August 25th, 2013
I am back in shanghai....and man is it hot!!!!! it hasn't really gone below 90 deg F/32 deg C....and we have had tons of humidity....and no typhoons in this part of china....china itself has been hit with 12 this summer....but none here....which means this heat wave could last a long time....the chinese in shanghai say we have to have three typhoons before the heat and humidity break....i hope that is not true this year.....
so i am back for my third and final year....i am teaching 7th & 8th grade this year with a teaching partner, who is a very nice guy....and i have a whole new department to share science with....which seems to be going well....my schedule is not an easy one and i am not very excited by that aspect of the year...but everything else seems to be going swimmingly....which is a great sign....
my job search has already begun....i have my portfolio on-line with a head hunting company for international teachers and have even created a website that showcases me...feel free to check it out if you wish....danidipietro.weebly.com....i am searching for a teaching job in africa this time around....and have quite a few schools on the list....so if you know people working/living/teaching there, please get in touch and put me in touch with those you know....in the end it's not what you know, it's who you know that gets the ball rolling...i promise to let people know what is up and hopefully i won't have to go to a job fair this time around.....but enough about that....
in this update i am focusing a small bit on my summer trip to the states and more on shanghai and it's quirks...i have been giggling a lot and making a bucket list for must-do's before i am on my way....below are some of my favorite "chinglish" signs and some of my favorite pieces of art here in the city and just things that make me smile....so on with the pictures....
one of my favorite places i went this summer with my folks was to cape may, nj....the sunset you see above is from there and it is the only spot on the east coast of the united states where you can actually see the sun go down over a large body of salt water...sure you can see it set in a lake or a river...but not salt water....and this specifically has to do with the way nj is shaped....we caught a stunning sunset two nights while we were there....they were spectacular....
one of the other places i went this summer was the air and space museum in virginia...yes, that does say virginia, because i did not go to the one on the washington dc mall...we went to the one out by dulles airport....it's housed in an airplane hangar....and in the picture above, you can see me with the REAL space shuttle discovery....doing my best asian girl pose....this museum was amazing...it had a whole space exploration wing and hundreds of real airplanes and helicopters in the hangar itself....plus, i got to go with my friend laurie and her kids and we had an amazing docent....who helped build one of the very first passenger boeing planes....it was awesome....and i highly recommend going there....
this is what it looks like as you walk into the space portion of the hangar...it's awesome and just verifies for me that someday i still really want to go into space...as a tourist or a teacher or a scientist or even a trash collector...i just want to go....
i figured i would include a picture of me and my family....we take one of these every year...and this year we were all in gray and black...my mom and my brother tony even smiled....well, sort of, for this shot....you really can't misplace any of the four of us....but the left side of the picture shows who is okay with smiling in pictures....and the right shows you who is not....ha!
at the moment this is how shanghai feels to me a lot...hot and humid....and look at all of the pollution...it actually has not been so bad of recent....we have had a couple of "blue-sky" days....which last year were rather rare in this part of the world....when we first got back though, that was not the case....this shot is taken from the flair bar on the top of the ritz-carlton (68th floor)...it was where our welcome back to school party was held....a good time was had by all i think....except for the haze and the heat....but it's still a nice view....
i figured i would include this picture too for all the folks who know the watts....we are still all together...heather & brad too, from the bucharest days....this is later in the evening at the flair bar and our friend jenn is included too :) as i said before....a good time was had by all....
one of the things i feel shanghai does right is flowers....the plants and flowers on the roadside and on buildings and for sale are simply incredible....we even have a guy who is at our school campus every friday afternoon selling cut flowers like these....from his bike....they definitely brighten up the room....although i don't like how they wrap each flower individually with plastic....not really necessary in my opinion....but they still are beautiful to look at and have in your house....
i also am a big fan of shanghai art....this is one of my favorites and i think i might have used it before...but i just find it so cute...i love the elephant with wings....this sculpture is located on one of the best restaurant streets in the city.....so i know i will probably be having a tatsy meal when i see it ;)
this is a picture i took last spring but never got the chance to share...the chinese love their family pet dogs....they dress them up...like the ones above...they put them in strollers....they turn them different colors...they give them different outfits....they give them raincoats and rain boots when it is raining out...it is just hilarious to see how they pamper and treat the family pet...when i took this picture, the lady was beside herself with happiness...she asked if i wanted her to be in the picture and when i said no...she totally understood....hahahahaha.....
