism (which i'm really looking forward to, find out some information about the jewish history on my mother's side).

one more week. will try and steal some more photos from my friends to share with all y'all.

2007-12-05T08:21:00.000-08:00

this is during our 3hr boat trip from uruguay to argentina. if you hadn't noticed, it spells "hi"

http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034213&l=03029&id=55303386
another photo album with photos from all three countries

!que barbaro¡

2007-11-29T12:03:00.000-08:00

mcdonalds in buenos aires. it just never goes away.
some of my lady friends in northern peru

group photo in macchu piccu
our small small bus that we spent at least 50 hours in

photo from teotihuacan
one of the many subte (subway) stations in BsAs (buenos aires). costs about 15-20cents to use the subway.

some cool stuff at a street vendor in argentina
photo from mexico. this one is for you dad.

9 de julio.
me at some cool ruins somewhere in northern peru
sunset in peru on our way back to lima

sweet paintings in plaza de mayo. saw a dude painting these with spray paint. pretty impressive.

at the obelisk on avenue 9 de julio. widest avenue in the world

nov.29th. it is almost december. this semester has flown by. have had an amazing experience so far but ready to be home for awhile and be back at messiah.

today jud and i walked around the avenue 9 de julio, largest avenue in the world. the arquitecture was awesome and the weather was beautiful, so today was alot of fun. Most days after class I go to the gym, do homework, eat dinner, and sleep. Not incredibly exciting but gets the job done. Not sure what I am going to do tomorrow but going to uruguay on saturday and hopefully a futbol game at La Boca on sunday. should be nuts.

hi

2007-11-24T10:55:00.001-08:00

casa rosa. serves the same purpose as the white house. part of the plaza de mayo.

northern argentina
more photos of the falls
a girl in our group broke a bone in her foot in peru and i stole her wheelchair for awhile. such a nice boy.
i think the tall dude in the background is me. not sure.
this is a crazy cemetary in a part of town called recoleta. all the tombs are this big and it feels like your walking through a city. we also saw eva peron's grave here.
o crazy street performers.
more tombs shots

ruins we saw in northern argentina

its saturday afternoon. and due the fact i should be in el tigre right now i shouldn't be writing this. but due to my amazing directional capabilities, i thought we were meeting at the subway station, not the bus station across town. darn. so jud and I have passed the day so far eating pizza and watching movies. over all not that bad. we are going to the gym soon then who knows after that.

last few nights i've experienced some of buenos aires´ vida nocturna (night life). one morning jud and I got back around 3 am and the next day our host mom made fun of us cause that usually when the parties get started here. two nights ago i went to a hip-hop club till about 5am and definitely felt out of place there, not really my style of music. last night jud and i went to a salsa club that was pretty cool and ended up getting home around 6 when it was light out. in order to survive in this crazy lifestyle, we have learned to take naps after dinner from about 9-12. helps a ton.

my time is running out so will update when something exciting happens. have 6hours of class monday, tuesday and wednesday then next weekend we are going to uruguay for a day or two. sweet.

small world

2007-11-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

so the other day i was looking at a map of buenos aires for things to do, and i came across a section of town called barrio chino aka chinese neighborhood. and since i didn't have class today, i decided to check it out. after a 2 minute subte (subway) ride and a 20min walk, i was in barrio chino. It was only about 2 square blocks in size, but it was fun to see chinese characters everywhere and hear chinese spoken around me. I got there around lunch time, so decided to eat there. It was awesome. I got chicken fried rice pretty much exactly as i had it in china. way good times. another cool thing is i found barrio chino on an english map, asked for directions in spanish, and once at the restaurant ordered my food, said hello, goodbye, and thank you and asked for chopsticks all in chinese. interesting experience.

today is thanksgiving. wish i was home because this is the third thanksgiving i'll be away from home (first in conneticut, 2nd in beijing, china, and third in buenos aires). Our program is putting on a dinner for us tonight, so rumor has it there will be turkey. holla.

due to the fact i only have class on monday, tuesday and wednesday, and have a few open nights this week, will probably be checking out the local nightlife. supposedly there is a salsa club near by so we are going to try and find that soon. last night we had a tango class, and i got there late but picked up the basic basic step pretty fast. totally different from salsa, but fun.

saturday we are going to visit a part of argentina called el tigre. not sure what it consists of but i think it is a coastal town up north. should be interesing.

iguazu

2007-11-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

iguazu falls. amazing.

thursday night around 7pm about 35 of us (a mix of my program and the semester program here in argentina) hopped on a bus to go to northern argentina. and this wasn't your regular bus. it had HUGE seats, a ton of leg room and this little dealy that folded down to make a bed. we where also served dinner and breakfast. friday morning we arrived at some ruins of a church built by some jesuit priests, and allow they were pretty cool, i feel like i've seen so many ruins they all are starting to look the same. after the ruins we headed off to a estacion, which is like a little resort area. they had a pool, a tennis court, a volleyball net and a bunch of areas to hang out. we were there from around 11 to 5. i got to play tennis for awhile, good times, and ate amazing grilled beef, chicken, sausage, and all sorts of traditional goodness. After our time spent there we drove to our hotel which was about 30mins away from the falls and slept all night.

