Well everyone sorry for not posting that much. It has been an incredibly long week. I have been struggling to adjust over here. I go back and forth between liking everything and absolutely hating it and wanting to go home. I have had plenty of time to think about things and figure out a lot about myself and what I want in life. I have also been re-evaluating big decisions I've made recently and have been struggling with those big time as well. So you could say it's been a very hard 2 weeks for me. Definitely miss having the comforts of home. I can't even watch an ounce of American TV over here! Good thing they have mcdonalds or starbucks if I want something from home. Anyways...

Monday the crew went to Keelung which is a major port in Taiwan. It was only about an hours ride worth of traveling to get out there so it was a nice day trip. We walked around the harbor, and we also went to a fort that was used during the Opium war. We also saw a couple Taiwanese temples, very cool to see. We went to the Keelung night market at night which is known for its seafood. I definitely tried a giant piece of octopus tentacle, it was surprisingly not bad, just really chewy lol. All in all, it was a fun day trip.

I can't even think what I did Tuesday so it must have been nothing huge lol. Wednesday we had orientation. Finally starting classes, it's been like 4 months since I've been in class! Time to get my butt going. We got our books and our class schedule. Than today I had my first class. I'm not sure if I told you what I'm taking before for classes, but I decided to take the intensive mandarin training. I'm here to learn Chinese so might as well learn as much as possible. 3 hours a day of class and 4 hours of outside work after that per day. Not sure how I feel about it yet but today was good to get back into the swing of things. I understood everything my teacher was saying. She is an excellent teacher, I can tell already. They have way smaller class sizes at the Mandarin Training Center, I only have 7 people total in my class. So far my classmates seem pretty cool, There are 2 girls from the states, one guy from the states, another guy from Germany, a guy from England I think, and lastly a girl from Thailand. Pretty cool class. My teacher is young and very excited about teaching so that is nice as well.

I'm excited to get into a routine, I've been dying to get into one. Class will be tough but it will be awesome to see how much I can learn. I already have a test tomorrow! Better get studying.

Kyle