here is another one of my favorite sculptures in shanghai....the "flower" tree....now to give you an idea of size...there is a person in the foreground of this picture...behind the white sign...its actually really big....this one just makes me smile....no matter what the weather...its also very close to my apartment....so i get to see it quite a lot....
the picture above was taken because i was a bit freaked out one day when i saw some folks working with this tree....if you look really close at the tree, you will see it has been split open....and the dark grey stuff you see in the center is actually cement....why do they do this??? i have no idea....but i started paying attention to the trees where i walk in this city and have come to find they do this filling in the center of the tree with cement quite often....i have walked past this tree this school year...and it is still growing...it still has leaves, they are green....i am just very confused by this...how does the tree get nutrients???? where are the xylem and phloem???? ahhhhhhh...how does this work and why do they do it???? just another one of those "chinese things", i guess....
this picture was taken in one of my favorite sculpture parks int he entire city....called Red Town....can you tell that one of the clowns on the bike is real....hahahaha....all laowai (expats - foreigners) seem to have this picture....and while i was on the bike, at least three other chinese people were talking my picture too...i have been in hundreds of photos here with my "closest" chinese friends....i know, i know...its because i am stunning and the chinese know it....i know ;)
here's another one of my favorites at the sculpture park....me and einstein....i'm not really sure what the one on the right side of the picture is behind albert and i....but i think its awesome that i have a picture of me and him in china....i have no idea if he even ever made it to shanghai....he probably would have loved it like i do :)
okay....above is one of those horrible "chinglish" signs you see everywhere in china....there are even websites dedicated to these types of signs....they make me giggle everytime i find one....i have to say that i really have no idea what this one is trying to say...as i have no idea what "virescence" actually means....and transmitting the civilization....okay....whatever....
on one of my first days back at school, we had an amazing race planned....me and my van of colleagues decided to head to the bund and have a drink at the captain's bar...it is one of my favorite places in the entire city....and in this picture you can see the super-tall building that is being built next to the one that looks like a bottle cap opener...that's what we call it....the earlier picture above with all of the smog, was taken on top of the pointy building to the left of the bottle cap opener....no one really knows how tall that new building will be...as the chinese are keeping it a secret....it's amazing how fast it has gone up though and they work on it 24-7....i heard it is supposed to be done at the beginning of 2014...i hope so...cuz i want to go to the top :)
one more "chinglish" sign that i saw in the grocery store (carrefour) last week....as you and i know, that is a sign for red cabbage....but i guess in chinese red cabbage is referred to as "European fall the earth"....i hope it tastes the same....to give you an idea of prices...500g of this stuff costs 8 rmb, which equals $1.33....
and one more of the cool sculptures from Red Town...the legs walking down the hill....they are painted with "flags" of different countries and are just really cool....i was so happy this picture turned out...as i took it into the sun on my phone....its amazing how good phone pictures can be....
and here i am with the "american" leg going down the hill....this gives you an idea of size of the legs...they even have good musculature.....love them....
sorry no drinking picture this time around....but i don't have a good one i can share...something to work on for the next update....this year is shaping into some excellent travel and the first place i am headed is back to indonesia, specifically borneo and sulawesi....borneo to see orangutans and sulawesi to re-cert for diving at the marine park there....or at least get in some snorkeling....i am also headed to israel and jordan with my good friend cat for the winter break....and may have to go to johannesburg, south africa for a job fair in early december....so really lots of excellent travel, even before 2013 comes to an end....
and that's my life at the moment....i hope everyone is doing well and feel to comment or ask questions or whatever....it was nice to reconnect with folks this summer and to hear that people are still reading the blog...although some of you only check out the pictures....and that is okay....i know there are lots of words to get through....but because it is so enjoyed, i will continue to take you around the world with me if you wish and here's to another year filled with safe and amazing travels and adventures...remember to keep me updated about you and your adventures too.....
and finally, if you are headed to china or want to visit, the countdown for me has started and i will no longer be living in this amazing city after june 2014....so come on down if you can, there doesn't seem to be another town in the world quite like it :)
have a fab day and peace out.....dani
May 26, 2013
Hey there folks....well, it's officially the end of the year here for me in shanghai....i have three weeks left of school and then i am done...its been a crazy end of the year and really, it's time for me to have it be over....the kids are fine, i am fine, i just want it to be finished....6 classes of only 8th grade has almost been the death of me....the kids who have me during the 5th and 6th class of something now know it, as i am not so excited when i get to them...which i know is not fair, but its the way the cookie crumbles.....at least we are studying human body now which means we have a bunch of dissections to break things up....just last week we dissected pig hearts....next up....rats....should be interesting.....but really...i would like this year to end.....
