So it’s my second morning in Colombo, to be more accurate it’s the January 1, 2010, and I’m sitting at the restaurant part of the hotel we’re staying at waiting for breakfast to be served. It’s nice here. It’s an open-air room with a nice breeze blowing through. Last night I had hopes of spending the holiday on the beach drinking… much like I did last year in Laos. The one thing that I didn’t know is that there is a ban on alcohol until midnight here. It just doesn’t make sense but you can’t drink or buy alcohol until 12 am. And from about 8 pm on, we just didn’t want to believe what we had been told, so we traveled around the city looking for someplace that would serve us some sort of alcohol. We ended up at about 11 back in our hotel talking, too tired to go anywhere at 12.

Well, it looks like I’m not going to have Internet access at all while I’m in Sri Lanka, which is unfortunate, but not at all unexpected. As long as I keep writing it should be okay. I feel a little bad for people that didn’t know that I would be in Sri Lanka and have emailed me. I mean there’s not much I can do if I can’t check my email.

As I finish this entry it’s actually the 2nd, a day after I started it, so bear with my, I’m writing from memory. The rest of my day I first went down to the beach and walked as far as I could in one direction. The beach, or rather the water here is really nice. It’s the Indian Ocean, it’s warm, and has some decent waves, so basically it’s nice. There is though a significant portion of the beach that I was on that is lined by slums, and packed with trash.

After I went for my walk along the beach, I met up with Jim and Sareh for a trip to a big temple on the far side of the city, but first we were going to go to a souvenir shop. We had so much fun at the shop that we never did go to the temple. I mean, I love temples, but I feel like I’ve seen so many of them and since I’m not religious I don’t get the same feelings that others get from seeing any place of worship. If you read the blog where I was in Jordan, it was the same thing. It’s nice to see something that is significant to a large group of people, like the place that Jesus was baptized, but it just doesn’t have the same meaning to me as to true Catholics. Instead of the temple we went and had some drinks and ate a small meal. After being denied alcohol yesterday, it seemed somewhat important to drink today. I we did. We started at about 4, then at about 6 went back to the hotel to change and then we headed back and had dinner over the beach at about 8. I didn’t take my camera on the second leg of the journey, but it was nice.

So like I do every time I head out for some new destination I find a spot somewhere in the airport to write my thoughts before I board the plane. It’s becoming a tradition.

Right now it’s 930 and my flight leaves for Sri Lanka at 11 so I’ve got about a hour before they start boarding the plane. I can’t wait, it seems like a long time since I’ve been out of Dubai and to be honest the lack of traveling has been bringing me down more than I’d like to admit. This trip will be a little bit strange from my normal “backpacking” adventures, I don’t know if strange is the right word, maybe different is more accurate since I’m technically not going to Sri Lanka to sightsee, but to volunteer. I’m going with the same group that I went to Cameroon with last June… only this time I’m hoping that there won’t be any snags getting into the country like before.

Like I said in the beginning of this entry, it’s a tradition that I make my first entry of the actual trip here in the Dubai airport, but that still doesn’t give me a lot of things to talk about. In other words, I can’t think of anything to say right now, except to say that I looking forward to seeing Sri Lanka.

Like before, and I don’t know if I need to keep saying this, but I don’t expect there to be anyone reading my blog. It turned out that last summer, the last blog if you’re trying to keep them in order, a good friend in Texas didn’t even check up on me during the summer. So, if she isn’t reading it’s really doubtful that anyone else is either. Oh well.

Wed 23/12/09 23:57

Well, this winter break I’m joining up with the same group that I did for my summer trip to Cameroon. I say joining up, but the truth is, is that I’m a member so I’ve already joined. This winter we’re heading to Sri Lanka for about 10 days. I probably will have to leave a little bit earlier to be able to get back in time to prepare for the next semester, but I’ll still be there for about 8 days.

The tickets are purchased and I think I’m ready to go. There is one possible snag though. I didn’t really pay attention to the dates of the trip too closely, and since the timings of the trip cut into a school rule that I must be back one week prior to the start of the semester, I need approval from the provost. I sent in the request last week and still haven’t heard anything back. I’d hate to miss the trip because of a minor technicality like that.

So if everything goes right, I get my “ok” I’ll be leaving on December 30 for Colombo, Sri Lanka.