Sorry this is going to be short but I needed to blog before I go into the boonies of Thailand for an ultra-rural homestay with no electricity and no internet. I'm going to just make a list of things that have gone on of note.

1. Arrived in Chiang Mai, had incredible Pad Thai on the street for a dollar.

2. Drove to UHDP (Upland Holistic Development.... Program?) which is like a test site for agroforestry and sustainable agriculture where they try out agriculture methods before they attempt them in nearby villages.

3. Had Thai classes and learned about the various methods of organic/sustainable farming.

4. Slaughtered a pig.... yes, slaughtered a pig. I helped to hold the legs while Zach stabbed it in the heart.... it was pretty crazy, but also pretty cool to know exactally where my food was coming from and being there for every step in the process.

5. Attended a traditional wedding, which took place in the house of the bride. Felt kind of awkward about being there, but apperently, everyone who is around is welcome to attend the weddings in the villages. The ceremony was really cool, and I'm sure people will put some pictures up somewhere..... but i forgot my camera.... per usual.

Anyway someone needs the comp, everyone is trying to get in their last internet before we leave for our homestays. Can't think of much else that I should blog about, but hopefully I'll have some awesome stories from my homestay.

keep it real,

-Dave

What’s crackin’ everyone. As I write this, I am sitting in a hammock on a beach In Koh Tao (gotta love wifi). I’m listening to some Lil’ Wayne right now (Outstanding is the song, for those interested, sick beat). We’ve been here for about…. 5 days…? And are here for another 2.

Most of the group is SCUBA diving every day but unfortunately, I am not allowed to be our SCUBA instructor because of my asthma….. which sucks, but I’m making the best of it. After being told that I wouldn’t be diving, I let loose a couple expletives and began planning out my next couple days.

Sorry this blog is a little scattered, im a little tired, probably going to listen to some Damian Marley, Pepper, and Slightly Stoopid and then go to sleep after this.

The ride over here was pretty choppy and a ton of people got really sick, but thankfully not me. I was close though, pretty hard to hold anything down while 5 people directly next to you are retching so loud it wakes you up from a peaceful nap. Anyway, I cranked the ipod to full volume and made it through, but probably half of the people on the boat were puking their guts out. Sorry for the visuals, my bad.

The food here has been pretty spectacular, Pad Thai and Thai Curry are unbelievable, and wickedly spicy. We had a group BBQ the other night (I was on pork grilling duty) and the chili sauce they gave us felt like a delicious volcano exploded in my mouth and rained tasty lava onto my tongue. I could go on forever about the food I’ve had so far here, but I don’t want to get started, because I would probably write for another hour.

So my daily routine here has been something like this: Wake up at around 9-10 (or 12), throw on the bathing suit, go to the beach, sit on the hammock, order a coffee shake and eggs, consume, swim, change, go Muay Thai boxing (I’ll explain later), eat food, come back, go back in the Ocean, snorkel a little bit, play the guitar, eat, hang out with the crew, sleep, repeat. Sometimes I will shower in there, but I mean, the ocean counts right……?

Since Emily and Beth and I haven’t been going SCUBA diving at all, we’ve found our calling in Muay Thai boxing. Our fists are now legally registered weapons, we are not going to be able to get on the airplane with them. If you don’t know what Muay Thai boxing is it’s basically kick boxing but you are allowed to elbow people in the face. Awesome, right? It’s also a pretty kick ass work out….. pun intended….get it….anyway……  check out this video if you want to see what muay thai is (and don’t mind watching violence) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yPfukurJdw. So we’ve been doing that quite a bit and it’s an absolute blast, and a great work out. Our first Muay Thai class was my first real work out since like…. My last wrestling practice in March, so my body was like “stop that, why are you doing that, you are going to be sore tomorrow” but by the second one I was alright.

