From the Midwest to the Middle East: January 2015

Malaysia

December 19 I left Kuwait for the first time since my arrival to head to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to see one of the greatest people I have ever known, Jessie.

My flight to Malaysia was smooth sailing (or flying). I arrived in Kuala Lumpur late Dec. 20. When I was waiting in customs I could see Jessie on the other side! It was a LONG line and seemed even longer with Jess right there! We went to our guest house type thing and set our stuff down then headed out to get some dinner (I was starving, I haven't eaten on a plane since Malawi). After dinner, we just went back to the guest house to sleep - both Jess and I had overnight flights so didn't sleep for a very long time.

When we woke up the next day it was NOON! The host of the house (I don't really know what to call her) wondered if we were okay, but we were just so exhausted. We ate breakfast, packed up our stuff and then ordered a cab and headed to Sepang (the beach).

The resort we stayed at in Sepang was so nice! We only planned on staying for one night, but it was so nice we asked if there was an opening for the next night, and ended up staying two nights. As soon as we arrived to our room we asked the workers next door if we could jump off our balcony into the ocean. Their eyes got all big and their tone of voice was very shocked as they said "No, no!" We thought maybe it was just against the rules, so we asked what if we did it anyways, like what would happen. They responded, "You would die." We decided to play it safe, so we didn't.

We dropped our stuff in our room and went to Zumba on the beach, but of course the instructor wasn't there, so we ended up kayaking. Turns out I am a pro. After kayaking we went paddle boarding. I have paddle boarded before in South Africa, and I completely suck. So I just sat on the paddle board and basically kayaked on a paddle board. Jess was great though.

The rest of the trip in Sepang pretty much included eating, hanging out while it was raining, and sunbathing for the hour that the sun came out (couldn't swim cause the tide was so low)! Oh and also morning yoga. I still dislike yoga. It was so great being able to just hang out with Jess like we used to!

The balcony we aren't allowed to jump off

The place we relaxed when it rained

This place is so awesome.

We headed back to Kuala on Tuesday and spent the rest of our time there (at the guest house we stayed at the first night). The host lady (Anita) was extremely nice and helpful. She gave us lots of maps and ideas for things to do in the city. Jess and I visited China Town, the Central Market, the Batu Caves, the Bird Park, a place to feed monkeys, a firefly tour, the twin towers, KL tower, and a place called Breakout (it's a challenge where you are locked in a room and have to try and escape - it's impossible, I would love to exaggerate this experience, just ask).

Batu Caves: These were cool, but not as large as we thought they would be. It was sweet that it was free though! It was beautiful.

Pretty Sweet

Bird Park: This was sweet. I liked this, Jess did not like this. The KL Bird Park is the largest free-flight aviary park (something like that). So basically it is a large park with a LOT of birds just flying around. Some are in cages, but a lot are out too. We went here on Christmas so we wore our headbands (which made me nervous, because I thought a bird would mistake my headband for a branch or real antlers and would land on me - they didn't though). I was frightened of the peacocks because someone told me not to make them mad, so we basically went the other direction when there was a peacock on the path or waited for someone else to walk in front of us to make the peacock move. There were a few life-threatening moments, but we survived. We also braved and took a picture with all these parrots on us (you may have seen this picture on facebook). Yes we are holding hands (very tightly) and we were also terrified. There were people watching. They thought it was funny. After we braved it, a bunch of kids took their picture. They handled it a lot better than us.

Feeding Monkeys/Firefly Tour: Anita arranged a trip for me and Jess. We had a driver who drove us to a place where you take this shuttle up a hill. At the top of the hill, there are just a crazy amount of monkeys. You can then feed them and they are friendly and jump on you without your permission. I freaked out. I had three monkeys jump on me almost immediately (I wasn't even holding any food!) After Jess got a picture with the monkey on my back, I was done. I didn't need any more monkeys on me. Jess loved it though. It was crazy seeing all of the monkeys and have them come right up to you!

After the feeding of the monkeys we went to dinner (seafood chinese food - gross). Oh well, then headed to the firefly tour. The firefly tour was NOT what we expected at all. You are in this boat and you drive by these trees and see fireflies in the trees. The website made it seem like the river was narrow and the trees are all lit up like a Christmas tree. Yeah, not so much. But whatever, makes for a funny story.

