These weeks were so busy, I only had time to make one big video, instead of breaking it up into two. A small group of us got to stay in madrid for a weekend with the lady who organized the whole program on the Spain side and her boyfriend. They are so available and nice and we had the best time having dinner had laughing with them. Our little group was spread over Barcelona, Mardrid, Ciudad Real, and Salamanca for that weekend. then we all went to Malaga, in southern Spain, to swim in the Mediterranean the next weekend! It was so wonderful! This is the best group of people.
This company trip was one of several that we had an opportunity to visit. Dr. Hung took us to see the NUS Micro and Nano technology equipment. This was an awesome tour because I got a chance to see the actual machines that I have been studying about. They were nothing like the way I had imagined them: they were extremely complex, had all sorts of connections all over the place, and they were gigantic compared to the tiny objects that they are intended to be used to make.
The most impressive part was seeing the Texas A&M symbol get cut out onto a substrate using ELECTRONS! How cool is that??!! The images on the computer screen were produced from ion beams bouncing off of the substrate. It’s crazy to think that the size of that “aTm” was nearly 1/100th the size of the diameter of a hair. It’s very hard to fathom cutting out an image that size!! But that is reality in this field of engineering now. VERY COOL
We attend classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Wednesdays are reserved for company visits. This leaves 4 days for us to do whatever we want! Therefore, everyone got together one night and decided to take a vacation to Phuket in Thailand. The round trip plane tickets only costed about US$225, and our 3 night stay at a 4~5 star resort was about US$60 per person! Everything was so unbelievably cheap there and bargaining with the locals was a must.
We all discovered the awesome Pineapple Fried Rice with Chicken, a dish of Thailand. It was soooo delicious and filling with a unique taste that you can only get in Thailand (I’m assuming, anyway). They literally go get a pineapple from their backyard or somewhere nearby, carve out the middle and put chicken fried rice with pineapple and cashew bits in it. All for only US$3! We ended up making friends with the 2 men that work at restaurant and they took pictures of us for memory The beach was so beautiful, and at night, hundreds of little crabs ran all over the shore.
Several of us took a one day Thailand Adventure trip. We went elephant riding, white water rafting through the breathtaking forests, and ATVing. This was only US$30! 3 other people decided to go on a different adventure. They rode speedboats around the island of Phi Phi and snorkled in the clear waters. They swam with hundreds of tropical fish and spend the entire day in beautiful islands.
All of the buildings that make up the campus around the city of Toledo are restored monasteries and palaces that have been turned into classrooms and libraries.
These streets were paved with cobble stone because the Muslims thought they would massage your feet as you walked. I would like to know what shoes they were wearing. My feet are so sore from waling all over these steep hills, but it is an absolutely lovely city. It has only been a week and everyone in the group has grown to know each other fairly well and we continue to grow closer. Classes have been really informal; the professors have requested that we call them by their first names. I am, already, so glad I did this.
9 Hours is a long time on a plane. I thought staying up the entire night before would help me sleep on the plane ride, since it was due to land at 7am London time. However, I couldn’t sleep on the plane either, so I actually ended up going two nights without sleep. Bad plan. I don’t recommend it.
We did so much stuff during our first week in Singapore! We shopped in ChinaTown, visited Little India, ate lots of authentic Asian food, traveled on our own to many different places around Singapore, rode the MRT (train) EVERYWHERE, and went to the beautiful Santosa Island for an entire day!
Thanks for the inspiration, Anny.
