At long last

Today was by far the best day I've had in my five weeks in Taipei. I met up with a guy I met at the batting cage last week, and all of us (his friends and my friend Wendy) went to play baseball again. It was really funny because we immediately got McDonald's and batted and chatted--how American haha!

It was so much fun hanging out with Gabriel. We cheered one another on as we batted, and tried to give advice about batting that I'm pretty sure neither of us knew.

After that, we went to watch some of the kids dance (a very strange, pagan-esque dance!) and sat on the steps for hours taking in the cool breeze and talking about politics and culture and college life and ghosts (yes, Gloria was part of the conversation!). It really was amazing just to connect with someone from another culture like that, and all in Chinese! It was hard to understand (in BOTH directions, cause I'm pretty sure I don't make sense in Chinese half the time). I've already been lucky enough to be good friends with Valerie, Henry, Jasmine, and Angela, but tonight is really the first time I felt that I have true friends and a welcoming community in Taipei--at long last.

我愛台灣。