saturday. oh my goodness. as you can see by the photos in my previous blog iguazu falls are amazing. i believe they are the widest falls in the world, aka they go on forever. we spent all day saturday visiting different parts of the falls, and we even took a boat that took us right underneath some of the falls. we got drenched but it was an amazing experience.
we also had the chance to go to the spot where the border of argentina, brazil, and paraguay meet, so that was cool. sunday we slept in then caught a plane back to buenos aires.

couple differences i've noticed about argentinian customs:
-the greeting and farewell kiss between men and women is now customary between men. kinda awkward.
-i now am able to put my toilet paper in a toilet rather than a trash can. love it.
-portenos (people of the port, or people of buenos aires) are extremely fit. they hardly eat anything for breakfast and lunch and there is a gym on every block.

alright. i'm off to go eat lunch and then go to my politics class. will update more later.

finally. photos.

2007-11-18T13:59:00.000-08:00

a pic of the nazca lines.
amazing
other section of the falls

jud
la garganta. the throat
jud, tanner, and myself
at iguazu falls. but only a small section of it.

our driver
this is how we got from nazca to ica. this car was pretty beat up. also called "la poderosa" the powerful

tanner, me, jud, and michael gettin ready to take off.
tanner.
some of the nazca lines. this is a hummingbird
view out of the bus on the way to ica, peru.
part of the drive to the beaches in northern peru

i'm in buenos aires. nuts.

2007-11-12T15:16:00.000-08:00

oh my goodness. this city rocks.

so as i write this i am concluding my second day in argentina. and so far, i really really like it here. my family is awesome. i am with virginia and vicente, a retired couple in their 70's who are awesome and have been hosting students for a long time. we are in a decently sized apartment in the belgrano district and about a 10min walk from school. i have my own room, which is nice, and pretty comfortable lodgings. we had are first day of classes today and we had a test in order to place us in the correct language level, and for some odd reason they put me in advanced. so i have advanced conversation and composition (scared about the writing part, i'm terrible at that) from 10am to 1pm and latin american political systems from 2 to 5pm. i only have class on monday, tuesday, and wednesday. yeahh. spanish is going to be tough, we already have a 15min presentation next week without any type of notes, definitely have to prepare for this one. the politics teacher is really hard to understand and his writing is almost eligible, so that make it rough, but i believe the material will be interesting.

the language here is definitely a change. the accent is hard to get used to but i really like it. the "y" are pronounced like "sh" and the double l ("ll") are now "j". for example: yo (I) is now pronounced like "show" and lluvia (rain) is know (roughly) pronounced like "jew-via" when it was "you-via". tough to get used to, but awesome.

everything here has a european flavor to it. the majority of the people here are white (italian, german, europian heritage) the only exception is that spanish is spoken in place of english. i am definitely not the minority anymore. and there are a lot of tall women, so life is good.

something crazy about this city is the night life. supposedly the nightlife picks up around 3 in the morning and ends around 6-7am. luckily for me i only have class three days a week. so my four day weekends are going to be nuts. however, this weekend we are going to visit the iguazu falls in northern argentina (right on the border with brazil). i know we have two more planned trips on top of this one, but they are only day trips. one to a city in northern argentina called el tigre and the other trip we are taking a 45min ferry ride to a city in uruguay, which i'm really looking forward too.

well, my hour on alloted internet time is running out. would love to hear from all y'all. shoot me an email sometime: ss1307@messiah.edu

alright, later.

spontaneous trip

2007-11-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

so. halfway through my last class thursday a couple buddies of mine mentioned that they were going south to see the nazca lines (we didn't have school on friday and we leave today at 8:30pm, so plenty of time). and not having anything planned, i figured why not? after lunch we jumped on a bus to ica (four hours south) then another bus to nazca (2 more hours) and got there around 11. we didn't have any place to stay but some dude walked up to us and started telling us about his hotel. we ended paying 15 soles (5 bucks) per person to stay there. we had a hotel recommened to us but we didn't find it till later and it ended up being 25bucks a person. we got a sweet deal.

friday morning we headed over to an airport and jumped on a little prop plane, a 6 seater, and flew over the lines. nazca is in the middle of the desert and the lines are these giant carvings that were made about 1000 yrs ago or so. seeing as my camera is broke i have no photos, but i will soon being stealing them from my buddies. the carvings include a monkey, condor, parrot, hummingbird, and more. i think about 16 total. it was awesome. after that we had lunch, and caught the buses back home. last night we had a go-away party thingy where we went to a club where they had these people doing traditional dances. pretty cool.

as of now i'm getting all my stuff together and trying to get organized for my flight to argentina tonight. so my next post will be about argentina. awesome!!!

