We Hamlins like to consider ourselves pioneers in the blogging world. In 1999 we embarked on an excellent adventure to Egypt, Greece, and Rome, thanks to a generous grant from the Shore Country Day School, which allowed Dad to see and experience the ancient histories comprising his third grade curriculum. In the days of the late '90s when the world wide web was just landing in family homes, we thought our blog was pretty cool, allowing Dad's students and anyone else who cared to follow us on our adventure. While Dad did most of the the writing, here's an excerpt from my very own blogging debut, just for the fun of it.
“In Luxor we were walking back from McDonalds to our hotel. A man came up to me and grabbed me and gave me the biggest ever smooch, right on the lips. It felt awful. Yuch!”
This is an embarrassing account, but the fact that we had just been at an Egyptian McDonalds just ups the ante. I can't promise you anything quite this great during my latest blogging chapter, but I hope that I can share some good stories along the way.
Since the time of the original Excellent Adventure blog, there have been multiple spin offs to the series, including The NEW Mr. Hamlin's Excellent Adventure and The Hamlin's Excellent Sicilian Adventure, so I found it only fitting to continue the theme with The Little Hamlin's Excellent Adventure.
Now forget all this boring Hamlin history. For the next six months or so, my adventures will be bringing me to Africa. The first leg of my journey will take me to Kenya where I'll be participating in a study abroad program in health and community development. The program will take me to Kenya's capital, Nairobi, for a six week homestay. I'm not entirely clear on where I'll be and what I'll be doing for the other nine weeks, but I guess that's the purpose of the blog. If you're interested, you can read more about the program here.
After a busy semester in Kenya, I'll be traveling back to Malawi where I participated in the Malawi Immersion Seminar, a unique anthropology course offered by UR following my freshman year. I'll be traveling with the class once again while conducting an independent research project which you'll hear more about later.
And lastly, after about a month in Malawi, I'll be meeting up with my parents in South Africa for a week or two to cap off my African adventures.
Hopefully I'll be able to update you on my escapades about once a week, providing internet access, sufficient motivation, and free time. But for now, I'm enjoying my last few days in America before shipping off.
