Lost in Translation?

Today, I was locked inside of a convenience store for half an hour.

Laura and I went out to get breakfast and wait for Bob by the subway station before we went to Danshui and a fisherman's pier (kind of like a boardwalk...but much tastier than those sorry American excuses for street food!). We got lunch at a 7-11 for $50 and $80 Yuan (~$1.80 and $2.10 USD, respectively...booyah!) We gave into our innate American-ness (ironic, I know I just made fun of America...whatever, it's my right) and sought shelter from the hot hot heat in a Starbucks where we knew there would be air-conditioning.

I have to preface my anger at Starbucks by saying that up til then, we'd been consistently buying delicious tea from street vendors all week for about 85 cents. Starbucks charged me $100 for a tazo tea (which I didn't even really want in the first place). Anyway, so I'm kind of annoyed that I spent more money on a stupid tea than I did on my entire lunch, but we go sit upstairs and wait for Bob's arrival...this is 1:20 pm. Two minutes later, a barista comes upstairs and makes an announcement. I couldn't understand it all (let's be honest, I'm on the same literacy level as my 6-year old niece), so I interpret her speech as she's saying something about a group coming into the Starbucks for 30 minutes, and that we won't be able to leave the upstairs in the meantime. I also hear something about the possibility of lights flashing on and off, but was also told to not be alarmed, that at 2:00 we could exit the building. No one else seemed to be particularly surprised or annoyed, but we decided to leave just in case. So much for air conditioning, what a rip-off. Sorry this isn't making sense, just follow me.

So anyway, we leave by 1:30 so that we wouldn't be trapped inside the Starbucks in case Bob arrived during that time. We're walking up the next block when a policeman starts blowing his whistle at Laura and forces us into the nearest shop (which happens to be a convenience store). They're closing the corrugated metal doors and everything, so I'm kind of panicking, thinking of worst case scenarios (i.e. we're being bombed, there's a shooting somewhere, I don't know what happens in Taiwan?!?!). I kept asking people what exactly was happening, since no one seemed particularly upset, and my rudimentary Chinese got me as far as something that sounded similar to (but was not, in fact) a "performance" of some sort coming through town that you had to be indoors for.

So I thought to myself, this is strange, why would you have to be indoors for a street performance? Maybe there's a famous personality coming through town? Then I thought, does this sh*t happen every day?

I took some pictures of the before and after of the streets during the 'performance' that I'll put up later. Bob called me pretty confused and was unable to exit to the street from the subway either (literally there was no one on the streets). They let us out at 2 pm, as promised, and we met up with Bob, went about our way, still seriously confused. Poor Bob said that he had had the most boring 15 minutes of his life...at least I had hilarious cleansing products and condoms to look at.

We consulted with Laura's cousins tonight after getting back from Danshui, and I have to give myself SOME credit, I was pretty close. We just happened to be in Taipei during the one time of each year that they close down all the street to have military street rehearsals.

What?

Anyway, I guess 'performance' is pseudo-close to 'military rehearsal'. Illiteracy sucks.

just breathe

so friday night we had graduation feista for the people who were leaving, wine, cheese, chips plus... musical chairs! hahaha so funny...also the losers have to do various embarassing things when they get out. then we all went to a michael jackson tribute party at a bar where they planned all his music videos...man were they crazy! i had only seen thriller and let me tell ya that was one interesting dude.












yesterday i got up at 4am to join some other ppl at 5am to climb a volcano! so we hiked up santa maria in order to view another volcano called santa aquito not sure about the spelling. well apparently it is like the most active volcano in guatemala and erupts all day long so we got to witness an eruption!

and then a huge cloud that rose above us and we were joking about how it looked like it was just going to crash down on us...then like 10 minutes later it starts raining ash. it was crazy! but omg it was the hardest hike ever...i kept having to stop the 5 of us and be like hold....on....i ....cant...breathe- the altitude is insane i think we were at 2,800 meters or something like that. im workin those red blood cells

i have an awesome teacher this week for spanish school...shes hilarious
just to let you know there are certain phrases that are fine to say in spain but in latin america they are slang for sexual things...
likeeee
coger which usually means to take or to choose means to have sex with
estoy calienta...which usually means i am hot because of the weather means i am hot sexually

Je ne parle pas francais

Bonjour! I'm alive! After a few ridiculous flight mishaps and Delta losing our luggage for three days, I'm finally getting settled into life in Montpellier. My first meal was a baguette, croissant, Nutella, and cheese.
I'm learning to recognize more French words, but I still don't know how to say anything really. My mom and sister are still here on their vacation, and they're leaving Wednesday, but the other exchange students are supposed to be here by then, so hopefully I'll have friends.

Today was my first day of "work." My professor is really nice; he tries to explain everything to me in English, but sometimes things come out hilariously. His research is really interesting though (cognitive evoked potentials in Alzheimer's), and he knows of Dean DeKosky, so he thinks I'm from a legit school. If only he knew about my medical school life...

I've gotten to explore the city a pretty good amount so far. I have a tramway card, which is crucial to get around the city since it's 90 degrees and sunny here all the time. And yes, the Ligne 2 tram is called "flower power."
Montpellier is a really old city, and it actually has the oldest, still-functional medical school in the Western world. They've really tried to hold on to the French culture as much as possible, hence, no one here really speaks English that well. So far, I've seen two accordion players, a lady dressed in black and white stripes head to toe, lots of men wearing crazy hats, and almost everyone walks around carrying a baguette. I'm determined to get pictures of all these things.

Here's a portion of downtown: the Charles de Gaulle Esplanade. You can see the blue "swallow-covered" Ligne 1 tram in the left corner. There's a carousel. Monoprix is the supermarket in the bottom right corner. Everything is so expensive here! I hate the Euro!