for this update coming from china it will be about two places i have been in the past two months...indonesia and suzhou - a water town, in china...most of my time in indonesia was spent on the island of lombok, and really i did much of nothing....i needed a relaxing, no running around kind of vacation, and i got it....i also was in jakarta visiting friends, as you will see from the pictures....and then last weekend i was in suzhou with three friends for girls weekend out of shanghai....we had a blast....so on with the pictures....
this first shot is the beach just in front of the place i stayed....it was great because you could catch a ride to the gili islands with one of the boats like the one you see in the top part of the shot, and you could watch the kids play...and their relatives were surfers....so whenever it was high tide, they would be out there catching waves.....plus, they ran two local cafes on either side of where i stayed that had tasty food and cold, cold beer....it rocked....
as the sun went down, the beach vendors would start their walks home....just like in many countries i have been to, the ladies carried their wares on their heads....i am always amazed by this ability...as i cannot carry anything for a long period of time on my head...i know some places they use a ring of fabric or rubber to help things stay up....but i did not see them here in lombok.....
one of the cafes i had traditional indonesian food in had these license plates on the wall as decoration...i came to find out that the owner was an american from california....i was so excited to see the pennsylvania plate :)
early morning view of the black sand beach....i know it looks grey, but really it was black...and there was a reef just off the beach about 30 feet (10 meters) away that i snorkeled over.....it was such a relaxing vacation after a year of busy vacations and busy school time....i loved it.....
in indonesia, there are quite a lot of chinese....many immigrated there to get away from the craziness of the cultural revolution....so of course there are quite a few chinese graveyards....these tombstones were huge and very, very colorful....height-wise they were about as tall as me....and wider than me stretching out my arms....they were covered with dragon and whatever chinese horscope animal was for the person who died and lots of chinese writing.....they were really cool.....i have never seen them like this in china....but really, i have not looked for them.....
the first afternoon i was in lombok there was a HUGE commotion on the street....i came to find it was a wedding....a buddhist wedding...in the picture above, the groom is the dude in the peach colored shirt and sunglasses, under the umbrella....his bride was about 20 feet (7 meters) in front of him....also under an umbrella....and everyone was celebrating....
at the end of the parade was the band...all dressed in red, and keeping the beat....i asked if all weddings were like this, and was given the answer of only the buddhist weddings....lombok is mostly muslim with its religion....but the place i stayed at was buddhist....an interesting mix in my opinion....but you definitely heard "call to prayer" five times a day....the wedding was just an added bonus....
i figured i needed to end this post from lombok with a beauty of a sunset....taken from my lounge chair overlooking the "adults only" pool and the beach....nope, it doesn't get any better than this....
from lombok i went to jakarta to see friends of mine who teach there....this is julie....who can FINALLY walk....woot!!!! i saw her in china over her october break, so it was fun to check in and say hi on my break....
and i got to hang with dana....we realized it had been almost 5 years since we had last seen each other in romania....man, how time flies.....it was a fun visit with them both and now they have become friends and diving buddies as well....love it when that happens....
i have to say i was not a huge fan of jakarta, as the traffic was literally insane....but indonesia is a terrific place...bali, lombok - i recommend them both....you also have to love a place where you can use a 100,000 note and it is equivalent to approximately 10 USD....crazy that....
the second set of pictures were taken in china....i went to suzhou for a weekend with three friends of mine here as a girls weekend away....plus, one of the three is headed to a new country next year, so we wanted some quality time together....so we left the city in style....we took the bullet train (40 minutes) and reserved first class....little did we know we would be the only four people in our car and have these lazy-boy styled seats....they reclined and had reading lamps...it was nicer than most flights i have been on this year....it was incredible and very executive-like.....
suzhou of course has some shopping available, just like everywhere in china and i just couldn't pass up the chance to shoot the fine "chinglish" translations on these shirts...."playkiss - blayboy" and "Junp! get your wish" - what????
suzhou is a water and garden town located just outside of shanghai....so many people go there as tourists and walk the canals and take in the different gardens...we kept it simple and mellow...we walked the historic canal at night and then did one of the top 8 gardens in the morning....but one that was not crowded...which is a very hard thing to find in touristy places in china....there are always crowds....this was a place along the canal we stopped for a drink....