one more week

2007-11-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

so here is a quick recap of the last few weeks:

macchu piccu trip. left thursday morning by plane. after arriving in the mountains we took about a two hour hike to some ruins. had a free afternoon. friday we went to macchu piccu which was awesome. after touring around in the ruins some of us took a 40 minute hike up to the sun gate, which gives a spectacular view and is the end of the inca trail. saturday morning we went to some more ruins and spent the night in cusco, where me and a few buddies saw a crazy fireworks show. sunday flew home after some weather delays in the airport.

this wednesday (oct. 31), we took off in a really small bus to northern peru. left around 6:30pm and arrived in trujillo around 2ish. thursday morning was spent at the beach, were the water wasn't cold at all but really couldn't go in due ton of rocks. but that didn't stop me from rolling around in the shorebreak. in the afternoon we did some ocean kayaking on traditional canoes, and then we visited some 900 year old ruins that were pretty interesting. but since we have seen so many ruins in the last few weeks a few sayings have become popular within my group: no mas ruinas (no more ruins) and i'm ruined out. anyways, friday we drove through chiclayo and went to a musuem that had a ton of gold artifacts. we then continued on to piura and mancura, beaches up in way northern peru. spent the night there and then spent all of saturday at mancura, bodysurfing and having a blast in the sun. there was also some women's world surfing competition going on, so watched that for awhile, but the waves were terrible so they couldn't do much. and then sunday rolled along. we left our hotel at 8:30am and i got home at 4:20am monday morning. long long long bus ride.

this trip to the beaches up north was an included free trip, but we were informed beforehand that we had to pay for all our meals, which caused a long of complaining. but being mr. frugal, me and a couple buddies deviated from the nicer restaurants and enjoyed fine peruvian cuisine in sketchy hole in the walls. however, my meals ranged from $1-2. not bad i must say. and the food rocked.

plans for this week:
wednesday i have a presentation in spanish and I am doing it on Fujimori (peru´s president from 1990-2000). thursday i have a test, shouldn't be too bad. friday no school. saturday night flying out to argentina.

oh yeah, my camera is malfunctioning. brand new. argggh. guess i had some sand in my pocket. its weird though, i took a few photos. turned it off. then turned it back on 2 minutes later to look at the photos and the lense is going all wack on me. bummer. will try and fix but who knows. if not i'm buying a bunch of disposables. allright!!

it is weird to think that i have is a week left in peru. i've really enjoyed my time here and have had the chance to explore a huge portion of the country. something i've really enjoyed here is conversing with my taxi drivers. to get anywhere in this giant city takes at least 25 minutes, and i'll usually take a taxi 2-5 times a weeks, so i do what i can to strike up a conversation, not only is this good spanish practice, but i've learned alot. here are some brief stories i've encounter:
-retired man who spent 25yrs in a marketing firm who is now driving a taxi to pass the time
-25 year guy who is married with a 2 yr old driving to make ends meet
-man who owned a electronics store that went under due to cheap imports/knockoffs from china/elsewhere and is now driving a taxi and running a grocery store out of his home
-man who drove a bus in the public transportation system but is now driving a taxi because it offers better hours and isn't as stressful
-another guy was my age and was a surfer/pothead who was super hard to understand due to all the slang he used.
-another taxi driver who worked in the US as a janitor but returned to peru because it was to hard to get by in the states
-and one of my bus drivers to northern peru has worked in japan for 3 years and is currently married with a 1yr old. enjoys his job, because one, he has a job (hard to find these days), and it allows him to visit all of peru.

so yeah. this experience has been awesome so far. i'm looking forward to what argentina has to offer. i'll be living with Jud again (my roommate from mexico) and we will be living with a retired couple. excited to hear stories about argentina in the old days (watched a movie in my spanish class about part of argentina's history, some of the recent revolutions have had some big impacts on modern day argentina).

well, off to dinner and work on my presentation. hope all is well. enjoying this adventure but looking forward to being home again and back at messiah. chau.

another trip

2007-10-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

so. i haven't really had to much time to elaborate on my trip to macchu piccu and the sacred valley but hopefully sometime next week. tonight we are headed on a bus trip up to the northern coast of peru. visit some beaches and more historical stuff. should be fun. i believe i'm going to spend pretty much the whole weekend in a bus. each day we are driving at least 5 hours as we city hop up north and on sunday we return to lima, aka at least a 17hr bus ride. not looking forward to sunday.

well. off to lunch. will update next week when i get back.

photos

2007-10-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032874&l=92207&id=55303386

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032872&l=d77dc&id=55303386

follow these two links to look at some photos i just put on facebook. they are of peru and mexico. for some reason i think some of the coloring is off on some for photos. i'll have to switch computers and try and fix that later.

wow

2007-10-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

what up everybody? it's 1:30am here in cuzco, peru. saw macchu piccu (spelling?) yesterday. amazing. i'm heading off to bed just given all y'all an update. will try and post photos tomorrow after i fly back to lima. chau.

more jungle photos

2007-10-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

this pic and the one above are shots lookin out over the amazon river. we mainly spent our time on the tributaries of the amazon, but we did manage to get out on the amazon for a little bit. we also had a couple fresh water dolphins swim by.
me holding an oso perezoso, a lazy bear, or a sloth. their claws are real powerful and hurt when they latch on to you.
me and a large anaconda. that giant lump near my right hand is a chicken. a think they said this snake was 5 meters (roughly 15-17ft long). awesome.
my two latin babies. i believe i failed to mention in my last posts that i married a peruvian princess and now have two kids.
me shooting a 5foot blowgun

the two guys up front were our guides for the three days we spent in iquitos and the dude in the back was the owner of the boat. he has four kids, and the oldest, his 18yrs old son, was driving the boat.
i don't know why but i really like this photo.

