My Language Motherboard is Fucked

Cairo -> Beijing -> Hong Kong
Arabic -> Mandarin -> Cantonese.

I don't speak Cantonese. As I flew into Beijing, I sat, franticly try to remember how to speak the language I had slaved away at for two years... only to be sadly disappointed at the strange, broken, nonsensical arabinese hybrid language that ran through my head. Oddly impressive though. Every time I had to speak while in Beijing, I was struck stiff with nervousness as the same frantic search began, face frozen in confusion, until at last I was able to spit out the simplest of sentences. Must have evoked a lot of sympathy - cute face, but she sounds so dumb when she speaks. Aaaaaaw.

So, I was thankful to get to Taiwan and have my sister near me and able to speak for me - which I made her do, much to her annoyance, I'm sure. Sorry T. I spent about twelve days in Taiwan, and made sure to continue my dumpling-eating binge. Having just come from traveling a lot, and knowing that there was much more traveling to be done in the near future, I spent a good few days on the couch in Tarryn's living room. Bliss.

I did do some stuff while in Taiwan. I wasn't just a dumpling-eating, milk-tea-drinking lump-on-a-couch for twelve days. Some of my fun activities included: a heinously awkward lunch with some distant relatives, a day trip to San Yi, hiking with Tarryn and some of her teacher friends, and going to Taipei.

If someone with a hidden camera had been taping the lunch date with my relatives, it would definitely be something you'd want to watch. Me not speaking much Chinese, them not speaking much English... it was a fun game of guess-the-meaning-of-what-I'm-saying, pictionary, and miming. One thing was easy to keep clear though - no fish. Har har, funny funny. It actually was funny how cautious they were about making sure I steered completely clear of fish.

What was introduced to me as a little hiking trip, turned out to be climbing almost all the way up a mountain. It was nothing like climbing up rock faces, but there were a lot of stairs at one point. And not that I minded the exercise, it was just a lot longer than I had initially expected. But it was great fun and the mountain/park was a beautiful place to go for a hike, however long it ended up being.

In Taipei, we stayed with a friend of mine from Kalamazoo, who is in Taiwan teaching English (like Tarryn). We made a trip to a nearby city called Ying Ge, which is famous for its pottery. We also spent some time around Taipei itself, did some shopping, saw some cool stuff, etc. It was a nice, relaxed trip to Taiwan.

Then, Tarryn and I were off to Thailand for a while. Tarryn stayed for a whole week, but I had to jet out two days earlier in order to make use of an already paid for ticket home from Cairo. In Thailand, Tarryn and I pretty much spent our days sitting on the beach. We also went elephant riding, took a Thai cooking class, and got massages. Basically Thailand was way relaxed and involved a lot of laying on the beach, eating good Thai food, and reading good books. We stayed one night at a really nice little bungalow place, but it was a little far from the water, so we moved to a different one, from which we could roll out of bed and walk right to the beach. It was nice. No AC and not hot water, but those weren't really necessary anyway. The days spent in Thailand were an excellent way to end my mini tour of Asia, and ultimately my six months abroad.

I'm home now. After probably the longest trip of my life. I left Thailand on Sunday evening and did not get home until late Tuesday afternoon. There was lots of plane switching, layovers, waiting in airports, and one last gracious half day spent in Cairo.