Someone just put on some Lauryn Hill over there, so I’m going to have to go see what sort of cool people listen to Lauryn. There was something else I was going to write about, but I totally forget. Anyway, we are going to be in northern Thailand outside of Chang Mai for the next month, living with families and working on their farms, which I am f’n pumped about. Noah and I are already planning our media project as a rap video, so look out for that, it’ll hit the streets in early February. Aight, I’m off to chill with the homies, they are listening to my ipod dock over on the hammocks, then maybe go watch an episode of Psych on Alexis’ Ipod (awesome show btw)

Stay classy,

-Dave

P.S. sorry for the typos

Vietnam No. II

Hey everybody, sorry I haven’t updated recently (as predicted in my last blog). It’s pretty late here… like… 2:24 AM to be exact, and I really should be writing my college essay…. (Sorry mom and dad and Mr. Denning, don’t worry, I’ll get to them). Anyway, I’ll work backwards and see what I can pull together from the last couple weeks. I’ll try not to make it too long, but as my sister says, I don’t mind the sound of my own voice, so we’ll see how that goes.

 

Sooo… tonight was absolutely insane. Vietnam beat Thailand in the Asian Cup finals so basically when they won the entire city went absolutely bezerk, and we were out there going bezerk with them. Zach, Noah, Lily, Katie R., and I went out, obtained Vietnam headbands, Vietnam flags, and Vietnam jerseys, and had a blast. At one point, in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Ho Chi Minh, some dudes handed Zach and I sticks and pointed to trash cans, so Zach and I drummed crazily in the middle of the street with sweaty, drunk, Vietnamese dudes surrounding us and cheering. Apparently their soccer team doesn’t win much. We all ran around the city for about an hour screaming at the top of our lungs and hugging and high-fiving everyone around. Every street was packed with motorbikes as far as you could see with people on the backs, waving Vietnamese flags. It was freaking awesome.

 

I supposed the next exciting thing that happened working backwards was Christmas. Christmas for me is just the best and for me, being in the rain in Vietnam in 70˚ weather was just not feeling like Christmas to me. Let’s just say that on Christmas Eve I was referred to as “Scrooge” at least twice. But, after watching Love Actually (don’t judge me, movie is unreal) and witnessing what Sandy and Robin and Beth made happen for Christmas, it couldn’t help but feel like the holiday season, even if it wasn’t snowing and I wasn’t curled up next to a fire drinking eggnog. The food alone made Christmas unbelievable. We went to a Hotel where we had brunch and dinner and hung out and played beach volleyball and exchanged Secret Santa gifts. For bruch I ate: 1 3 egg omelet with ham and onions and tomatoes, 2 waffles with powdered sugar, 2 enormous bowls of the best Pho yet, 10 slices of bacon, 3 hash browns, 1 bowl of cocoa pops, Coffee Crème Brule, 2 lemon pastries, a plate of fresh fruit, 3 sausages, and 1 sticky bun. Good thing I wore sweatpants. And for dinner I had lamb wrapped in bacon on top of eggplant with a side of cheese covered potatoes and white chocolate mousse and coffee chocolate sorbet for dessert. I’m pretty sure Sandy had to sell a kidney to fit this into the TBB budget but I loved every second of it.

 

Side note, When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin just came on on my Ipod random right now, such a great song. Anyway… trying to think of anything exciting that has happened recently… not much that I can think of really. I kinda gotta get back to my college essays anyway. We are working on media projects pretty hard these last couple days, I don’t want to stay up too late, we’ve got peer review tomorrow morning sometime. Sorry this wasn’t that exciting of a blog, just wanted to update again because I haven’t in a while. If you want some serious factual info about the trip though, check out liz’s blog at http://lizkuenstnertbb.blogspot.com. If anyone has any unused college essays, send them my way…. Kidding…. Kind of…..

One time 4 your mind,

-Dave

Adventures in Nam

As usual, I haven’t posted in a while, who woulda thought. Anyway, just so you can a visual, it’s about 11:00 on a Friday night, I’m in a Highlands Coffee (Vietnam’s answer to Starbucks), and I’m planning on staying here until they kick me out (which is probably going to be pretty soon), in fact, I am the only person here and they are starting to shut off the lights like they want me to go. Whatever, I’m staying until they forcibly remove me, good internet is hard to find here.

 We’ve been in Ho Chi Minh City for…. 11 days now and it has been pretty cool. Well, pretty cool for me usually means that I have delicious, cheap food easily at my disposal. Vietnam is the place to go if you love Pho, and boy do I love Pho.