suzhou is also known for dumplings, just like shanghai....but i have to say the ones they were selling on the streets were much more creative than the ones in shanghai....in the picture above you can see the shark dumplings, the canoe styled dumplings and my favorites - the little pig dumplings....i usually cannot eat many of these because they are filled with meat, but i definitely could appreciate the artistry of these particular dumplings....they also had little apples and oranges dumplings...and just so you know....the cost - 3 kuai - or 50 cents....love it!!!!
i got a nice shot of the canal and one of the stone houses along it at night....the reflection turned out well and shows what type of houses you find along the canals....they are well lit and very quaint....
gardens, as i am sure many of you know, are quite important to the chinese and their living spaces...it has to do with feng shui....so this was the garden we visited...it was amazing in that it had all of the important elements featured - water, wind, plants, stone - and was small and beautiful....this was the main water pond with coy fish as you came into the front of the garden and house....
they usually have very cool stones in these styled gardens...they look kind of like lava rocks with their crazy shapes and random holes....i liked this shot.....
the gardens are free to visit for the locals of suzhou....so we wandered into the midst of this intense card game being played....there were also some families there having a picnic....it was peaceful and green and breezy and the air was sooooooo clean and easy to breathe....so very different from shanghai....a perfect spot for activities such as these....
in this shot you see the three friends i was traveling with - tina, julia and sandy....they make me laugh when i hang with them and do not teach at the same place as me, so rarely do we talk about work...i have had a great year having dinner with them....thanks ladies for the awesome time :)
i realize this is not my traditional last shot with a drink, but i really liked the way this turned out...this is a doorway in the garden we visited....it kind of reminded me of a cartoon character's head....but i just liked that i could get off the ground and be in the middle....suzhou was a great short trip from shanghai and i had a wonderful time away laughing and talking with the three women i went with....what a weekend away :)
so i am going to try and get one more update out about shanghai before i take a break for the summer...it should be out sometime in the next three weeks, fingers crossed....i have a bunch of funny pictures i would like to share from the past few months...like a pair of dogs in a baby carriage wearing baby outfits - the chinese and their dogs.....so keep your eyes open for the next one....
i hope that everyone is well and happy and enjoying their starts to summer or winter, dependent of course on your hemisphere.....things here in china are cooler than normal, for which i am appreciative....and things are moving like a speeding bullet train towards the end of the year....this summer for me will be an east coast one....i will mostly be in the philly area, and hopefully will be visiting NJ, NYC, DC, pittsburgh and possibly boston....so if you live in one of these places i will be in touch....feel free to contact me if you wanna hang and know my schedule....all the best.....
April 6, 2013
well...i just got in from indonesia, where i was for my spring break trip, and i realize i haven't yet sent out my update about sri lanka from february....what a place...so i figured while i was waiting for some food to be delivered, i would get this update out....i have to say that sri lanka may be one of my all time favorite places i have been...i went to see animals and was completely and utterly successful and the people and place charmed me.....
for some odd reason i kept thinking sri lanka would be similar to india....but they are worlds apart...it is inexpensive, easy to get around, has all sorts of accommodation and the people are great....i had okay weather, but while there i went to kandy - an old colonial styled town, with a cool buddhist temple that contains a relic of buddha, i drove through the tea plantations and stopped along the way, went to a national park where i went on safari and finally hit the beach and went on a whale watch....to see what i saw...keep reading....
my first encounter with elephants came at the pinnawela elephant orphanage....and as you can see i got to feed an elephant some pineapple and some bananas....i had never felt an elephant's tongue before and it was wild...as you can see, she let me touch her tongue...it felt like an inner tube of a tire, slick, but not slimy....and it was strong....she was way cute and i think very happy that i gave her some fruit....
one of the great things they do at the orphanage is rescue babies that have been left by their moms....the two elephants above were the newest members of the group at 6 and 9 months...both of these babies fell into wells and had been left for dead by their moms, because they were unable to climb out...luckily some villagers called the orphanage and they rescued both of them....from two different wells....i love the hair on them...very punk-esce....these boys were simply adorable and hung out in their own enclosure so folks could get an up close view....plus, they need some time to be introduced into the herd....
