Ben Tsui: February 2010

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Kilkenny

Today, I went to Kilkenny, Ireland with two amazing Belgium classmates, Chloe and Andrew. Kilkenny is a very nice town with numerous castles and old churches. A very nice way to spend a Saturday. But now I have to study for midterms....yucky.

Sincerely,

Ben

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Norway

Last week, I went to Norway! I was expecting to go sight seeing, hiking, and shopping, however, Norway revealed itself to be covered (an understatement) in snow. So, I couldn't see anything nor hike anywhere and did not go shopping because it is out the butt expensive there. So what did I do? Snowboarding and sledding!!!! WHOOOHOOO!!! Mission accomplished.

From the beginning....

I left Dublin on Wednesday and planned to return the following Monday. UCD has a lot of cool festivals that take priority over classes, so I took advantage of my canceled classes and booked a 50 euro round trip to Norway.
Apparently there are like 5 Oslos and I flew into the one farthest away from where I was staying. The Gustavsens, long time family-friends, kindly offered their home for me to sleep, eat delicious Norwegian food, and watch LA Ink. Mrs. Gustavsen even purchased my train tickets to and from the airport. What a wonderful family.
From the airport, I took a four hour train ride to a city called, Lillehammer, which was 45 minutes away from my final destination. Lillehammer is in the middle of nowhere. BUT! It was the host of the 1994 winter Olympics, which was a sign that I had to go snowboarding. So I did. It was grand. I did not get injured. Boo yeah.

The last day in Norway, I visited the Andviks and they fed me a wonderful dinner. We talked about the last time they came to visit us in the States and looked at videos and pictures of their family. Erlend also showed me some videos of him doing back flips on his snowboard. That guy is going to be some extreme master in parkour or snowboarding or any other extreme sport. The Andviks were a really amazing family and I was really blessed to visit with them.

Memorable things that happened:

1) Pulled off a huge indy at the terrain park
2) Chopped wood with Mr. Gustavsen
3) Ate a lot of awesome food
4) Ate the awesome food with A LOT of people (including the Gustavsens) who were not speaking English. It was like I was excused to zone out from interacting with people and focus on eating as much as possible. Pretty dandy for me.
5) Went sledding with Tina and Linn down a mountain and had their mom haul us back up with her car.
6) Went to Church
7) Went to Linn's school
8) Met Tyler, a guy who is a halfy, like myself, and is staying in Norway to learn the language because his dad didn't want to teach him. Maybe it's a sign.......

That's all, folks.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Glenalough and Prague

The last two weeks have been pretty good, but they would have been great if I had not been sick.

Two weekends ago, I went to the boonies of Ireland in a place called, Glendalough.

Glendalough was a former monastery for Irish monks, until it was burned down by the Vikings. Basically, a burned down church, a tower, and graves. Despite the crumbling buildings, the surroundings were very beautiful.

Last weekend, I went to visit my friend, Aaron Tucker, in Prague. Aaron and I didn't really know each other that well, but I wanted to continue going out of my comfort zone and building new relationships. I made a few mistakes on this trip and ended up creating new rules for future trips:

Rule No. 1: Little sleep is definitely better than none.

My flight to Prague was scheduled to leave at 6:00 am. It usually takes the bus an hour to get there plus some time to check in and get through security. After some weird thought processing, I decided to do homework and watch the movies, "Sin City" and "Zombieland".......instead of sleep. Zombieland is awesome. I thought I could catch a nap on the plane, but I met a cool Czech guy, Adam, at the airport and we talked the whole time on the plane. Sooo tired....

Rule No. 2: Check the weather before traveling somewhere

Prague is freezing! I brought two jackets, but my legs were numb half the time. Not good when you're sleep deprived.

Rule No. 3: Cook the meat.

After Aaron and I went the school he taught at, we went back to his house and cooked some chicken and rice. The chicken was kind of sketchy; it still had some feathers on it. After dinner, I experienced explosive volcanoes coming out of my mouth and anus.

"Not cool, sketchy chicken. You ruined me!"

The next day Aaron showed me around the city, but we had to make it short because I wasn't fully recovered and still ached. From then on, I spent my Prague days on this wonderful couch.

But! I did snap some pictures before I went down. bam! Mission accomplished!

Rule No. 4: Drink hot tea...ALL the time.

Tootles

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Madrid

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to take a trip to Madrid and had an amazing time. I left on 6:00 am on Saturday and came back at 12:30 am on Monday and it cost me less than 160 Euros. Thank you Ryanair for flying me across Europe for dirt-cheap and at inconvenient time!

I had no set plans on what I was going to do when I arrived, which made things a lot easier because I did not have to rush. I’m not a fan of having a tight schedule on a trip because nothing sinks and it’s not gratifying at all to me.

When I arrived at my hostel, La Musas, in Tirso de Molina, I simply walked around for about 4-5 hours taking pictures of the wonderful architecture. I didn’t make it to any museums because I was more concerned about money for food ….maybe next time though. I love how Madrid is a very lively place where people walk around at night, eating tapas and socializing for hours, and enjoying life. I met some amazing people at my hostel and had the chance to explore the city with them as well.

On Sunday I traveled to Manzanares el Real, a small town in the northern area of Madrid. This is what I really enjoyed while I was in Madrid. In Manzanares, I hiked up to a beautiful mountain range called, La Pedriza. In Pedriza, there are tons of boulders that are still being discovered and I was lucky enough to climb on some of them. I had really vague directions with me, so I had to ask around. If it weren’t for the really friendly climbers, Juan and Lleban, I would have never found the area.

This was the first real trip I have taken alone and it was one of the best decisions I have made. It really taught/ forced me to be more social and to really go out of my comfort zone to have a great time. I love meeting people from different parts of the world because I can learn so much from them and how I can make my own life more enjoyable. Though it’s still a working progress, I plan on being a more social person who is not afraid to simply say, “Hi”, to a stranger who may have that intimidating look and hopefully this mindset will stick with me when I get back to Georgia Tech.

*Note to self: “Perder” means “to lose” and “Tarjeta de embarque” means “boarding pass”. So when you accidently lose your boarding pass after you pass through airport security, you can say, “¡¡¡¡¡ Yo perdí mí tarjeta de embarque!!!!!!!”

Just saying…..

Here is a quick video I threw together before class. It's definitely not great, but it has some nice scenery. No climbing footage here and I am a little bummed because of that.