Before I go any further, I have to tell a story about what just happened to me. I got kicked out of Highlands Coffee, which was expected, so I went next door to the Hotel next door (one of the nicest hotels in Ho Chi Minh). They have internet in their lobby but are very particular about who they let use it. Obviously, I try to walk through the door like I belong there, but trying to not let the guard notice me. I’m fine until I sit down and open up the computer, at which point he comes over, brow furrowed and asks: “You stay here?”

“Of course.” I say, hoping that will be the end of it. It’s not.

“What room number?” I don’t miss a beat.

“406.” I pray that this place has a 406. He looks at my Ankor beer T-Shirt and dirty khaki shorts and flip-flops. I also see a “you are now running on a reserve battery power” message come up on my computer at this time. Damn. He starts to walk away but I push my luck. “Umm… do you by any chance have an adaptor that I could use? I’m running low on battery.”

“No, I am sorry.” I see an adaptor on the far side of the lobby and point to it.

“Umm… well… can I use that one maybe?”

“No, engineer needs it.”

“Well, can I use it until the engineer needs it?” I pushed a little too far, he starts to get nosy.

“Why don’t you go up to your room? All the rooms have adaptors.” I expected that one.

“Well you see, I need to do work and my friend cannot sleep while I am typing on the computer.” He looks at me skeptically. I keep talking. “He has to get up very early tomorrow for a flight and the light from the computer keeps him awake, can I just use the adaptor for a bit?”

“Just go up to your room and work.” I stick to my story hard.

“I can’t. I don’t want my friend to be mad at me, right?”

“You can work at the desk in your room.”

“My friend is a very light sleeper and I don’t want to wake him, I will only be about an hour.” He seems to not have a response, I can smell victory. I go for the jugular. “If someone needs the adaptor let me know, I’ll give it back.” He relents, his shoulders slump a bit.

“OK, but you must not move it, the engineer must use it.”

So here I am, sitting in the lobby of an incredibly expensive hotel with a fake identity, stealing their WiFi and charging my computer. God I love Vietnam.

Anyways, I was talking about the food… I sense a theme in my blogs…. Whatever. Pho is unbelievable and at about a dollar a meal it doesn’t hurt the pocket so much. Some people are starting to get tired of the Pho but I just can’t get enough of it. Each Pho Restaurant has their own variety of sauces and such to put in the noodle/soup/meat mixture so you never get bored. Just for example, today I had Pho Bo (Pho with beef) and I had the pleasure of adding a Vietnamese hot sauce, plumb sauce, pieces of garlic, and some sort of leafy flavoring that they put on the table. Doesn’t get much better than broth with that many flavors.

Quick update, the guard guy is eying me pretty hard right now and talking in hushed tones on a phone, so there is a decent chance this will get interrupted by me getting booted from this place.

As for our day-to-day activities we are having a fair amount of lectures from various NGO leaders and professors around Ho Chi Minh and been watching documentaries like “An Inconvenient Truth” (which you have probably seen) and “The Corporation” (which you might not have and should). We have had some really great group discussions out of these topics and I’m pumped for more to come.

Another quick update, they just shut off the AC. I think they are trying to make it as uncomfortable as possible for me, but I’m staying strong. My T-Shirt and shorts can outlast that dude’s dress shirt and horribly patterned green tuxedo vest. SHIT, he just came over and asked for my name and apartment number… I gave him a fake name…

Damn, looks like I picked the wrong number to give him, 406 has been living there for 2 years… they kicked me out, but the dude they sent to remove me from the hotel thought the whole thing was hilarious. I’m around the corner now in front of Highlands Coffee where thankfully they leave the internet on all night and have a very nice security guard who just offered me a cigarette. I declined, but my Vietnamese skills impressed him. I gave him the old “Xin Jiao” (hello) and “Cam un” (Thank you) when he offered me the cigarette.

 A group of us is working for a company called Green Energy in Vietnam, which is run by a guy originally from South Carolina named Stephen Mueller. Green Energy’s big project right now is growing plants that produce oil for clean biodiesel fuel in areas of Vietnam where food crops can’t grow because of the devastation caused by agent orange, but a small part of his project is restaurants for their used cooking oil which he sells in the form of bio-diesel fuel, which works in cars. For the past couple days I have been going around Ho Chi Ming with Van Ahn, one of the Vietnamese students who is staying with us, and visiting various restaurants around a district of the city where people don’t really speak any English. At each restaurant we ask them what they do with their cooking oil and try to raise their awareness about the issues and then offer to buy their cooking oil off them. The responses have been varied to say the least. Everything from an owner not looking us in the eye and telling us to F off before we could get in the door, to a woman inviting us into her restaurant for Iced Tea and asking all sorts of questions about the project.

