"New Rule. You are not allowed to drink anything without me present."

These are the words that my friend Megan said to us once she found out what we were drinking. She is the one that speaks Chinese and is our saving grace. We are paralyzed without her with us, especially when ordering food. So last night when she announced that she would not be joining us when going out to get food, we had no idea what to expect. But we ventured out and saw a lot of crazy things. Taiwan has some amazing drinks, my favorite is papaya milk. We found what looked like a drink place, so we stopped and we tried to tell them what we wanted, but they had no clue what we were saying, so we said, give us whatever and pointed to a picture. They presented us with two drinks. So we went ahead and drank them, and they were pretty good! When we got back to our dorms, Megan said "what is that?" When we responded that we didn't know, she told us, "Guys, that is milk tea, don't drink it." Well, I threw it out, but don't worry, I successfully broke the word of wisdom, on a Sunday. Megan reassured us by saying "Its ok, Missionaries break the word of wisdom all the time on accident". It was pretty funny. This is coming only a day after she found out I was drinking the tap water, which apparently is a no no as well. I found out after I had downed several bottle-fulls that the tap water runs along with the sewer and even the locals don't drink it. Great. I haven't gotten sick yet - well besides the nauseous feeling I get when thinking about the sewage water...

First weekend: Food, Baseball and Buses

My whole study abroad group. Only 8 of us, plus Jim Kohl, our instructor. Left to Right it is Calvin, Jane, Alexa, Candice, Me, Katie, Megan, Whitney

So I have survived the first weekend and finally have some time to write about it! After arriving here and unpacking and getting to know the area a little, we have had a little time to explore. Tomorrow, the real work begins because that is our first day in the hospital, where we will be spending a whole lot of our time in the next five weeks. So this weekend was all about catching up on sleep and getting acclimatized, if you will. The first day we were here I forced myself to stay awake so that I could get on schedule again (we are 14 hours ahead of everyone in Utah). Needless-to-say, I was a walking zombie and finally crashed around 8:00 pm and slept a solid 13 hours. Since then I have been pretty much good to go!

A big thing here is FOOD. We don't have a cafeteria or any set food plans so its just on our own, wherever we want. The problem is, we 1) don't know what we want and 2) wouldn't know how to order it if we did. There is a street just a block or so down from our building that is just lined with whatever you could ever want. We have sampled a fair bit so far, but there are many things undiscovered yet. Like stinky tofu. We haven't gotten that brave quite yet.

This is a shaved ice thing with a bunch of different things in it, including red and pinto beans, jelly-like stuff that I actually have no clue what it is, pineapple, and others topped with a molasses syrup. Very interesting. Called chuay bing, or something similar to that.

Shayla, Kat, and Suzanne - little shout-out to you from Taiwan to you via dead duck. Head included.
This man may be my new favorite friend. These little pancake delights are the most delicious thing. They are some sort of bread thing with filling. It is amazing.

Another thing we have done this weekend was go to the Tainan Lion's baseball game. It was incredible. We found out about this game from a man we got dinner from one night (that is a whole different hilarious story in and of itself) and decided, why not? So we found a bus that we thought would get us there, and it did! (and by the way, the only way we are functioning at all around here is because one of the girls here served her mission in Taiwan and speaks amazing Chinese. We would be completely lost with out her. Thanks Megan!) When we got to the stadium: HOLY COW! These people are into baseball. I have never been to a sporting event period that was so spirited. Let alone a baseball game! Absolutely hysterical. Check out this video. They were like this the ENTIRE game. How they have that much energy I have no clue. We were chanting the song the whole night.



The buses are basically our way around. And walking. A lot of walking. The funny thing is, everyone in Taiwan is super helpful, but not at the same time. They are so willing to tell you things and directions, even if they aren't completely accurate. Everything is either 20 minutes away if you are driving or 2 lights away if walking. But really...it could be much farther. The bus adventures are pretty funny. We never know when the bus is going to get there or where it may take us or how much it will cost, but it has worked out in the end for the most part.

So that is basically it! The first weekend is wrapping up and we are on to a whole different adventure in the hospital tomorrow. We all have NO clue what to expect, but probably more confusion and smiling and nodding. I will be in the ICU for the first 2.5 weeks and then we switch and I go to the community. Oh boy.

Im HERE!

I am officially in Taiwan! We landed yesterday at 5:30 am Taiwan time and took buses and one high speed rail train to get to Tainan, my new home for the next 5 weeks. I don't have time to put up any pictures yet, but hopefully I can do that tonight. So far, my adventures have included not understanding anyone, failing to get money out of an ATM because I was so confused, eating some delicious Chinese food, avoiding anything that had a head still attached or was just a head (a fish and a duck...) and taking lots of pictures. Everyone in my group is so picture happy, sometimes I don't get everything on my camera, but hopefully in the end we will all get each others and it will be complete. Everyone here is so nice to us and excited to have us work in their hospital, it is so nice. Our living situation is pretty good and we are having a lot of fun. I slept for 13 hours last night because I forced myself to stay awake until it was bed time, which just happened to be 8:00 at night. I think, hopefully I am back on schedule and the jet lag doesn't get me too bad. We start work on monday and will be spending a whole lot of time in the hospital it sounds like. I have learned a couple of Chinese phrases and words and can say them ok, but tend to forget them all when I am supposed to say them :) All of us here are motivated to learn some Chinese while we are here and so we are going to study it every night. We will see how far we get...I love you all and miss you tons, but am excited for this adventure!

