Passing the six-month marker and finally going on vacation!

So I've been living in Kurdistan for nearly seven months now. In the first six months, I hadn't been anywhere outside of Kurdistan and I had only left Erbil a couple of times.

This is highly unusual for me. Especially while I was living in Europe, I was constantly going to another country or at the very least leaving the city. I'm a little limited here. There are only so many places I can travel by car and all of them are in Kurdistan.

I'm surrounded by Iran to the east - somewhere I would have to apply for a visa first, the likelihood of getting one is low, and even if I got one, it's pretty certain officials would give me a lot of shit at the checkpoints.

Syria, to the west, is experiencing a mass exodus and you'd have to be crazy to go there on holiday. Which is a shame because I would love to go to Demascus. Maybe one day... Inshallah.

Iraq to the south is forbidden, a) by my contract with my company, b) by my visa which only allows me in Kurdistan and not the rest of Iraq, c) by my boyfriend who swears the moment it's safe he will take me to Baghdad and Babylon. Seriously want to go to both.

Turkey is to the north and while it's generally safe to go to Turkey, the part of Turkey just north of Iraq does experience a lot of rebel fighting from Turkish Kurds wanting their own state.

So that leaves me with plane travel only. Planes ain't cheap.

However, we managed to get five days off the Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, and while I would normally want to stick around to experience a celebration like that, it's literally the ONLY vacation time I have until my contract ends at the end of August.

So my boyfriend and I went to Beirut. Now yes, I'll be the first to say that things are not perfect in Lebanon either. They have Syria and the rebels bombing each other at the border in the north-east and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is always causing problems in the south.

That said, we were in a safe area. Beirut is fine. Beirut is one of the oldest cities in the world. That said, there's not much by way of touristy stuff to do because the city has also been destroyed and rebuilt eight times. So we pretty much went shopping, eating and walking along the sea.

This was fine by me. I needed the relaxation. And I appreciated that I could go to places with quality customer service and products. Kurdistan isn't the worst place I've ever been for these things, but it's certainly lacking and it wears on you over time.

That and the Mediterranean Sea is gorgeous. Oh and boyfriend had never seen the sea before. After all the only country he's been to outside of Iraq was Syria and that was a few years ago.

So it was a vacation of firsts. His first time seeing the sea. His first time eating sushi and actually liking it (because he had always had terrible sushi before). My first time going on a vacation and not doing historical sight-seeing. My first time vacationing in a Middle Eastern country (because living in one is not the same).

We both loved Beirut and had a great time. I would explain it as a Paris of the Middle East. After French influence from occupation, the people there speak Lebanese-Arabic (which has a distinct French influence) and French. Most also speak English perfectly as well. So it was interesting because signs would be in two of the three but rarely all three. Menus were in all three. I mostly got by on being able to understand written French. (I never studied French, but having studied Spanish and been around lots of people who are obsessed with French *Flannery* it makes it a little easier).

Everyone always greeted my boyfriend in Arabic and me in French. I was constantly being called mademoiselle if I was alone, or madame if I was with him.

Probably the only hitch we experienced was when we first got there. I booked the hotel under my name. A double room, single bed, because that's what normal couples do. We got there and they were like, uhm, you're not married, you're supposed to have separate rooms.

Turns out, if we had both been American, they wouldn't have cared, but because my boyfriend is a Muslim with an Iraqi passport, they wanted to push their ideals on us. I refused to allow it. He told them we were engaged and they relented. (We're not currently engaged.) When we got into our room, he looked at me and said, "We're going to have to get a fake marriage license put together if we want to travel together in the Middle East... at least until we get a real one."

Soooo, now we know. Anyway, I highly recommend Beirut, especially for those wanting a shopping/beach vacation.

Back Entry: The City of Lights

Remember that time I went to Paris with one of my very best friends from university? Oh, you don't? That's probably because I never actually posted anything about it here. Whoops.

So for the sake of catching up, here is a not-so quick version of our four (ish) days in Paris. (Warning, this is the LONGEST POST EVER!)

First of all, we took a stupidly early flight. As in, Flannery arrived in Prague on Friday night and then we turned around and got on a plane that left before 7 a.m. on Saturday morning. However, arriving in Paris (not so bright eyed and bushy tailed) early in the morning, was great. It gave us a little sense of what we were getting into. 

