Thank you David Bonderman!

Because of Mr. Bonderman's generosity, I have been given the opportunity to travel the world and learn about culture. As a Bonderman Travel Fellow I plan on traveling through Western and Eastern Europe, East Africa, Northern India and Southeast Asia. I am excited to experience new and amazing things that will better enable me to empower and inspire the next generation of young students.

ALSO!!! If you are interested in following the nasty development of my beard and hair....you can follow it at

Monday, August 23, 2010

Moving 299,792,456 m/s (really fast!)

I think today marks my 31st day of being abroad! It definitely doesn't feel like I've been gone that long, though. Maybe that's because I'm in the company of some of the coolest people I've met in my entire life (Zach Hunter, Michael Eney, Brian Kruse and Brock Hartman). I haven't had proper computer access since my last blog post, which was more than two weeks ago! Since then, the five of us had a spectacular time exploring Northern Ireland and Dublin, Brock flew back home for law school, I explored western Ireland alone, Eney Zach and I spent two nights in Lagos Portugal, we met Kruse for three nights in Sevilla Spain, and now the four of us are in Granada! It has been an absolute blur! Everywhere we've gone has been wonderful, beautiful and special in its own way. All of us are pretty worn out from the heat and constant walking (it was 109 in Sevilla and now is 97 here in Granada).

Zach, Eney and Kruse are all heading north to Madrid on the 25th, but I've decided to do my own thing on the 25th and head south, across the water, into Morocco. I have a family friend who's been living there for a really long time, so I'm excited to see her and experience the kind of work she does, first hand. I'm not sure how long I'll spend in Morocco, I'll try to keep you all updated :)

Here are some pictures highlighting the last few weeks

Northern Ireland! The boys in front of Dunluce Castle. For those of you who do not know, CS Lewis was born and raised in Northern Ireland. Throughout his books, he references Northern Ireland a lot. Apparently, Dunluce provided the inspiration for Cair Paravel (the castle from his acclaimed series The Chronicles of Narnia)

Z, Brock and I got to spend a wonderful afternoon and evening with Harold and Eileen Lynas. Zach and I met this sweet couple on the train from Southern Ireland to Belfast and we hit it off. In the short conversation we had with them, we exchanged emails, phone numbers and adresses, and they offerred to have us over for tea. So we rang them up one night and had tea with them the next day. It was awesome

On my own in Westport, Ireland

Beautiful Croagh Patrick the day before I climbed it

Beautiful Croagh Patrick the day I climbed it :)

It was definitely foggy and very rainy! But I made it anyways!

One of the awesome beaches in Lagos

Fresh figs from the trees on the cliff above the beaches...so good! and free!

Together again, in Sevilla. La Catedral

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Joe - Thanks for the postcards. So great to hear from you. We are excited to hear and see Morocco through your blog. We too wish we could share dinner with you - especially in Spain, Morocco or Italy! We hold you in our thoughts and in our prayers, and we hope the beard isn't itching too much. Love, The Leedys