the elephants follow a pretty cool schedule....so you go see them eating in the fields and then some of them get milk, others get fruit and then they walk over to the river for two hours of chillin in the water....it seems to be a good life and they seem really well taken care of....of course there are all sorts of things to buy once you are at the orphanage....and one of things you could purchase was paper made from elephant dung....i didn't buy any, but i did go smell it to see whether it not it had a smell...no worries...no smell :)
one of the elephants brought to the river was this guy up above....he is a working elephant and you can tell this because he has a chain around his neck and front legs....you can't see it in this picture, but that is how you know they are working elephants....anyway...this guy was brought directly to the river, promptly laid down and was splashed by his mahut (elephant handler)....people came over and splashed him too, but i just liked watching him...because even when no one was splashing him, he kept splashing himself...he obviously loved being in the river and was so cute to watch....
in the picture above you can see a lot of the herd that lives at the orphanage....as you can see, they have many elephants of differing ages....it was fun to watch them walk down to the river as a herd and to watch them eating breakfast....but of course my favorite part was feeding the elephant....
from the elephant orphanage i headed to kandy...its a UNESCO site for Temple of the Tooth Relic....it is a buddhist relic and people gather every day to catch a glimpse of this relic when the container it is kept in gets opened once a day....many buddhists line the walls of the temple and all of them bring offerings of lotus and jasmine flowers....above you can see some of the offerings....
while in kandy i also went to a cultural show that was held at the red cross center....the dancers were amazing and the drummers were fantastic....they played and danced and sang for about an hour and the end of the show was a fire walker...literally...it was one guy who was a fire dancer & eater earlier in the show...and then he turned on this fire pit and walked across it quite a few times...it was amazing!!! unfortunately none of those pictures turned out well...but i did like the plate spinner and the dancers that you can see behind him...it was definitely worth the price....they were quite good :)
from kandy we drove down the middle of the country through the tea plantation areas...i had no idea just how much tea sri lanka exported...but i learned it is their biggest export....the biggest consumer these days is no longer england though....now their biggest consumer is china....crazy that :) the views as we drove through this part of the country were incredible....and i watched some of the women, and only women, pick the tea....they may only pick the top three leaves of the branches of the tea plant....and they carry the picked leaves on their heads....as they are not super heavy....these women are then paid by the weight of the bag at the end of the day....also, these women are all tamil....this is a group of people who have been in sri lanka for quite some time, who came from india...they have actually fought a war with the sinhalese to be able to have their own country within sri lanka....it ended a few years ago, and they were not successful with their war....but many of the women and families that work on tea plantations are tamil....
i visited one of the tea plantations and was given a tour of their tea processing house and then of course had some of their tea...we stopped at the plantation called mackwoods....they have been around since 1841....one of the things that blew me away about this place was that they still did their books by hand...as you can see in the picture above...no computer or calculator to be seen....and the tea is still packaged in paper sacks because they feel plastic messes with the flavor of their tea....it was a cool set up....
this is me with a very small part of the mackwoods plantation behind me....way up on the hill on the left are some ladies picking, but they are too far away to be seen in this picture...as you can see from the scenery behind me...it was a lovely place to visit, even though it rained the whole drive down....i guess that just brings out the greenery more....
the reason we were driving through the center of the country was to get to yala national park....which is the second biggest park in sri lanka....it is known for its myriad of bird species and has 44 different secies of mammals living inside of its borders.....some of the animals i saw were jackals, mongoose, rabbits, wild boar, tons of birds, including peacocks and 3 different types of stork, and my ultimate....leopards....i took a jeep in for my safari, and it picked me up quite early in the morning....before the sun was up....my guide was incredible...he worked at the park for 25 years and knew where everything could be found....in the shot above we went to the many hidden watering holes and saw crocs and tons of birds and leopard tracks....
but as we drove through the park we came across 6 wild elephants....most were single males out foraging....but we did see one female and her baby....the shot above is one of the males i saw....
while i was on my afternoon safari, it poured down rain....as you can see from this shot....you can also see what many of the safari jeeps looked like....BUT not mine....mine was a piece of crap....i didn't realize just how bad it was until i started seeing the other tourists faces....every time my jeep came near, people would point and stare....BUT, as i said before, my guide was amazing....so i didn't mind getting soaked and no shock absorbers on this baby....and everything was totally worth it because we really did see a leopard....it was about 100 feet away from our jeep....i have no good pictures though because it was wandering around and then sat in the brush, and you can't tell that its a leopard from my picture.....i was sooooooo excited to see it though....simply stunning.....
