It seems like months ago when I was walking out of the main castle onto the bridge to watch the swans and ducks mingle, or walking into the OSA office onwards to get some Brie cheese or Stefan’s burritos. Since then, I’ve went to London, Scotland and Ireland. I arrived here in Toronto just over a week ago and frankly, I haven’t done much.

I’ve played badminton once, watched season 4 of Dexter, spent time with my cousins kids and ate many many meals with all my relatives. My aunt keeps asking me whether I want to go shopping or what I want to do, but I really have no plans to do anything. I don’t want to do much either, I wish she understood that. For now, I’m happy sitting at home on the net, reading a book and lazing around.

The last few months was one of the best semesters I’ve ever had, but it was also one of the busiest. I traveled 10 out of 12 weekends. I took 20 train rides, 20 plane rides and 2 bus rides for the weekend excursions. After sight-seeing in most everywhere, I was ready to not have to read about another tourist-must-see-places. My cousin suggested I could take a walking tour of Toronto. Yeah….. No.

The Castle experience was one of which you can’t really talk to others about unless they’ve been through it. Friends and family will ask you how it was, but all you can really say is “good.” Once you start blabbering on about where you went and/or what you did, they space out and stop listening. Either that, or they just keep telling you how lucky you are. I’ve gotten both… I think. I can understand, it’s not that interesting if you haven’t traveled to those places. They all seem so foreign. All I can really do is reflect and smile knowing that through these experiences, I’ve changed and it has expanded my world view.

I was in the car with my grandma today on the way to dinner when my aunt started inquiring about my future plans. I mentioned that my ideal job would be based in Hong Kong with the occasional travel to projects around South East Asia. That’d be brilliant. My grandma then spends the next 20 minutes telling me how I need to be humble, whoever I work for, I need to follow and learn. “Even if you are much better than your boss and your colleagues who have been there for a long time, you still have to pretend to not know anything and learn from them. Do you understand?” she says. 5 minutes later, the same words came out of her mouth. Each time, I nod and smiled.

She is a wise one. Although my grandma and I were never close since I grew up in Hong Kong while she was always here in Toronto, it’s times like these where I know I’ll miss her when she’s gone.

Two weeks before the end of our semester in the Netherlands, a few students decided to write the lyrics and create a music video that will represent our time there. A few days later, there was a production schedule and list of jobs for the shooting of this music video. The day before exams started, this song blasted from 8 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon non stop all around the castle.

I tried to study but the song echoed in my ears and I couldn’t help but sing along. Thank you for everyone involved and Jess for spending so much time editing all the footage that was taken.

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I’m so proud to have been a part of this video, part of this semester and to have been part of many many students who had the chance to study in Kasteel Well. I would not have given up anything in exchange for the experience I had the last few months and all the great people I met.

Since we’re on the topic of Castle productions. Check out Beyond The Moat for photos and blogs written by castle students about their travels through out the semester. There are a total of 5 episodes of fun! The following is Episode 4 about a students experience in Barcelona, and a recap of Harry Potter week at the castle. I was one of the blog writers for this production, and I enjoyed it immensely! (I’m in this video too!)

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Dank U Wel Kasteel Well Spring 2011! Tot Ziens.

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Killarney wins the award for the most improved town in the span of three days. Wait, back track about a week. I went back to London from Edinburgh and got to spend some time with Joelle, my colleague from Cambodia. We reminsced about Cambodia, relaxed and caught up on life and encouraged each other. It was really refreshing to catch up on how God has been working in both of our lives. During my time in London, I did not do anything touristy except walk around- mostly to be in the atmosphere of the Royal Wedding. Congrats William and Kate! I also met up with friends from Hong Kong, from high school and also a friend from 1st grade. It’s incredible how fast time flies. Similar to everywhere else I’ve traveled to, I met and got to know Joelle’s housemates as well.

On the 1st of May, Jamie, a fellow student that studied at the castle and I hopped on a plane to Killarney, Ireland to our last leg of adventure in this side of the world. Ireland is known for it’s nature and of course it’s Guinness. Sad to say I didn’t have any guinness but we definitely saw a lot of nature. The first day we got there, the town was trashy to say the least. Drunk kids everywhere driving crappy cars that have a sport engine which apparently makes them cool. We didn’t understand why this town, major tourist attraction has turned into a frat boy town. As we walked around the park and talked to a lovely old couple gardening in their front yard, we learnt that we had arrived in the last day of the yearly race rally. This happens every year, and the same douchy guys come into town making a mess on the streets and in the hostels. It all made sense afterall. I guess it’s like the rugby sevens in Hong Kong.

We walked for hours, took a day tour around the Ring of Kerry, biked for hours and met fantastic friendly people along the way. Once the race boys were gone, the town was adroable. On the streets were either towns people or tourist strolling around enjoying the peace and green around them. You couldn’t even tell who was local and who was a tourist because they were all enjoying it just the same! I’ve learnt to appreciate nature in the last few months. Growing up going to holidays by the ocean, I’ve always loved to go by the water and appreciate God’s creation. I have never been a big fan of hiking or the green too much but the National Park in Killarney was beautiful. There were many different paths and we could walk around for hours and still not get very far.

Killarney was very picturesque. We enjoyed strolling around and taking photos. I’m not sure I’ll use my camera ever as much as I have the last few months traveling around, taking note of every thing I wanted to keep an image of. Pictures have a lot of meaning in them, whether its just a scenery photo or of a stranger that stood out to you. I’m not the best photographer out there by far, but I enjoy it and that’s all it matters.

After our three day trip in Ireland, I had one day of traveling and returned to Netherlands, to the Castle, to the village of Well and to my beloved friends I’d met to spend the night with them. It was a tiring and stressful day of traveling, but God watched over me and it went smoothly. Most importantly, it was worth every single drop of sweat. Want more details? That’s for the next post.