Here's a typical Montpellier street. Little boutiques, markets, and sandwicheries are all along them. There are also a couple of McDonald's. And Neil, there are so many doner kebab places! I haven't had one yet, but I will.

Here, I'm sitting on top of the Corum, another opera house downtown. It's a pretty sweet view of the city.

I saw the Mediterranean Sea a couple of days ago! My mom, sister, and I decided to take an adventure and ride the tram and a bus to the beach. It's pretty hilarious trying to do this when none of us speak French, know the bus route, or know where in the hell we're going. But, we just followed everyone else in bathing suits and ended up there!

Alright, gotta save some pictures for future posts. Hope everyone is doing well! Miss you guys!

veryyy niceeee!

for nosheens benefit:
i forgot to mention we went to salsa yesterday and i danced with a guatemalteco and he would randomly say VERY NICE! in borat fashion....and i was like do you know where thats from (he didnt speak english really) and he was like no, ppl just say it its a common phrase..i was cracking up.

alright adios

una semana ha pasado

holllllllaaaaaa
or halo

yikes i can´t believe its been almost a whole week...
so we went to the hot springs yesterday i´ll try and figure out how to share my picasa album to you guys. first we took a public bus to get there which are basically old school buses from the US that have been painted and altered in certain ways to fit their use. My favorite part is like a tassel hanging in the middle near the front for the driver to pull in order to honk....which they do here A LOT... like really a lot... honking equals annoyance, hello, we are here, im coming through, im going fast... and basically for any reason you can think of
so anyway we ride the bus to this town which is mostly indigenous people and then julio who is our instructor taking us on this trip asks around for a ride to the hot springs. he finds this guy with a pick up that is used to carry produce or flowers to drive us up there. for a 15 minute ride jon, this girl kathleen, and i ride in the back, bruising our tailbones every time we hit a pothole or speed bump. it was a really pretty view the whole time tho. we got there and there was a big pool that was filled with naturally hot water that was reallllly hot... it was nice
and had a gorgeous view of a giant mountain, which my teacher told me was a volcano and banana trees everywhere. that was a blast, the only problem was when i got out of the pool into the cold i felt like i was going to pass out and vomit... and i kept being like come on body you cant do this in guatemala... i feel better today tho

a few days ago we made CHOCOLATE! from absolute scratch. they had the cacao beans and we roasted them on the stove and then peeled EACH ONE separately. we then took them to a mill in this person´s house and ground it, adding it to sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and eggs. after it was ground several times we spread it out on the table and proceeded to palmarlo or pound it with our hands...which took....a very...very...very long time... like hours we were all sweating from pounding it and then you have to make it into little tortilla shaped things and then you are finally done. you can then add it to hot water to make hot chocolate. the teacher said we would all die of hunger if we had to rely on chocolate made by ourselves...hahaha sooooo true. that shit is hard work...i appreciate chocolate a lot more now (and secretly so does jon) trying to figure out how to upload pics
i will update you all mas tarde.

hope you guys are all having a wonderful summer! miss you all!
ps. jon loves chocolate

Love, Sex, Magic

So upon our arrival, my uncle gave me a cell phone to use (in case I get abducted, or an air conditioning unit falls on my head, per my dad's impressions of Taiwan's top 2 hazards).  The phone is set to be in Chinese, naturally, but the problem was that he didn't know how to change the settings to be in English.  Seeing that I can't read more than 10 words of Chinese, we gave up until we found someone bilingual, and had just been using the phone in the Chinese setting, blindly pushing buttons and hoping that we called the right person (not exactly what happened... a lot of accidental calls were made).

Anyway, at lunch yesterday with my Aunt-in-law and her sister who Laura and I just met, we received a text message reading "Sunny! (Chinese character, chinese character chinese character etc., etc., etc.)"  I showed it to my aunts in case it was important and I needed to know what it said.  They both looked at it and frowned disapprovingly... "Have you been doing anything bad on that phone?" (No, I had just got it the day before, I hadn't had time to do anything bad!) "Then your UNCLE has been doing bad things on that phone!!"  This would be feasible, as his surname is Sun, and who knows what nicknames his friends give him?...

Anyway, they wouldn't say what the message said, but we assumed that it was some sort of lewd advertisement.  We met up with Bob later on in the day, at which point the mystery was solved.....  He had sent me a text but just messed with keys in Chinese to send to me.  Apparently he has quite the talent for naughty words, because as my aunts so eloquently put it, "There is a SEX!  And a LOVE!" (In the text...)

So anyway, for Bob "Moral Mountain "Hsia ....... Button mashing WIN!!!

oh yeah.  it's consistently 95% humidity all over this entire island.  Never have I ever sweated so profusely and consistently as I have this week.  Ick.

In Taiwan!

So here's my first post from Taiwan. Flew with Sunny and her friend Laura over here, total of 17 hours of flying time. I was awake a total of about 28 hours with about 3 hours of sleep on the flights, and I still had a horrible time sleeping last night because of the jet lag. I slept for maybe 6 hours and got up at 7am because i couldn't sleep anymore. There's no AC in my room and I swear it's the hardest bed i've ever slept on. It's like an inch of foam on top of wood, and they put down a bamboo mat over top of the 1-inch "mattress", why the hell would I want to sleep on top of a bunch of bamboo? I quickly removed that thing and just slept on the foam. Anyway i'm gonna start exploring around here today and find out what's fun and where to get a beer, I'll let you all know what craziness I get into... btw apparently this website knew that I was in Taiwan because all the website buttons were in chinese and I had to click on random things to figure out how to start a new post.

Love,

Bob "Moral Mountain" Hsia

(That's what Sunny's mom told me my name translated to haha)