Taiwan, Paris and Spain: Getting Around with Crutches and a Limp

Hello again!

I’ve been all over the place for the last couple weeks, so I’ve tried to do day-to-day logging as best I can.

Taiwan:

Monday, August 31, 2015: Hindsight is 20-20, right? We probably shouldn’t have gone to bed drunk at 2 in the morning knowing good and well we had to be at the airport this morning at 5. But oh well, that drag show in Kota Kinabalu gave me life! We slept the whole flight back to Taiwan and arrived before 10am even rolled around. It needed to be a laxed day. I got a pedicure and met 10 of the gems in my life for a belated birthday dinner for me. I tried cider ale for the first time without hating it. We had fancy cocktails and Ciaran, a very Irish Irishman, tried an Irish car bomb for the first time. It was a great day!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015: Ciaran, Theresa and I woke up late and eventually made our way to the train station. We took a three hour train down to the southern Taiwan city of Taitung with the intention of catching the next ferry out to either Green or Orchid island. Instead, we were greeted with ferry tickets with much higher prices than we had found online, and no tickets until tomorrow morning. We got on a bus to a tiny little town called Dulan and showed up at a hostel that we’d found on hostel world. This hostel is SO COOL. It is called the Wa Ga Li Gong Yoga studio—we slept on thin mattresses on the floor of said yoga studio—and the people that work here are awesome. Two doors down is a little restaurant with a retired man from India who has quite literally been everywhere and done everything running it. It’s run home style—only one dish served at each meal with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options—and has organic fresh pressed apple juice. Sometimes, like in the moment that we were eating this meal while the owner chatted with us about why San Francisco is his favorite “white world” city and how Ciaran may quite literally die from the heat in India, we will lock eyes and give each other the look. The look says “how did we get here? What are we doing?” and we chuckle and revel in the spontaneity of our choices and take another sip of Taiwanese organic apple juice. After dinner we were intent on walking to the beach. We followed the directions given to us exactly, and were very surprised when we finally got to the ocean and it was a rock beach instead of sand. We sat on huge rocks, spied on an old couple next to us who MacGyver’ed it with a small fire and food, and drank the smuggled, tiny flask of Fireball that Theresa had brought from the states. And then Ciaran was attacked by large rocks when he tried to dip in the ocean and we had to leave due to emotional scarring.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015: We hopped on a bus to the harbor nearby. The bus driver didn’t really understand where we were asking to go, and he ended up letting us off pretty far away. We flagged down a van and hitchhiked the rest of the way to the harbor! We were bound and determined to get to Green Island no matter what it took. When we finally got there, we haggled with several different scooter rental companies to no avail, and ended up just renting the 2 cheapest ones available. We circled the island, saw some truly breathtaking sites (even a temple in an underground cave!) and had dinner at a restaurant called Good Mr. Hot Dogs. Yes. We ended up at the island’s tourism center, stripped down to our bathing suits and got into the ocean right as the sun was setting. It was very majestic. After dinner we had the intentions of sneaking onto a camp site and sleeping there with nothing but our hammocks and a speaker, but then I got into a minor scooter accident and had to be whisked away to the island’s tiny hospital in the back of an ambulance. Before anyone freaks out, I’m fine! Really. And it is truly all thanks to the great people on Green Island, and ESPECIALLY thanks to Ciaran and Theresa. Baes for life. Thank you so much. So, so much.

Thursday, September 3, 2015: Though I am doing pretty well, it is very hard for me to walk. So I couldn’t do much else on the island today! But my great friends brought me food and carried my bags and held my hands and just rocked in general. We left Green Island this afternoon and ended up back at the hostel we stayed at a couple nights ago. I’ve spent the evening in the common area, French music playing quietly, just chilling. Granted, that’s really all I can do right now, this feels nice.

Friday, September 4, 2015: We woke up very very early, spent most of the day traveling back to Taipei, and then Theresa and I parted ways. I relaxed most of the day after going to the hospital for a final check to make sure nothing was broken or dislocated or torn. Ciaran came back to Taipei and then left Taiwan that night. The queen of my LIFE, Doreen, delivered dinner to me in the hostel I was staying in, went and bought me more medicine so that I wouldn’t run out before even leaving Asia, and booked a trip to Europe this winter!!! It’s people like this that fill my life with such gratitude. Absolute queen.

Saturday, September 5, 2015: Saturday was all traveling. Literally all travel. The silver lining to being on crutches and walking like a strolling snail is that I get a wheelchair and special treatment in airports. Upon booking these flights, I anticipated the biggest inconvenience I was going to face was the possibility I was going to be sucked into a worm hole—I flew Malaysia Airlines. But lo and behold, sitting in an overbooked transcontinental flight for 13 hours with a swollen leg and contused chest is what I got. By hour 8 I was really hoping for that wormhole. But I made it! And every single person along the way—every flight attendant, airport staff member, random person who offered to carry my bags, shuttle driver, everyone!—made my trip as smooth as it could have possibly gone. And I didn’t have to wait in a single line.

France:

Sunday, September 6, 2015: I arrived in Paris at 6am local time. It is SIGNIFICANTLY colder than Asia. I arrived in shorts and a tank top. I could see my breath as I waited for my shuttle. What a change! The hostel I am staying at is pretty much the only part of Paris I have seen yet, but it is great! St. Christopher’s Gare Du Nord Hostel. It’s huge and full of life and drink discount coupons and fast wifi. Welcome to Europe, right? I miss Taiwan. But I am happy to be here! I spent most of the day around the hostel, found a great Kebaberie and cheese and baguettes. What more could I need? This stopover is not going to consist of much, because I am slightly immobile and need rest. But I did go to see the Eiffel Tower tonight! Last year, my mom and I were unable to see it light up, so that was my goal for this time around. We got a bottle of wine and sat shivering as the clock struck midnight and the Tower sparkled.

Monday, September 7, 2015: Again, did not do much of anything today. But, I did get Chipotle to-go (surprise! I do miss something from America) for dinner, and went to the Louvre Pyramid to picnic. Upon arrival I realized I did not have a spoon and fashioned one from the aluminum lid of my takeaway container. It is in this moment I realized I will never have enough class to live in Paris. C’est la vie.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015: We checked out of the hostel late, and I took a bus to Beauvais—a town right outside of Paris where one of the airports is. My lovely, lovely mother helped me book a hotel in the area so that getting to my 9am flight the next morning would not be too much of a hassle. Hotel Balladins was affordable and totally accommodating!! They switched me to a ground-floor room and explained where everything was in the area. I took a (long) leisurely stroll to the grocery store and bought myself dinner and breakfast. I came back to my room and passed out. I don’t think it was even 8pm? Grandpa Harlee was really feeling it.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015 – Saturday September 12, 2015: I made it to Spain! YAY. My new host father picked me up from the airport and drove me to the house that I will now be living in. I’ve spent the last couple days really letting myself adjust to the time zone and catching up on all the sleep I’ve been lacking in the last few weeks. I have finished more than one book, started Game of Thrones, and had better wifi than anywhere else I have been since leaving America! I have left the house a couple times—I went and explored the little town that I live in a bit—but mostly I have been preparing for my job to start on Monday.

So I’m going to end this clusterf*ck of a blog here, because I am going into Madrid for the first time this afternoon and I want to have a separate blog about this big, beautiful city. I am doing great! This job is going to be so fun and getting to know a city that I never really expected to live in is going to be very cool. I hope you all are doing great too. Talk soon!