So many monkeys

Boat ride to the fireflies

Twin Towers/KL Tower: The twin towers are connected to a mall. It was a really pretty area and we got some sweet pictures of the towers, fountain, and Christmas Tree out front. It is CRAZY how many Christmas decorations we saw in Malaysia. We joked how all of our pictures were going to be Christmas decorations, but for real, so many. The KL Tower is a tower where you can go to the top and get a great view of the city. We went to the restaurant (that revolves!) for high tea, because we are proper like that. It was amazing.

So many XMAS decorations

Twin Towers

"High Tea" in the revolving restaurant

The view from the KL Tower

Funniest moment: We had to take a cab back to our guest house (from the twin towers) to get our id's and we asked the cab how much. They are supposed to use a meter, but this cab drivers was "broken" so he said 20 ringitt (or however you spell it) and Jess was like "No, 12" and the cab said "20" and Jess said "12" cab driver said "ok" - we get to a hotel that is close to our guest house (we just cab there then walk cause it is easier to give directions), we give the cab driver 12 and he says "you are missing 8 ringitt" and Jess was like "no we agreed on 12" and the cab driver argues that we agreed on 20. We exchange and argue for awhile and we don't have 20 (we just have a 50 that he can't break) so we just apologized that there was miscommunication and walked away. This cab driver is still yelling at us while we walk away. As we walk away Jess is like "when we turn the corner we are running" so as soon as we turn the corner so he can't see us - we SPRINT. So freaking hilarious. We got so many stares. He never found us, I don't think he looked for us, but we weren't sure.

It sucked saying bye to Jess, but at least I get to see her in JUNE!

Istanbul

The day I left Malaysia, I started getting sick again :( It was awful. The plane ride was terrible. It was an 11 hour flight, I don't know HOW it was so long. It was a direct flight, but no way does it take 11 hours. I swear the pilot did a few laps around India. Also, the guy next to me on the plane (I was in the middle *eye roll*) was a leg spreader. AND an arm rest hog. So I had like no space. I watched FIVE movies on that plane ride. Least to say I am all caught up on movies. Montine! I saw The Giver, If I Stay, AND The Maze Runner! haha. I also saw Mandela (love him) and Waiting for Superman. I didn't know Waiting for Superman was going to make me cry like a baby, so that was awkward.

I arrived in Istanbul at like 5/6 am. Taxied to the hotel and Hope Chang was awaiting my arrival! I still can't believe she was awake. I didn't go to sleep, we just stayed up and then went to breakfast at 7:30. Our first fight with Turkish people occurred at breakfast (yes, first fight, there were more, sorry dad, I didn't give America the best representation). We go downstairs and Hope asks the guy at reception "Is breakfast included?" (her EXACT words) and he goes "Yes, breakfast is downstairs" well, after we already started eating "turkish breakfast" (which is veggies and cheese, so all i ate was jam on bread) someone came down and asked our room number and said breakfast is NOT included. We went upstairs and argued with the guy that told us it was. He said that we asked where breakfast was. Lies! Well, we didn't win our argument (turns out you don't win arguments in Turkey) and we had to pay 6 euros for breakfast. Not happy. That's expensive bread. The first day we walked around a market and took a boat tour. After the boat tour we just went back to the hotel. We were FREEZING (we were not dressed in enough layers, I mean we wore pants and sweatshirts and jackets, but we needed more layers because we are no longer Minnesotan.) We were also exhausted. I was up for like 40 hours, so we went to bed at 6:00pm and I got like 15 hours of sleep.

Our days in Istanbul included just seeing the city. We bought a ticket for the Big Bus, so we didn't have to spend money on a cab. We basically just used it as a cab. We saw the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia (just the outside), went on a boat ride, and the Grand Bazaar.

We also went to the palace that is on the Asia side. So Istanbul is the only city that is on two continents (fun fact!). The majority of the city is in Europe, but you can cross a bridge into the Asia side. Neat.

Blue Mosque

Palace

Freezing

If anyone has been to Turkey, Hope and I are wondering if when you went out to eat if you got "free tea". At two restaurants, they gave us tea (that we didn't order) and they TOLD us it was free! Yeah, no. It wasn't free. They charged us for it. We think it means "please leave" because the tea was nasty and they gave it to us when we were there for awhile.