CHATO!!

2007-10-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

me with snakes. cool.
one of the many houses on the river. when the rains come in the winter the house rises with the river.

yeah. so meant to add my photos from the jungle a little sooner, but really haven't had time to sit down and upload photos.

this past weekend was nuts. we left lima around 5am friday morning and arrived in iquitos around 6ish. the weather in iquitos is the complete opposite of lima. it was hot and extremely humid. soon after arriving in the airport we took a bus tour around the city for a few hours. we then took a boat tours on one of the many tributaries of the amazon river. this tour took us to a pretty rundown neighborhood where half of the houses were on the river, somehow anchored down to the ground. and the sanitary conditions were definitely not up there. the bathrooms were out over the river and people were bathing/swimming/washing clothes right next to the outhouses. we then went to a zoo and saw a bunch of crazy animals and i was able to hold two snakes. awesome. after that we took a two hour boat ride up river to our lodge. i ended up sitting up front with our guides and talked to them for most of the time (in spanish). and i also slept on the prow of the boat for awhile. way cool. my nickname here in peru is chato, or short, and everyone i meet gets a kick out of it. especially the workers and guides at our lodge thingy we stayed at. everywhere i went i was bound to hear a "chato" yelled my way, it was cool since i was so easily recognized, everyone knew me, and it gave me opportunities to chill with the peruvian dudes and talk and stuff. if i can remember right we just chilled the rest of friday night. and i ended up being kinda sick the whole weekend (sore throat, achiness, etc), so i slept alot.

saturday we went for 3 hour hike in the jungle, and i when i say hike i mean really slow walk due to two factors. one our group was close to 30 people, so we come in all shapes and sizes and athletic abilities, and two, twenty minutes into the hike it started to pour and didn't stop. the ground turned to mud really quick. after the hike if i can remember right we visited a "native village" aka native people wearing their native dress selling us their native trinkets at a low price. tourist trap. but since it was so much fun we went to another village the next day. anyways, we did and cruised around rivers and all sorts of fun jungle things. sunday we went to some random place were we where able to hold an anaconda and a sloth and monkeys and stuff.

so yeah. that was in short my crazy weekend. i have a test tomorrow in spanish. haha. i can hardly believe it myself. a test?? no way. but i've been studying all day so thats good.

oh yeah. i randomly met up with my junior high/high school youth pastor last night. him and about 10 other people were on their way to iquitos on a missions trip and yesterday morning i got an email from my mom that had his intinerary and he just so happened to be staying in a hotel that night about 25 minutes from my house. i chilled in the hotel lounge for awhile but eventually we met up and went to get something to eat. was pretty cool to meet up with him in lima when i had no idea he was coming the day before. awesome.

well, i've written alot. and i'm tired and still alittle sick. so i'm off and going to macchu piccu on thursday morning. life is good.

umm. i need sleep.

2007-10-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

me with mindy. all of these photos are somewhat explained in the paragraphs below. oh, and i accidently posted the photos in the oppostie order. so the last photos happended first. holla.
me with shannon. she is from the annapolis area.
awesome awesome fountain that you could walk under
me underneath the fountain pictured above.
this is at the park with the sweet fountains. this one would turn on and off at random times, so people would run in and out of it. pretty awesome place.
me and my old roomie jud, or better known as juan pedro.
kayla (in the red), from idaho and studying at seattle pacific university and jenny, from somewhere in the south and studying in texas. these two girls have been my main dance partners during salsa class. good times. oh yeah, this is us on our tour bus. woot woot.
mindy, a fellow student and amiga, who i believe studies at the university of kentucky
me and fellow Californian and roommate, brett. oh yeah, my friends call my gloves hobo gloves. what can i say, peru doesn't make gloves with fingers that fit me, so i have to make due with what i can. besides, i pull them off pretty good.
in callao with my host brother, juan carlos albuquerque.
can't say i'll ever look at chicken the same way again
fresh meat in a market close to home
big 'ol church near my house.
my house here in lima.

wow. this weekend was nuts. the party the school put on was about 45min away by bus, so arrived at the place around 11pm. it was a huge outdoor complex with two dance floors playing a variety of music. ended up getting home around 6am. i know crazy. i then woke up at 8:20ish cause i wanted to do that volunteer deal. caught a bus around 9:15, but since the endeavour point was so far away (aka i was in the bus for an hour) i ended up arriving after rondevou had left. so i caught a taxi and went home and slept all morning/most of the afternoon. at 4pm was salsa class, which was half Peruvian students/half gringos. the style was a lot different that what i had gotten used to in mexico, but it was still alot of fun. i think the class ended around 6. then at 9, us multi-country kids met up with a bunch of the isa peru semester kids, and they had the night all planned out for us. we ended up going to a bunch of different bars to try out some the national drinks (don't worry, i was fine) and then we went to a discoteca. ended up getting home at 4am. slept till 12ish.