 

Tomorrow we leave wicked early for a day trip to the Mekong Delta, so I’m probably going to close this up in a bit, as it is now around midnight and the guard at the guesthouse place we are staying tends to go to sleep around now.

 

Vietnam is gearing up for Christmas in a surprisingly big way, which basically consists of fake trees and horrible techno remixes of classic Christmas songs, but it’s better than nothing. I’m definitely going to miss snow for Christmas, but we are having Christmas on the beach in Vietnam, which ain’t bad at all.

 

I’m probably forgetting to write something. Whatever, if I remember later I’ll update this bad boy. Hopefully I’ll update before the holidays, but knowing me, chances are you wont hear from me for another couple weeks. Sorry in advance. If I don’t update before then, have some happy holidays. For those with snow, enjoy it, for those without snow… enjoy it too…? Anyway, it’s late; I probably stopped being funny about 5 paragraphs ago.

One Love

-Dave

 

P.S. sorry about any horrible typos or profanity, too tired to edit this at all

Alrighty, I’m writing this from our hotel room in Siem Reap Cambodia listening to the new Kanye CD on my ipod (mediocre the first listen, getting better ever time I listen to it, check out the songs Paranoid, Heartbreak, and Street Lights if you want). Haven’t written in a while (as usual), but things are going pretty solid. I’m pretty sure my mom would have a heart attack if she saw how messy our room is. I mean, 3 dudes in one room usually makes that happen. Anyway, I guess I’ll start where I left off the last one, going to Sha Xi.

 

The bus ride to Sha Xi was pretty awesome, Noah and Zach and I watched Rambo. The whole thing turned really eventful though when we hit, or rather, were hit by a really drunk Chinese man on a bicycle while driving down the road to Sha Xi. After calling the cops and getting the guy blood tested to make sure he was biking under the influence we continued on to Sha Xi. We got to Sha Xi at around 9 at night and were greeted by our host families. My host parents didn’t speak any English and I can speak about 5 sentences in Mandarin and 0 words in Bai (the native language there) so communication was pretty tough. My first night the communication was limited to them pointing at me at making a motion that said very clearly “you are a freak of nature, do you play in the NBA?” I also think he might have told me that he has two children who go to a different school, but then again, maybe he didn’t. I did find out that my host dad is a butcher and that he slaughters a pig at my house every Friday, which I’ll get back to. Anyway, Sha Xi was a pretty damn cool town/village. Almost all the people there are of the Bai ethnic minority and they don’t usually speak Mandarin at their homes. The town itself was beautiful, there were a couple of times where I would just walk around the winding little alleyways trying to get myself lost so that I could have fun trying to find my way back to my house. I taught at the school for a day and observed classes for a day with Lily, which was interesting and really difficult, because the English level of the kids was much worse than in Kunming. I had a ball though, as usual, and the kids seemed pretty interested in us being there, although not that interested in the material.

 

The last day in Sha Xi started at 5 in the morning for me with the squealing of a pig being slaughtered right outside my door, which was nice. I was planning on going out there to watch Betsy (what I named her beforehand) become pork, but after the first scream I put my pillow over my head and hoped that I wouldn’t be scarred like Clarice was by the lambs being slaughtered in Silence of the Lambs. I eventually woke up and ventured out of my room when I was sure that the pig was already at the market. I walked to the market and met up with Renee, who took a great pic of me with the host parents and the dead pig which I’ll try to put up later. We walked around for a while then met up with the rest of TBB to go to some Buddhist temples in the hills surrounding Sha xi. The temples were pretty sweet but nothing worth going into detail about (if you want some details of it, check out the girls blogs, they probably spend a paragraph or so on them). Anyway, we got back to Sha Xi, and hung out and worked on media projects until the traditional Bai performances, which were sick. Here are some pics:

 

After the Bai dancers “taught” us a traditional dance, we felt forced to do a performance of our own. We went with the Macarena and a stunning rendition of “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of that… or don’t want pictures of that on the internet…. whatever. Anyway, it was a blast and even though we were only there for a little while I loved my home stay parents there, even if she wasn’t the best cook and we weren’t really able to talk to each other.