the other animal i kept seeing and it kept making me smile, was the bird pictured above....it is called a bee catcher and this is a male....of course its a male because it is beautifully colored....i loved these birds....
this picture above me is a memorial in the park for the folks who died here in the horrible tsunami of 2004.....sri lanka was a place many people did not even know was harmed with the tsunami that hit that year at christmastime....sri lanka lost 35,000 people to the tsunami....and in this particular spot there was a hotel right on the beach, in the national park....the hotel was filled with japanese tourists who knew what was happening as soon as they saw the tide go out so far....the singhalese had never seen this before and people rushed into where the ocean had been to pick up fish....unfortunately no one believed the japanese and what was happening....and only three people survived the tsunami from this hotel...there are memorials all up and down the coast of sri lanka, both the east and west coasts, because the wave hit almost directly from the south and ran up the island....there is one whole town that disappeared and they will not rebuild it, because they are leaving what is standing as a memorial to the many who died there....
this final shot is me in my crappy jeep....as you can see from the back, it was rather rusted out and had no real cover on the sides....so really, i got soaked....but my guide....he made it all worth while...
one of the things sri lanka is known for is the stilt or pole fishermen....at this point there are only about 500 families an sri lanka who still do this for their way of life....but they sit on a cross bar that is tied to a vertical pole and fish in the shallows of the sea....now when you drive up the coast, they are easy to see....because they are mostly fake and just posing for a camera shot and payment....are the two in this picture real???? NOPE!
the picture you see above is one of my favorites....sri lanka has three main religions - muslim, catholic and buddhist.....they all seem to live together well and you can find temples and mosques and churches everywhere you go....you also will see what i called the "vegas buddhas"....this picture was taken when it was completely dark out....and when driving through the country at night or very early in the morning, you will see these buddhas everywhere....they are lit up and blinking and very, very bright....i loved them....
the last big adventure i took while in sri lanka was a whale watching trip....i had to drive about 2 hours south of the place i was staying at to do this....but the promise was that i would see blue whales migrating.....so i had no problem with the distance....this shot above is of the wharf in marissa...i loved the colors of the boats, but not the garbage.....but i had a hard time finding one without the other....so i figured i would show you what it really looks like...these are fishing boats and they have all just come back in from the early hours of fishing....we watched one boat bring in a huge shark....but most of them had your typical ocean fish for sale....
the other boat types we saw in the harbor, were ones like this one....talk about tiny....these guys couldn't really sit down anywhere, while they were rowing and fishing.....amazing how they stay afloat....
the boat i was on was much bigger and we actually went all the way out into the shipping lanes....we could see the huge freighters and even read the writing on all of the containers on them.....when we were on the water, the way you saw the whales was to wait for their spout to go....then you would race to that spot, they would hear the engine and generally tip fluke and dive....however, the last four whales i saw of the 16 for the day, we actually got really close to them....the shot above is the best i could do...i was too busy trying to watch them with my eyes....in this picture you really can only see half of the length of the whale itself...it was HUGE!!!! so i was really excited about this adventure...but i have learned that i need a better camera or someone along for the ride who will take pictures while i stand there with my mouth gaping open....
the picture above is from the place that i stayed at, right on the beach....it was a beautiful spot, the weather was warm, the water was clean and it a perfect way to end this amazing trip....
i never remembered to get someone to take my picture with a drink on this trip....but i did get some folks from germany to take my "asian teenage girl" picture on the boat....all of the girls have their pictures taken this way.....peace out....
so....sri lanka....i can't recommend it enough...i have so many more pictures i would love to share, and maybe i will in the next update, because my spring break trip, which i just returned from was really only of a beach and friends....granted, it was a beautiful indonesian beach, on the island of lombok....but i didn't take many pictures...i was too busy relaxing, swimming and snorkeling....it was the perfect trip during this crazy semester....
anyway....i can't stress again how awesome sri lanka truly was and really if you can get there....GO!!!! the people are awesome, the food is tasty, the beaches are beautiful, as are the tea plantations....but most of all, you really have a the chance to go to all these different ecological areas and see amazing animals that live there :) so go i say.....go!!!!!
hope you enjoyed this update....hopefully the indonesia trip will be out sometime soon....i hope those of you starting spring are having a good start and those starting the fall...my same wishes....if you have any questions, per normal, please do no hesitate to ask.....
have a fab day :)
dani