seems like a lot. uh no. my family had some plans for this afternoon. for lunch (around 1ish) we went to a local market that was nuts (freshly butchered meat hanging everywhere) and we had a dish called ceviche. its a fish dish with onions and stuff and it is like a national dish. after that we visited a district of lima called callao (45min away by bus, it never ceases to amaze me how stinkin big this city is), which is definitely sketch in some parts, but we visited a pretty nice part of it that is near the ocean and is a big port. my host brother, juan carlos (who is 44), was in the navy for 5 years and studied in callao, so he showed me some of his old hangouts and classrooms.

so yeah. the day isn't over. at 6 we had a city tour on a doubledecker bus. way cool. we drove all around the city for over 2 hrs and ended up at this amazing park which had a ton of nutso fountains.

its past 11 right now and i'm just chillin here at the house trying to recuperate from this crazy weekend. i have class mon-thurs this week then off to iquitos (amazon jungle in northern peru) on this weekend.

well. i'm in need of sleep. later.

2007-10-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

lima. so far it has been pretty crazy. my host family is like a sitcom, such a wide variety of personalities it makes life interesting. the food here is way different from mexico. in the last week i've eaten about 10 avocados. our dinner the other night was bread and avocado. with lots of salt. oh my goodness do they love salt here. it goes on everything. but overall I can't complain about the food. the lunches are really good, usually white rice with a meat dish, breakfast is bread with cheese and ham usually, and dinner just depends on the night. last night they made us pizza which was a good break.

the accent here is so different from mexico and i feel like i have to learn a new vocubulary system. in mexico, lunch was comida, but here is it almuerzo. and the word for "here" in mexico was aqui and "there" was alli and "over there" was aca, but here aca is "here". takin some time to get used to.

tonight going out to a party that the university is putting on. supposedly there are going to be a ton of people there and crazy music. then tomorrow morning i'm volunteering at a orphan's home (or something similar) and playing with kids all morning. hopefully i'll have some energy left to do that. then at 3:30 we have a cultural activity with peruvian students and the activity just happens to be dancing salsa. darn. haha. YEAH. saturday is going to be nuts. sunday, i think we have a tour around town on a doubledecker bus, and then who knows from there.

yesterday I decided to go to a musuem across the city. it is called "museo de la nacion". it's a history musuem with a lot of pottery and stuff. it actually didn't have anything that was crazy cool, but i used the opportunity to expand my spanish vocabulary by writing all the words down that i didn't know. the crazy part is the musuem is about 30-40 minutes away from my house by bus, so i had to find my way over there on my own which was pretty tough. and the buses are made for short people, so i had some difficulty fitting. but all in all it was a pretty cool experience.

oh yeah. the house i'm in has a microphone and headset (pretty sure they work) so if you want to talk on skype, just holla. i believe the time zone is an hour behind the east coast, or two ahead of the west coast. my skype account is "samueldorland"

chau.

peru photos

2007-10-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

a skyline shot in late afternoon. the sky here is overcast 24/7.
me and my new roomate, brett (who is from CA and attends UCLA) in the main plaza of lima. this city is huge.
some of the buildings in the main plaza.
my wonderfully small bed. yeah. notice that I'm laying diagonal, and yet my feet still hang off. oh yeah, my favorite part is that foot board. not.

peru

2007-10-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

hmmm. no idea where to begin. saturday was spent traveling. all day. left at 6:30am on a 3-4 bus ride to mexico city, then a four hour flight to bogota, colombia, 2hr layover, then a 2-3hr flight to lima. ending up getting to my new house around 2am. long long day. my family is pretty cool and i have a nice house, except my bed is way to small (will post photo later). I live with a mother (i'd say in her 60's), two of her adult children (man and woman) and a 20yr nursing student who works as their housekeeper. cool family but it is really hard getting used to the accent. spanish is way different here, lot of new sayings, new slang, new pronunciation. its tough, but will be an adventure. also, different food. so far i'm still in love with mexican food, but really haven't tried a wide variety of peruvian food yet. classes start tomorrow. yeah! not. oh yeah, i live about 20 minutes from the beach. heard the water is really cold but used to that being from central california. going to try and head over there as soon as i can.

guanajuato was a beautiful city that was pretty small and I was able to find my way around after a day or two. lima is huge. definitely a big city. it seems to be pretty dirty and a lot of pollution, but the people seem pretty nice and open to gringos. yesterday (sunday), my roomate (who is from southern california and goes to UCLA), my family and I had an afternoon tour of the city. we went to the main square where the arquitecture has a strong european influence (again, more photos later). today, the group and I had a pretty long orientation on the school, the city, etc. and we also went to the dance/singing performance which had a lot of tradational peruvian songs and dress. definitely had a good time.