 

We had a nice (less eventful) bus ride back to Kunming where we stayed for a night. Our media group was very on top of the game (check out the Google Earth project, soon to be on the TBB website), so Zach, Liz, Isabel and I decided to celebrate by going out dancing, which was an absolute blast. Zach and I bought matching shirts and I bought some Kanye glasses and we picked out some attire for the girls. Here are the pics:

 

 

 

 

 

I’m pretty sure there was only one song that they played the whole time in every club, but we danced hard to it. Some awesome media group bonding. The next day we left for Cambodia via Vietnam, which is where I’m at at the moment.

 

Cambodia has been awesome so far, very relaxing. We went to Ankor Wat for one day as a group then the next day we had an optional sunrise watch at the main temple, which was pretty spectacular. I’m not exactly a morning person (it’s 2:45 AM right now in fact) so instead of waking up at 4:45 I just stayed up until the sunrise, which worked out great. It ended up being Robin, Sandy, Emily, Liz, Renee, Becca, Ian, Lily, Katie C. and me who went. There were a surprising number of people there for it being 5 o’clock in the morning but it was nice, especially when I got into the temple and there were less people. The last couple days we have just been hanging out, getting cheap massages, shopping at the market, and eating a lot.

 

Thanksgiving was pretty cool for being in Cambodia. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday without a doubt: Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, Gravy, Pumpkin Pie, Football, and Family. Does it get any better? No, it doesn’t. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting much from this thanksgiving but it ended up being really fun. We ate at about 3 in the afternoon like we usually do in the Snyder household, and had tons of food. We substituted roasted Chicken for Turkey (there are no Turkey’s in southeast Asia). I ended up eating about 5-6 plates of chicken because most people didn’t finish theirs. Didn’t quite beat my record of last year going back for 14ths, but it was awesome. After eating and sharing our “what we give thanks for” and “I appreciate so-and-so because…” we played 2 games of “Celebrity” which is an awesome game that Beth taught us (game is a blast by the way). This also brought in the longtime thanksgiving tradition of over-competitiveness (most by me) that no family gathering is complete without. After that some of us went to get $7 massages for an hour and came back to the hotel. That’s where I’m at right now.

 

Anyway, sorry if this is a little incoherent, it’s pretty damn late here, but I wanted to get this bad boy up, so forgive my horrible typos. Thanks for reading and such, keep in touch all of you and for the parents who read this, your kids freaking rock, good work parenting.

-Dave

Kunming Pt. III

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted, things have been pretty crazy and I don't really know where to start, so I'll just work backwards.

Tonight was our last night in Kunming, I have just about finished packing and saying goodbye to my family. For our last night we had a big banquet type thing with all the host families of all the kids which was a ball. It was great to finally see all the host relatives that I had heard good stories about. My host dad, Mr. Liu, throughout the evening tried to set me up with the various members of our group, continuously pointing out that he thought "Alexandra keeps looking over here." and that he thought "Katie would make a good wife because she is playing with that child so much" and that he "Suggests I invite Liz over for dinner some day." He really never ceases to make me laugh.

Yesterday, on sunday, he insisted that I go on a tour of the city with him and their family friend, who makes me call him Chris, who speaks english. The total time spent was 6 hours, 1 temple, 1 provincial museum, one Kunming museum, one house of someone who was first in the national exam 100 years ago, one old military academy, one 100 year old restaurant with traditional Yunnan rice noodles, one park by a huge lake, 2 ancient pagodas, 5 bronze statues, one large university campus, one exhausted David. I had a ball just posing for pictures with Mr. Liu who insisted we take a photo together at least a couple times at each locale. Here are some of those pictures.

So, needless to say it was a pretty exciting day, capped off by my final dinner alone with my host family. The dinner was really fun, my host grandparents came over and one of my host brother's cousins. Here are a couple pics.