It took us like 30 minutes to figure out where to buy tickets for the train and then where the train was to get into the city from Charles de Gaulle airport, but we managed. Then the train proceeded to get hella crowded. (We found out on the trip back to the airport that this is just a thing. This train is always crowded. Get a seat while you can.)

We were honestly super excited about the hostel we were staying in. It's website is super stylish. They have an active Facebook page (as any good hostel should) and breakfast is included. (!!!!!) Add in that it's literally a three minute walk from the base of the hill below the Sacre-Coeur and it was pretty much gold. 

So naturally we made it to our hostel and took a nap. (It was now like 11 a.m. and we got up at like 4:30 a.m. after spending most of the night catching up on girl talk. It was a much deserved nap.)

Musings of a 26-year-old Job Seeker

Quite awhile back I mentioned that I was looking for a job in the UAE. It's funny how this whole thing has  taken on a life of its own and evolved greatly.


When the idea first started to form and it was just a little seed of curiosity, I told myself that I'd love to go to the Middle East but there was no way in hell I was going by myself. I would have to find a friend who wanted to go with me.


But as the weeks went on and I began to feed my little curiosity seedling with blogs, videos, news stories, and history books full of information, I started to think to myself, "Well, there are a few countries that I could probably handle going to on my own."


Namely, the UAE, Oman or Qatar.

Life is Like a Rollercoaster

All summer, and especially this last month, has been an absolute carnival ride. 

Everything has been happening so quickly that I haven't really had time to soak it all in. There was my visit from Ricky. Then traveling with my sister which included whirlwind tours of Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. 

Then there was another quick weekend 'on the cottage' (as the Czechs like to say) with some friends and a raging good time for Prague's first Pride weekend. 

Next thing I knew, August was nearly over, my class schedule was changing weekly as my students were taking last minute holidays, I got a new roommate and it was bloody hot outside so we had a water fight. What else do you do when it's more than 30°C?

The anniversary of my first landing in Prague came and went and one of the members of my little, close-knit group of friends went back home to California. 

Now all of a sudden it's officially Autumn again (seriously my new favorite season). It's nearly October and my new regular class schedule is starting to settle in. Boy, is it going to be a busy one. I'm looking at three early mornings each week and lots of late evenings.

It'll be worth it in the end.

Lazy Summer

Things have been awfully slow around here. For those of you who know me well, you know that when I don't have pressing concerns, I get unmotivated in basically all areas of my life. 


I've been working somewhere between 8 and 15 (if I'm lucky) hours per week. That and with at least one of my friends on holiday each week (if not more) and all our schedules being different, it's difficult to get folks together.  With hardly any reason to get out of bed and with my job feeling more like a quick errand to run only a few days per week, I've been spending a lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing.


Stupid, I know. 

Budapest

First things first, Budapest (pronounced boo-duh-pesht) is officially my second favorite city in Europe. There's still plenty of room for that to change given that I've only been to seven European countries, but for now, Budapest is in line right behind Prague.

Buda from Pest

It's big, but not that big. (Two cities in one!)

It's walkable.

It's affordable.

There's a healthy drinking culture.

They have amazing food.

They have a millionty spa baths.

(This probably goes on the 'pro' column as well.)

I could basically stop right there and be satisfied (with this blog post that is), but I know you would be disappointed so I'll delve further into our 2.5 days in Budapest.

B'lava

Oh Bratislava, how adorable you are. After traipsing around sprawling Vienna, Bratislava (from here on B'lava) was super easy. I recommend it as a good two-day trip. (Or really two nights/one day).


My sister and I got to B'lava at a decent time in the evening and once we got ourselves oriented we decided to do a bit of wandering, get some food and then call it a night early so that we could have a full day the next day. It would be our only real full day anyway.


It was a good plan anyway because it decided to start raining again not that long after we arrived. Weather did not approve of our taking a vacation.

But I kind of enjoy the night time rainy pictures. 

Two Days in Vienna

So my sister and I did a whirlwind Eurotrip while she was here and part of that was about two days in Vienna. We arrived in the last evening by train and went straight to hour hotel. That is once we figured out how to get there from the random train station we got dropped off at.

She booked us a swank hotel room.

Chats With Seester

me:  uhm, the hotel you booked in vienna says COMPLIMENTARY MINI BAR

did i read that right?

 Gwen:  Most do.  

 me:  i thought most places you pay for the stuff in the mini bar

which is why i never touch the stuff

i'm afraid of those prices

and [there's] a freaking crystal chandelier [!]

what up!

i'm so not classy enough for this place

i'm 25 and my friends like to mix boxed wine with coca-cola

 Gwen:  Clarification: most in Vienna offer complimentary mini-bar

 me:  ex.ci.ted.