Losing Time

This time next week won't exist for me. Why you ask? Well right about this time I will be flying to Taiwan and thus losing the entirety of April 30. Kind of strange to know that April 30, 2009 will never be available to me. But I get to then spend 6 weeks in Taiwan, so it kind of makes up for it. That and I will get June 11 twice in a row. Strange how time works sometimes.

I have about a million things to do before my trip, so it hasn't really set it quite yet, but I am super excited to go. Just have to get to that point first! 6 days and counting!

Matt and Chelsea got hitched!

This last weekend, Matt married Chelsea Beckman. It was so fantastic! We had a blast having everyone except Kay and the kids (we missed you!!) there together. Chelsea's family were so great as well, and all-in-all, it was a fabulous weekend.

The weather was perfect. In the 80's, clear skies, absolutely gorgeous. The Oakland temple is really pretty, I liked it a lot.

Laura and Landon :) I love them. A lot.

Jenna and I in our black dresses with yellow accents.

Matt and Chelsea just out of the temple, fresh newlyweds. They look like models in this picture. So pretty.

At the reception, Jenna, Paul and I. We loved the photo booth and watched it for most of the night. And took plenty of pictures of ourselves as well :)
Not quite sure why Jenna looks a little scared, but the reception site was beautiful!
The cute couple.
The cute non-couple.
Hunter was tearing it up on the dance floor! It was so much fun.

So Chelsea, welcome to our crazy family. We are all glad to have you. You are stuck with us FOREVER!!! SISTERS! :)

Roommates = Fun times

My roommates are always cracking me up. If you noticed a few months ago we had a photo shoot where the prompt was "romanian orphan". Well we had another photo shoot, and the prompt for this one was a fun hat that we owned and some glasses. Pretty funny. I personally just ended up looking like a bug, kat like a russian jedi, suzanne looking like costello and shayla and just pretty dang cute. We come up with the strangest things sometimes.


Three of us at our ward's Oscar night. We got all dressed up pretty and watched the FHE videos. Hilarious. Perhaps more details on that later...


And finally, one of the apartment's favorite activities: P90X. Thats right. For those of you that have seen the info-mercials, this stuff is for real. Kat is the one that made the purchase and we are all reaping the benefits. Complete with a pull up bar attached in our front room and enough space for us all to work out together, we are getting toned and BRINGING IT TO THE PEOPLE!

Finally! Details!

So we just got a bunch of details about our trip to Taiwan! I am so excited. We had our first real class in preparation for our trip and we are a bit more organized now. Our instructor went over there a few weeks ago and signed all the contracts and organized all of our nurse mentors, called preceptors. Apparently they are all so honored that we are coming and are very hospitable to having us come to their hospital. We will be housed in the apartments that the hospital has attached to it and apparently they are new and quite nice. Complete with washer/dryer, ping pong, pool, TV and internet. We are staying the town of T'ainan (southern/western side) and the hospital we will be doing our rotations is the Chimei Hospital. Its a 1300 bed hospital (bigger than any in Utah) and we will be working mainly in the ICU there.
So we go to work in the ICU Monday-Wednesday for 8 hour shifts and then on Thursday we work a half day at the orphanage, playing with cute little Asian babies! Our instructor specifically said that we couldn't adopt any while we were there or smuggle them home in our bags. So the first half of our stay we work at the ICU and then we switch and work in the community. We go with our nurse preceptor out to do home visits and go to clinics and things out in the community. I am excited to see the people in their own homes and see how they all live everyday. It is going to be quite the experience, I can already tell. Friday and Saturday are our "play days" where we are going to go everywhere and see everything. Then Sunday is church and we do it all again every week. I am beyond excited. We leave around May 1, not exactly sure, and then stay 5 weeks. The things I am most worried about are language, squatter toilets (thanks for the tips Adam!), and the food. Should be a culture shock, that's for sure. But then...Jenna is coming to meet me there!! Hopefully we will get to spend some quality time with Adam, Kay and fam, see Taiwan a little more and head to CHINA! My group that I am going with seem like a blast, I don't know them that well yet, but I will! Our instructor seems awesome and like he wants to have as much fun as we do. I will have internet access so I plan on updating my blog often with exciting pictures and stories!


Also, I got my first PASSPORT for this trip! It was way exciting.

So I just need to get through the rest of this semester, which let me tell ya, might be harder than it sounds, and then bon voyage! I am super excited and can't wait!