Seven-hour layover...

My Italian vacation is at an end and it's time for me to get back to the grind of life as an international student. It's a LONG trip from my hotel in Milan to my dorm room in Kaohsiung - probably about 36 hours. I've already finished one taxi ride, one subway trip (carrying my luggage and transfering once), one bus ride, and one plane ride. I'm almost done with my seven hour layover in Amsterdam, but I still have a 10 and a half hour flight (Amsterdam to Bangkok), a one-hour layover, a 3 and a half hour flight (Bangkok to Taipei), a five-hour bus ride (Taipei to Kaohsiung), and a twenty minute cab ride to go. Wee!!!

My mom really made my day about a week and a half ago when she told me that I can only make these long trips while I'm "still young" - but after a little more than a week of touring northern Italy, I don't feel all that young anymore.

Italy was amazing and Maiko and I took a ton of pictures! I will try to post some of the good ones on flickr this week, but (as I mentioned before) I probably won't write about my travels until sometime between Christmas and New Years. I only have one month left in Taiwan and it's STUDY TIME!!! I have an interview to do in Taipei on Monday with a former DPP (Democratic People's Party - the current ruling party in Taiwan) official who works at a foreign policy think tank and is an expert in Japan-Taiwan relations, so I will probably use that as an excuse to spend a few days in Taipei this weekend. Other than that, I don't plan on making too many more trips around the "renegade province" because I have too much work to do. We have a nice monkey-infested mountain on campus that I have yet to climb, so the mountain and the beach will be my avenues of escape when I need a study break.

Nothing else really to report right now. I have some Chinese homework to do on the plane, but I think we're going to have some mildly entertaining movies to watch, so I might not get much done until I get on the intercity bus in Taiwan.

Sorry for rambling so much, but I'm a little sleep-deprived and tired from hanging out in the airport for so long. I will try to post something insightful this week, but no promises!