so, i've got classes the rest of this week and a few cultural activities planned. I think this saturday we have a volunteer opportunity to work with kids in the morning, and then a salsa class with peruvian students. yeah. then next week (i think friday-sunday) i'm off to iquitos, which is the jungle in northern peru. a trip í'm really looking forward too.

well, there are two computers in the house with internet, so i should be able to update this pretty regularly and add some photos soon. well, i'm out for now.

cervantino festival

2007-10-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

every year in October, the city of Guanajuato hosts a huge music/dance/art festival called cervantino. and last night was the opening night. artists come from all over the world to perform or demonstrate their artistic abilities, and the event program mentioned artists from Senegal, Korea, united states, a bunch of european countries, and a ton of latin american countries. every year the event has a country that is the guest of honor, and this year it just happened to be china (which is so cool, you know, seeing how i lived there for over 3.5 months). so the opening ceremony started last night around 8, but in order to get a seat i arrived around 5pm with a couple of my mexican friends. and it just so happened that some clouds blew in about 6. and then it rained for a half hour. and the stopped. and rained again. it was nuts. but once the ceremony got underway the rain stopped so that was good.

The opening ceremony lasted for about 2 hours and it was awesome. and kinda weird. I was watching and listening to traditional chinese dance, music, and acrobats in mexico, while I was speaking spanish to my friends. and due to this combination of two cultures i have come to enjoy, i had an amazing time.

an interesting experience

2007-10-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

me dancing with jenny
so there was this celebration yesterday, i believe it was national elderly day or something, pretty much it was the senior citizens of the community coming together, singing, dancing, having a good time. and my dance teacher and several of my friends/fellow students were going to put on a little dance show, which included merengue, cumbia, bachata, and salsa. and it just so happened that one of the guys didn't show up. awesome. so they had me run home really quick and change, and so i ended up dancing salsa (and mind you, i'm still not that good) in front of a ton of people in this little plaza. awesome. so here are some pics.doing a crazy dip with the other jenny. this dip is nuts. the guy holds the girl by the back of her neck then lowers her down until she is parallel to the ground. then you pick her up and do it again two more times. its awesome.

3 day weekend

2007-10-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

so we didn't have school this friday. so friday and sunday were spent catching up on sleep, watching movies, chillin around town, and doin whatever. Saturday me and a couple isa students took a bus to leon (about an hour away) and went to a mall (felt like the U.S.) and then went to a zoo. the zoo was pretty crazy and had a lot of sweet animals. we left the zoo at 6pm and got home around 9. being the cheap americans that we are, we didn't want to pay $6 for a taxi, so we took a $.80 bus all around the city for about an hour, and then finally found a bus back to guanajuato. all in all it was a pretty sweet day. lot of fun.

this is a our last week here in guanajuato. i'm sad to leave but ready to go to lima. ready to try out a new city, meet some new people, and experience a new culture. should be good times.

La Bufa

2007-09-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

me and kayla comparing bicep size. i think i win.
at the bufa overlooking the city

so. on sunday, we went rappeling at la bufa. it was crazy. parts of it were freakin nuts and part of it was fun. the easy part was when we were rappeling down the side of the cliff, the crazy scary part was when we hung in midair. Out of 23 of us, 20 people did it, so I knew I couldn't back out. and if I did, I knew Alex would kill me. so here are some pics. it was a good day.yep . that's me. way at the top.about half way down the face manly men doing manly things

more photos

2007-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

fireworks at the dia de independencia
a little restaurant in town.
plaza de la paz. the plaza in the center of town.
our group overlooking the city.
the night of the dia de independencia. Me with a fellow student, amber, who happens to be from canada. she told me to be tall in this pic. I think i accomplished that quite nicely.
walkin around town. and once again in my life, people are staring at me.

hola.

2007-09-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

well. it is wednesday. life is good. classes are going alright. had a history test this morning that took me all of 15 minutes. way good times. a bunch of us went to this new club last night called guanajuato grill. crazy techno/electronica/rock/disco awesomeness. got back home at 2:30am. definitely had trouble stayin awake today. had another dance lesson last night and i've realized that salsa is my favorite dance right now. cumbia and merengue are not my thing. not a huge fan of those dances.

I am really enjoying myself here in mexico. actually kinda bummed we are leaving so soon to go to lima. i mean, it is so terrible i have to go to lima. but really, finally gettin the hang of this town and makin some friends with the locals. and my spanish is getting better. not great, but better. alright, gotta go do some homework (weird, homework). the pic is of the university here.

what a weekend!

2007-09-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

so. what did this weekend not involve. crazy good food, late nights, and lots of sleep. friday night a bunch of us (other isa students and a couple of mexican buds) went dancing at a couple clubs. i think we got back to the house about 3:30am. then i slept the rest of the day. literally. saturday night we went out to dinner and has some pozule (i think that is how you spell it, a soup with pork, corn, chili, etc. really good), enchiladas, and floutas (taquitos). saturday night was crazy. at 11pm the whole town was at this certain building and we participated in something called el grito. pretty much a celebration of mexican national pride. very crazy and a ton of people. after that another night of dancing until 4:30am. sunday was then spent sleeping and watching movies. overall a good weekend. this week should be pretty cool. more dance classes, more good times. on sunday we are going to a mountain called la bufa, and we are going rappeling. should be sweet. the internet is super slow right now so having trouble posting pics, but never fear, it will happen.