 Gwen:  Vienna isn't a dive bar.

 me:  neither is prague

just my life 

Gastronaut

The ladies over at Jet Setting Divas pointed blog readers in the direction of this travel profile quiz hosted by American Express' Travel site. 


I love things that try to tell me who I am 'cause they're usually super hi-larious. Though I will say I'm quite pleased with these results. I think they fit me to a T.


Apparently I'm a Gastronaut. 

I'm torn

After the first week or so of being home had gone by, people started to ask me if I'm bored and ready to go back.

So after having been in Texas for nearly a month now (Wow, time flies!) I'm starting to finally be able to answer that question.

In Transit: Laos - Tha Khek to Don Det via Pakse

I lived a charmed life, I know.

After my super long and wonderful trip to Kong Lor I was exhausted but time was still of the essence and I had to get on the road the next morning. That said, I still ran a bit lazy all morning. I took my sweet time getting out of bed, eating breakfast and repacking all my freshly laundered clothing. (Oh my goodness, I love cheap laundry service.)

So what's your travel plan again?

I'm moving this week... out of my apartment that is.

Our lease agreement ends while I'm in Thailand on vacation next week so I have to move out now. I'm having trouble getting up the motivation to actually get my stuff together, though, so I'm blogging as procrastination.

My plan is to go ahead and pack everything as if I'm actually leaving the country. Since I will come back from Thailand and only be here for another three weeks, I figured I may as well not waste time moving things that I'm not keeping and since many of the things I am keeping won't be coming with me on my big vacation, I might as well shove them into a space bag and suck the life out of them now. Temporarily of course.

Is that a head?

I bought a rotisserie-style chicken the other day at Costco. It's pretty tasty.

Of course I didn't realize until tonight that the head was still attached — beak and all. I was carving all the meat off thinking that's easier to store than the whole thing. I pulled off the twine and started trying to cut off the wing when I began thinking that it was especially difficult.

Then the damn head came untucked from under the wing. All I knew was there was this pitiful little chicken face and I made a really awkward yelping noise and threw the knife down.

I'm not really that squeamish and I certainly don't mind eating things that I know were once living, breathing creatures. I would just prefer not to attach a face to it (or rather I would prefer someone to detach the face from it before I actually see it).

The pig hooves and chickens feet and so on at the wet market don't really bother me so much. But seeing people pick out a live chicken and then hearing someone take it into the back and "prepare" it to be taken home, not my thing. I think my imagination is just a little too graphic (or maybe accurately graphic) for me to handle these types of situations.

Other exciting things today, this guy that was stalking Megan before she left called my cell phone during class today. In case you forgot, my cell phone used to be Megan's cell phone.

Long story short, a long time ago her scooter broke down and this mechanic helped her get it home and such — it was obvious from day one he had a super crush on her. Somehow he ended up with her cell phone number (ahem, Megan is way too nice) and started stalking her around the school. He called once after she left and I sent a message in English saying she's gone.

Apparently he forgot or something, so tonight I got my kids to help me text him in Chinese. Unfortunately they don't know past tense in English very well so they had me write "Megan will go to America" instead of "Megan already went back to America."

He messaged back asking when she would be leaving and saying he wants to see her first. Finally, my co-teacher just called him and told him that Megan left already and this phone now belongs to someone else, so please stop trying to contact us.

Oh it's nice to have someone that can stick up for you in Chinese.

Before school, Tess and I went to the stationery store and went Christmas galore. We bought a tiny little Christmas tree that's pre-decorated for only 300NT.

I also bought a ton of Taiwan-fabulous Christmas cards and wrapping paper.

I'm sure those of you whole expect mail and/or presents from me are thoroughly excited and intrigued now.

Let's just say that one of my 'Xmas' cards has a tiny Asian girl with a beer on it and that some of my wrapping paper is inappropriately '80s color schemed.

Lastly, after school I BOUGHT A PLANE TICKET TO AMERICA FOR CHRISTMAS!

I am going to be doing a ridiculous amount of travel in about two weeks:

Taiwan ---> Tokyo ---> Seattle where I'll spend two days.

Then Seattle ---> Austin where I'll spend about nine days (maybe I'll try to run up to D/FW for a day or so?).