We were ready to leave after the three days just because we were so cold. It snowed our last day. It was pretty, but no thank you. Too cold. We were ready for the warmth of Dubai! I would like to go back to Turkey someday and see some of the sights outside of Istanbul.

Dubai

Our last fight with Turkish people was in the airport. I won't go into details, but let's just say I yelled. And no I didn't win that fight either.

Our flight to Dubai was an evening flight and we rolled into Dubai around 1:00 am. We went to the hotel immediately and there were 2 night clubs in our hotel. The receptionist guy was dancing to the music. It was hilarious. The hotel kept our passports, which I really did not like (luckily Hope researched that they don't have the right to do that, so we got them back). We went to our room and found out there was a 3rd night club on the first floor. Party hotel! I guess that is how it is in Dubai, though, because it is still a Muslim country, so they only have alcohol and bars in the hotels. Luckily we couldn't hear the party when we were in our room.

Our first day in Dubai was New Year's Eve. We just went to a mall (saw a ski hill in the mall) and walked around town. We tried to find the beach, but couldn't have access to it because of New Years (I don't know why that makes sense, but okay). Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for the New Years Eve concert!!!! The concert had Charli XCX, Busta Rhymes, some DJ's, and Pharrell. It was awesome. I love Pharrell so much. It made me want to go to another concert of his. The people who organized it were not very smart though. They had only two booths to get drink tickets. So we had to wait in this HUGE line. As soon as we arrived we went to the stage and watched Charli XCX perform (she is a very interesting performer). After her performance we decided to wait in line. After an hour, we found out there was another booth outside the entrance, so we split up. Hope went to the one outside and I stayed so whoever got tickets first could go get the other person. I was in line and heard Pharrell start performing. I got so worked up! I asked the girls behind me if that was Pharrell, and they said they hope not! I asked them if I could go check and get my spot back if it wasn't. They said yeah, so I got out of line and checked. Sure enough, Pharrell was performing. I ran back to tell the girls and they go out of line too. Priorities. I watched him perform for a little bit, but was torn because I didn't know where Hope was. I kept running back to the "meeting spot" trying to find her. I don't know HOW she found me, but she did! Pharrell was amazing. At Midnight they had fireworks surrounding the Burj Khalifa - they were so awesome, we could see them pretty well. Then after the fireworks Pharrell performed "Happy" which was perfection. After Pharrell, Busta performed!!! I think I loved his performance too much!

Finding transportation home was extremely difficult. It took us an hour and a half to get home, but it seemed a lot longer. It also cost us like $80 USD to cab home. Whatevs. Rollers.

The rest of the trip cosisted of us watching a fountain show outside the Dubai mall and in front of the Burj Khalifa. It was pretty sweet. We also spent a day at the beach!

It was a great trip, and then Hope came back with me to Kuwait!

Hope stayed Saturday through Wednesday in Kuwait, and she saw the whole country and got the whole Kuwait experience in that short amount of time! Crazy!! She saw 3 malls, the beach, the Souk (market), the Kuwait towers, and ordered Cinnabon off talabat. Success.

I loved having a roommate again!! We would be great roommates, but we would definitely need our own room. We both love to sprawl clothes all over.

I can't believe we spent 19 days together and it went by so fast!!!

We stumbled upon the I <3 KW statue! I guess I don't know my way around Kuwait.

I always have to introduce her to new foods.

Best way to transport my food

The beach

I don't think any picture could sum up Kuwait more perfectly. "Please No Smoking, and here is an ash tray"

Life Update

Well my school handed out contracts. Honestly, I thought extremely hard about it. I seriously considered staying another year. There are a lot of benefits to staying. 1) It's easier. It is not fun applying for jobs. 2) Another year to save money and not pay rent. 3) TRAVEL - working here is meant for those who love to travel. 4) More experience

After much thought, I decided not to renew my contract. I have NO IDEA where I will be next year. No, I do not have a job lined up. I don't even know where in the world I want to teach. I can see myself teaching another year overseas and I can also see myself teaching back in the states. I also can see myself joining Teach For America again (in an administrative role). I used to be so decisive. I always wanted to be a teacher. I only applied to UWRF because it was the only school I wanted to attend. I only applied to Teach For America because that was my dream job at the time. Now? No clue. Not one. My plan is just to apply for any and all jobs that interest me and then follow what feels right at the time. We shall see.