I guess the next thing working backwards was English corner. English corner happens every thursday in Kunming at this place called Green Lake Park. Hundreds of Chinese kids, college students, and adults who want to practice their oral english come together to speak english. As a native english speaker as soon as you show up to the place where they meet, you are immediately surrounded by at least 10 chinese people wanting to practice their english. This past thursday I even had this adorable 7 year old chinese girl whose english was much better than many of the other people their. As soon as she sees me she immediately goes "Why are your eyebrows..... why are your eyebrows.... so.... so.... so..." she tried to find the word and I helped to fill in the blank: "Big?" "Yes, so... so... big!" To which i responded "ummm, genetics...?" She continued to question me "Why is your hair.... umm... umm... black!" What do you say to that? I didnt really get a chance to respond when she goes "All americans hair is yellow, why is your hair black?!" I tried to explain that not all american's are blonde but she still didnt believe me. Her next question was "Do you like...sleep?!"

"Yes, I love to sleep."

She looked at me dumbfounded and goes "Then why are you awake?!"

Once again, what do you say to that, you can't make this stuff up.

After English corner Liz, Zach, and I skyped with a Montesori Middle School in Newburyport, MA which was awesome. They are doing a model UN later this year and are representing China, and they asked great questions and were really fun to talk to.

Teaching has been really fun in Kunming and I'm excited to try out my teaching skills in Sha Xi, where we are heading tomorrow. Alexandra and I got better and better at teaching our lesson plans towards the end of our time in the middle school. One class on thursday was so good that at the end when the bell rang for the end of the class we asked the class if we were done (which we were) to which the responded by yelling "Noo, we can go more, we don't want it to end." We eventually had to get to our next class but when we left the entire class mobbed us to get us to sign their english text books.

I can't think of anything else at the moment, as I am pretty tired and will go straight to bed after this, but China has been really fun so far. Really fun and really different. One of the questions we were asked on the skype call was "What has stood out as culturally different in China." Zach and I looked at each other and at the same time said "everything..." I'm definitely going to miss my host mother's dumplings, and playing ping pong everyday. It's almost sad that we are leaving Kunming right now because I feel like I'm just starting to get used to all the differences in our cultures. Anyway, hopefully I'll update everyone again soon.

One Love,

-Dave

P.S. Thanks for the comments, I love hearing from everyone

Kunming Pt. II

It has been two weeks in China and I can now say "Hello" "How are you" "That was delicious" and "I want 4 plates of dumplings"; just the essential phrases. It has been a pretty crazy week or so, but I'll try to do my best to remember everything.

A regular day for me starts by waking up at around 7, showering (a welcome addition to the routine after Bua), and eating breakfast with one or all of the members of my host family. Breakfast is usually something pretty substantial like a hearty portion of rice noodles and beef. I start walking to school at like 8 or so, the University (Kunming Nationalities University) is about a 20 minute walk away. We have chinese class every morning for an hour which basically consists of me trying to pronounce words that my mouth does not want to pronounce. After that we usually have a lecture or something in the morning, this morning was on China's economic growth, which was really interesting. We then work on media projects (if you havent checked out the media projects from Ecuador, go to thinkingbeyondborders.org and watch/listen/read them) or discuss readings from the book we are reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire which is an awesome philosophy on oppression and education. After that Zach, Noah, and I usually find some sort of dumpling place or fried rice stand and hang out until we start teaching.

I started teaching this past Friday with Alexandra. We taught classes again on monday and tuesday but the kids had exams the past three days, so we didnt teach. Trying to teach english has been interesting to say the least. Teaching 65 13 year old chinese kids has its challenges. We have been having them practice their english by talking to them about American culture and having them practice dialogues and quizzing them on what we teach them throughout the class. Some highlights include: All of the kids singing in unison "We Will Rock You" by Queen, One kid, after we explained Halloween, raised his hand and with a very serious look on his face said "This Holiday is bad." when asked why it was bad he stood up and said "Because it is so rude to go around and ask people for candy."

China has been really interesting, and also really challenging. The cultural and the language is so different from what I got used to even in Bua that every day there seems to be a new obstacle to overcome. Whether it is trying to explain to my host parents that I will not be home for dinner, something they dont really understand, or trying to get a cab to take you to where you want to go, there is always something. I'm having a blast though and I really love the teaching. I am also getting insanely good at ping pong; my host dad, Mr. Liu, insists that I play with him almost every day. Tomorrow Noah, Zach, and I are going with Zach's host brother to play Badminton (which is hugely popular here), and then playing basketball against him and his friends.

-Dave