Then Austin ---> Seattle where I will immediately hope into a car and drive ---> Vancouver (well, Whistler).

We'll spend a couple of days in Whistler snowboarding and then Whistler ---> Seattle.

I'll spend the night in Seattle and the next morning, ---> Tokyo ---> Taiwan.

So much traveling but I'm so excited!

How do you travel?

We're in that time of year when the weather changes multiple times a week (if not multiple times a day). You'd think being from Texas I would be used to this, but in Taiwan it's a whole different ball game.

I think the humidity is what did me in. I've been congested since at least mid-week and it's not getting any better. It's a funny sort of congestion though. I can feel it behind my eyes, like a sinus headache, and then it's in my chest. I feel like there is a small child standing on my chest making it difficult to breathe.

The funny thing is, I have absolutely no trouble breathing through my nose except when I've been laying down for awhile (i.e. the middle of the night when I've already been asleep for awhile).

I had a fever a few nights ago, but it didn't last long. Some ibuprofen and 13 hours of sleep later I was ready to go again (though not without complaint).

I apologize ahead of time to those of you who have had to listen to me gripe. It's what I do. I tend to complain a lot when I'm sick and/or tired. Unfortunately being sick makes me tired and so it's exponentially worse.

I think I'm going to assign myself at least two touristy things to do per month. And I'm going to start inviting some of my co-teachers. I was talking to Carol last night about how when you live somewhere (especially when you've lived there forever) you never do the touristy things. By touristy things I mean the things people go there specifically to do.

What do people come to Taiwan specifically to do... Taroko Gorge, Alishan, Jade Mountain, Taipei 101, etc.

She was impressed with all the places the foreign teachers go each weekend and I told her I would call her next time so she would have an excuse to go.

I completely understand the need for incentive. Here my incentive is that I have a year to do everything (the touristy stuff and the stuff normal everyday Taiwanese people do). I still think about all the things I didn't do in Austin because I lived there.

For instance, I never took a tour of the capitol building. Hell, I hadn't even been to Barton Springs until this spring. How do you live somewhere for five years and never visit the big attractions?

It's quite simple really: There are a lot of crowds and where there are crowds, there are obnoxious tourists.

You have to admit that being a tourist has its negative connotations.

I've been thinking a lot about traveling and how I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes down to it.

I'm a planner. I like to read books and surf the Internet to find out everything I can about where I'm going. What are the big attractions? Where will I get the best pictures? Where is the best lodging as far as getting your bang for your buck? How do I get around?

I have yet to go somewhere without at least planning out when I will get there, how I will get there and where I will stay.

The idea of packing a backpack (or a small suitcase), buying a plane ticket and then just finding a place to stay when I get there absolutely blows my mind. But at the same time, it seems that's what a lot of the other foreign teachers here do.

Honestly, I think I have the least travel experience out of anywhere here. Part of it is that what little traveling I have done has been mostly with my sister. She's also a planner. Of course, when you're planning ski vacations in the States it certainly helps to think (way) ahead so you can buy lift tickets on sale and get cheap rooms.

Apparently that's not how Asia works (and many other places for that matter).

I'm just wondering if I have to guts to let go, to just book a flight and then take care of the rest when I get there.

Where am I going you ask? I have no clue. First I'm going home (which I've already told you that I have almost every single day mapped out for that). But Chinese New Year isn't long after I get back and I should find something to do.

Maybe Vietnam? Maybe Malaysia? Maybe Borneo? Maybe Beijing?

I'm taking suggestions for Chinese New Year fun. Preferably somewhere that it's OK to travel alone, though I will try to find someone to go with me.

What are five words that describe famine?

So Thursday was a relatively boring day. Almost all the teachers had to go to this big workshop about how to teach summer classes and that was pretty much the only thing on my schedule for the day.

The workshop was actually pretty helpful for me though. This guy Bill was teaching it. I'm not sure if I've talked about Bill before, but he has been in Taiwan for more than 15 years. He speaks Chinese now, gets along great with all the co-teachers and has a serious arsenal of games to play.

Summer classes are essentially for children who know no, or very little, English. It's a fast-paced beginners' course basically, so we squeeze a 16-week program into an 8-week program. Going over this was great though because now I have a little packet, suggestions for games and some ideas for how to teach the kindie kids. Bill makes it look easy though.

After the workshop everyone else was hurriedly putting together their lesson plans and heading off to class. I, however, had no class yesterday, no observations or anything, so I sat around and did nothing.