It's friday.

2007-09-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

just finished up with my classes. finally it's the weekend. however, it is going to be a weekend unlike anyother. Sunday is la dia de independencia (independence day), so saturday is going to be crazy. it is kinda like a new years eve deal. will fill you all in on the details on monday.

still dancing salsa. it is definitely something i have come to really enjoy. i'm going to another lesson tonight (my fourth this week) and i think its going to be close to three hours. crazy.

well, i'm out, hope all is well.

random photos

2007-09-13T11:33:00.001-07:00

this is of my roomate and I with Salvador, my host mom's brother's (who lives next door and is my dance teacher)son

a typical lunch. first soup (in this case, sopa de pasta) and then some meat, rice, veggies, and beans all combined in with tortillas. the green stuff is salsa, and agua de horchata is in the big blue bucket in the back of the photo.
part of my house.
this is looking down pretty much in the center of town. the way the trees are trimmed is awesome.
guanajuato at night.

Samuelita

2007-09-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

my new nickname: Samuelita. my host brother has become antonita and juan pedro has become pedrita. adding the -ita just makes your name like that of a feminine little girl. awesome.

jud and I had a conversation with our host family the other night about the economy and jobs and stuff. I have come to a better understanding of why so many people from mexico do all they can to get into the united states. Mexicans really have no confidence in their economy and their government, and the common wage in about $15 a day. A DAY. They thought my summer wage of $9 an hour was really good, but for me it was so-so. My host brother, antonio, is studying engineering with a concentration in topograhy, and he would really like to get a job in the states someday. there just really isn't any opportunities here.

ummmm, change of subject. i had another salsa dance class last night. i have come to the understanding that salsa is incredibly sexy. we learned a dip last night and it was Amazing. way good times. alright. will post more photos later.

sam

San Miguel de Allende and Leon

2007-09-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday we where off to san miguel de allende, where we spent the morning at some hot springs that were awesome. after that we had the afternoon to tour the town, which is somewhat similar to guanajuato but had a real sweet church. on sunday we went to leon to watch a futbol game. crazy good times. here are some pictures that capture a little of what happened this weekend (remember to enlarge, just click on the photo):
pics include: me and my host brother, antonio, bein the thugs we are. another photo is of a side street in san miguel de allende. the other is of the church there, with another isa sutdent, brennan. the fourth is of the futbol stadium. the last one is of me and my roommate, jud.

Mexicano tu puedes

2007-09-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

Mexicano tu puedes (you can, your mexican). when i feel like i can´t eat a second huge portion of food or don´t want to do something, my host family jokes that since i am now mexican, i can (mexicano, tu puedes).

desayuno (breakfast) usually consists of pan tostado (toast), frijoles (beans), and huevos con jamon (eggs with ham), or someother dish. comida (lunch) is made up of a sopa (soup), usually a pasta soup, then some dish that we can put in tortillas. i have a photo i will post later. lunch and dinner (cena) always have tortillas, so whatever meat and side dish we are eating we throw it in a tortilla, add some beans, and layer on the salsa. that is what i call a good time.

life is good here. dance classes three days a week (tues, weds, thurs) and lifting a couple times a week. classes are pretty chill and the spanish i am learning in class i am applying in my conversations so that is way cool. guanajuato has a lot of cool clubs, and a lot of us usually go out a few times a week, you know practice our amazing dance moves and the like. Haven´t connected yet with any mexican students besides my host brother, but hopefully this week will be able to make some friends.

the weather here is pretty nice. when it is not raining, which it was a ton the first week we were here, it is sunny and pretty warm. good shorts and tshirt weather for sure.

my roomate, jud, is a pretty sweet guy. since mexican people have trouble saying jud, he changed his name to juan pedro, which is funny. my host dad is juan manuel, my host brother is juan antonio, and now there is juan pedro, so at times i have become juan samuel. my host mother, leticia, works at a hospital as a manager, manuel was working at the hospital, but recently switched jobs somewhere else in a manager role. antonio is an engineering student at guanajuato university and some days he has up to 11 hours of class. crazy. i only have 4 hours a day and that seems like a lot.

well, i´m out for now. i have some pictures from this weekend at san miguel de allende and the futbol match at leon, but will post those and write about them in the next day or two when i am using my own computer (in an internet cafe right now). adios.

2007-09-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

yello. it is now the weekend. holla! had my third dance class last night and i really feel like i have the basics down. the last two classes i have danced with other students from isa who know less than i do, so i was kinda in the teacher role. which was crazy. me, teaching someone to dance?

oh yeah, if you click on the photos, they will open in a new window alot bigger, just a thought. i will try and post more soon.

can't right much cause i gotta go get lunch in a few minutes, but probably just chillin the rest of the day. should be a good time. alright. adios.

