Chiang Mai, King Thai

At last.

I am staying at my host family's house for the first time tonight, and due to horrendous jet lag have been awake since 1:30 in the morning. So I guess now is as good a time as ever to update my blog with somehing that actually has to do with Chiang Mai and pass off future tiredness to morning emily. All of this still feels vaguely surreal, but in a good way!

To this moment I have no idea how long the flight was from LAX to Bangkok. 15 hours? 18?  Whatever.  We left the U.S. around midnight on the 18th (or 19th I guess) and arrived at 5:30 am on the 20th.  Time is no longer relevent.  We took a red bus with benches to ImmEco, a lovely guest house, and Lily, Gregory, Lauren, Ted and I walked downtown to find this great big market we'd heard about.  We walked and sweated and couldn't find it for a while but were soon helped out by a lovely ex-pat from California who not only told us where the market was but also insisted we stop at this great noodle place, although I think that was because she was genuinely concerned about our health, being clearly jet lagged and overwhelmed and in 95 degree humidity.  Noodles were great, market was even better.  Came back and swam at ImmEco's pool and met the other students there for ISDSI.  Had a great night hanging out/relaxing.

This morning (the 21st) we got some weirdly Western breakfast (fried eggs, little hot dogs, white bread), packed up, and went to a little welcome meeting for ISDSI.  Then we met our host families.

My host mother, Mae Am (i think) and two of her daughters, Ben and Jen, picked me up and we drove past ISDSI and then stopped at a little restaurant for lunch.  Ben, who is 21 and looks about 15, speaks the most English.  She's a business major in college.  Jen is 16.  Mae Am is a high school teacher.  All I can say in Thai is:

Hello/good morning/evening/afternoon/night: Sawadti-ka
Thank you: Kop koon ka
Sorry (this is a very important one): Kaw tod ka
Can I help you?: Hai di-chan chuay mai ka
My name is___: Di chan cheuu

This is allows me to say/communicate nothing but try to apologize for the countless social faux pas I am undoubtedly committing, and thank Ben and Mae Am for forgiving me.  We have laughed a lot so far, so it's okay.  Apparently Mae Am's family contains about 15 people, but I've only met 3 of them except for obligatory sightings of a few young men. Mae Am has told me that her son is 28 and will be my boyfriend.  Not having met him, I have little  to say on the matter.



Love,
Emblz