Actually, I did research on the trip I plan to eventually take to The Philippines. I also looked up different places to go in Taiwan and started searching for a scooter so I could get an idea of how much that will cost me.

I've decided I want to go to Kaohsiung (Gow-shung) in July for the World Games. I just think it would be a lot of fun. Only problem is there have been a lot of earthquakes in the southern region of the island and that's where typhoons tend to make landfall. That's not to say that will happen then, but it's something to be mindful of.

I went to the market and got myself some cong dra bing and bought some stuff for games in my classes and a watergun (just cause). While I was waiting for my food, the guy that runs the stand next to it kept trying to talk to me.

Problem: he was speaking Chinese.

The lady at the stand I was at translated a little for me. He was asking where my friend (Megan) was. I went there with her right after I got here and I guess this was misleading. She can speak lots of Chinese and she did all the talking that time so they probably thought I could speak Chinese too... Whoops.

Anyway, he told me I was very pretty — something I keep getting from people here, I think they just don't know what else to say in English. Then as I was leaving he said, "See you tomorrow!"

I think that's adorable.

People here have incredible memories though. The guy at the breakfast place at the corner already remembers me. The other day I went by myself and ordered my dan bing with no sauce. Today he was like, "No sauce, yes?"

I had a workshop about teaching Yellow Book classes today. This is like the third level of classes and usually for kids in late-elementary school to junior high. It was fun and Josh gave me and Ray a million games to play with Yellow Book kids. Sometimes they can be the most difficult, apparently, because they're all almost teenagers or they are teenagers and so they're trying to preserve their cool.

We all know preserving your cool equals lack of participation. I'm too cool to answer my teacher's questions and play games in my English class. This is apparently also a problem with Wow (junior high to high school) classes.

I subbed my first class today. A teacher here had to go to Hong Kong for a visa run because she only came in with a 30-day visitor's visa and she didn't get her resident permit paperwork quickly enough. The class was a Wow class.

It wasn't the worst experience of my life. I could definitely use some work, but I managed to keep the kids relatively engaged.

To be honest, I was happy it was Wow because that meant they already knew English pretty well and so I wasn't going to have a complete communication meltdown. I had a lesson plan all worked out before class but when I got there the co-teacher (Taiwanese teacher) told me that the regular teacher was getting ahead of herself and I needed to focus on review because the kids had a test coming up in the next class.

CRAP!

I had to completely rework everything and find a way to make the reviews I had planned already take even longer. Essentially, I turned all the games I had into review games. It was crazy!

I got really frustrated at one point because we were reviewing active and passive voice. Apparently, on their test they're going to have to take a sentence that is written in active voice and change it to passive voice. I personally think this is bad form. I know I use passive voice sometimes, but I think it's terrible to teach kids to do that. Going from passive to active would be better.

Later we were playing one game though and I was doing it completely off-the-cuff and I was so happy it didn't completely blow up in my face.

Basically, I think of a word and I give the kids five clues, one by one. If they guess the word with only one clue then their team gets 50 points, with two clues they get 40 points, until if gets down to 5 clues and only 10 points.

It sucked because I had NEVER seen their vocabulary list before so I was having to think up things right on the spot. I have found since I've been here that I may know English pretty well, but remembering what past participle is or defining certain words in the simplest possible terms sometimes seems like an impossible feat.

I had no idea how to describe famine in five words without completely giving it away or not using words the kids don't know.

I used disease as one of the words and I'm so proud of myself.

50 Points: cure
40 Points: sickness
30 Points: doctor (Before I wrote this I asked the co-teacher is the kids would know bacteria... No.)
20 Points: H1N1

The kids finally got it when I put up H1N1. It took a little coaxing still.

Kids: "Flu!"
Me: "OK, yes, H1N1 is a flu, but the flu is a kind of what?"
Kids: "Ummmmmmmmmm."
Me: "Dih, dih, dih..."
Tiny kid in the front row: "Disease????"
Me: "Yes!!!!"
All the other kids: "Oh my godddd!!!" *lots of garbled Chinese*

If anyone has suggestions for different fun games to play with kids let me know. They don't just have to be word games, they can just be killing-time-having-some-fun-taking-a-break games. I like those.

Tomorrow, I have two more subs at Nan-Kan school, which isn't TOO far away and another girl in the dorm is going to take me there so I don't have to worry about finding the bus there. One is another Wow class like I had today and one is a Yellow Book class.

Wish me luck!