2007-09-05T10:19:00.001-07:00

Well, I just finished up my third day of classes. I must say they are some of the easiest i've ever had, but hey, can't complain right? I'm taking 2 hours of latin american history a day, the teacher is alright but should be an interesting class. Also have an hour of spanish conversation and an hour of spanish grammar. I've learned most of this stuff before, but forgot most of it, so it is good review. (pics are at teotihucan, the pyramid of the moon is in the background of the group photo, pyramid of the sun is in the background of the other)

A couple of exciting things have happened recently. I had my first dance class last night. lets just say dancing is harder than it looks (especially when your 6'8" and all the girls are half your size). It was a two hour class involving various dance styles, but we mainly focused on salsa. The first half i was with a girl about as good as me, and we were completely lost. the 2nd half i danced with two different girls who are amazing at salsa, so they helped me along with the basics. All i have to do now is learn how to move my hips. agghhh. I also finally got my gym membership, so i've lifted the last couple of days. feels good to be active again. another cool development is at the end of september, there is an orchestra performing queen songs, and i got a ticket, so i'm way excited. this saturday we are going to san miguel de allende where i guess there are some sweet hotsprings. on sunday we are going to leon to watch a futbol game. yeah!

life has been good so far. everyone in my group is pretty cool and we all get along pretty well. my spanish is still alright, but i've got 3 months ahead of me of spanish, so it will come. definitely times when i'm frustrated with it, but i'm learnin from my mistakes. the last photo is the city of guanajuato. the huge white building in the middle is the university, and the yellow one is a giant catholic cathedral. this place is awesome. however, all the businesses, clubs, and things to do are in the center of town, and all the houses are up on hills, so lots of walking uphill. lots.

me gusta mexico.

2007-09-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

it is 6pm sunday night. have had a crazy last couple of days. yesterday was spent visiting a bunch of historical sites around guanajuato, including a mummy musuem, which was kinda creepy. last night was also spent at a few dance clubs, and it was pretty crazy. i'm definitely not much of a dancer, but i had a good time. salsa lessons start on tuesday (i'll have salsa lessons on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday), so i can't wait to learn. classes start tomorrow, which is actually a good thing cause it will give me more of a routine.

me and a couple of the guys are getting a gym membership tomorrow for a month and a just found out were a track is, so going to do my best to stay in shape.

I went to a catholic service this morning and had mass. I understood about a quarter of what was going on, but it was an interesting experience. I went with my host family and they seemed to really enjoy having me there, which was cool.

We had a birthday party yesterday for one of the students and the most amazing tacos. the carne asada didn't stop coming for at least an hour, and the guacamole was so good. i also tried chorizo for the first time yesterday, which is a type of sausage, but dark red. really good. also had some amazing enchiladas for lunch today. i am definitely getting spoiled by my host mother. life is good.

next weekend we are going to a town called san miguel de allende, and possibly leon to watch a soccer match. cool beans. adios.

Ahora, yo soy en la cuidad de Guanajuato.

2007-08-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

Well. I´m alive and having a very difficult time typing because the keyboards in mexico are way different than in the states.

I arrived in La Cuidad de Mexico (mexico city) on tuesday, and spent all day Wednesday touring musuems and other sweet places. Thursday was spent climbing the pyramid of the sun and the pyramid of the moon in Teotihuacan. After the pyramids and a 6 hour drive, we arrived in guanajuato and met our host family's. Still haven´t met the dad because he works crazy hours, but the mom and the son, Antonio, are awesome. Antonio is 19 year old engineering student and is really cool. The house is amazing and has a great view (will post photos later). So far the meals have been amazing and this month in mexico has the possibility of being unbelievable. After a tour of the center of town last night and a tour of other parts today, I can say with certainty that Guanajuato is so so so so cool. it is beautiful and everything is picture worthy. well, i am out, but will post a few photos probably on monday or tuesday. oh yeah, my spanish is better than i thought, but i have so much to learn. adios.

T minus 2

2007-08-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

two days before I fly to mexico city.

I'm off on a 3+month adventure in latin america. I will be Guanajuato, Mexico for over a month studying spanish and latin american history. Then I'll be in Lima, Peru for 5 weeks studying business spanish and international trade negotiation and policy. After that I'm off to Buenos Aires, Argentina over a month studying more spanish and latin american politics.

Throughout the semester I will also have the opportunity to go on a ton of sweet excursions. I'll be visiting Mexico City, the pyramids in teotihucan, and San Miguel de Allende in mexico; Huaraz, Ica, Paracas, the Nazca lines, Cusco, and Machu Picchu in peru; El Tigre and Iguazu Falls in Argentina; and i believe a side trip to Colonia del sacramento in Uruguay (but don't quote me on that one).

I super excited about this trip. My spanish is under par right now but hopin to come back at the conversational level.

Not sure what my internet access will be like when i'm in latin america but will try and keep this blog updated at least a weekly basis.