so the only thing i know about being 23 is that no one likes you at this age....or thats what blink-182's song "what's my age again" claims. but so far i'm really loving being 23.
last week i finished up my classes and wrapped up all my testing. some kids did a great job on their tests and it made me so proud of my little kids! it was very rewarding and it felt like i had actually accomplished something with them this past semester! i'm really going to miss these kids while i'm traveling the next 2 months...but i'm sure i'll find some way to distract myself :)
friday night 2 of my friends from UCSB, kianna and alysha, got in to bangkok! they got in super late, so i decided to meet up with them early saturday morning. i attacked both of them the moment i saw them! i've missed home a lot recently and its so great to have a piece of home with me here! we spent the day waltzing around bangkok checking out khao san road, siam, MBK and catching up. on khao san we got some amazing hour long foot massages ( i felt bad for the guy that was rubbing my feet cause my feet were suuuuper DIRTY..oops...)
2 of my other teacher friends, liz and ciana, met up with us and we had an early celebration for my birthday. we went out to la monita, the same mexican food place we went to for christmas, and stuffed ourselves with burritos! YUM. after we headed up to khao san road for some drinking and dancing. it was lots of fun and we had a great time!
sunday morning we took our time getting up (kianna and alysha were really feeling the jet-lag that morning) but once we got moving we headed over to the weekend market. we wandered around for awhile, grabbed some food, and checked out all the junk they had for sale. it was suuuper hot out at the market so after a few hours we were exhausted so we headed back to the hostel to relax. on friday bradley and i found out that even though school for the kids ended that day, teachers were still required to come in to school on monday....bummer! so unfortunately i had to leave the girls and head back home. kianna and alysha wanted to go to the waterfalls in kanchanaburi that i had gone to a few weeks ago, so i gave them all my information and my cell phone and made plans to meet up with them on tuesday evening when they got back.
monday was an absolutely pointless day at school. bradley and i literally just sat at our desks all day staring at our computers and waiting for the day to be done. we did nothing all day and were thrilled when they told us that we could go downstairs to pick up our paychecks and grab a cab home! tuesday morning i headed into bangkok to go to immigration to get my re-entry permit which was annoyingly expensive, but i had to get it so i could travel outside thailand this summer. kianna and alysha got back into bangkok later that evening and after some miscommunication of where we were meeting and ended up waiting almost an hour at our meeting point (i was waiting upstairs while they were downstairs and we didnt realize it....) they were exhausted and hungry so we grabbed a cab back to my dorms, dropped off their bags, and headed to the food stall down the street. wednesday morning we planned our adventures for the next 2 months and all i can say is I'M EXCITED! they left that afternoon to grab a train/bus/ferry down to koh phi phi (i'm sticking around school till saturday so i can go to the kindergarten graduation friday evening) so we made plans to meet up in koh lanta sunday morning.
i got to skype with my parents earlier in the morning and they sang a slightly out of tune version of happy birthday to me :) it made me miss home a lot and i'm so happy that in 2 months they'll be out here visiting me! that afternoon the other teachers and i celebrated my birthday at the beer stand! it was a great night and i'm really lucky to have such great people at this school. we spent a few hours hanging at the stand, drinking too much beer and laughing a lot. we ordered pizza (we ordered twice....didnt get enough the first time...) and got it delivered to the dorms. i never would have imagined celebrating my 23rd birthday this way, but it was wonderful and it made me think of how lucky i am to be here :)
soooo our big travel plans for the summer are.........
- starting in koh lanta on sunday and spending a few days there....then off to.....
- more island hopping, soaking in the rays and laying on the beach then.....
- koh phangan for the full moon party! we're meeting up with a bunch of other girlfriends here and its our last big hurrah together before 2 of the girls leave to go back to the states. this should be an epic stop since there is about 15 of us that are all meeting up and we're all staying at the same hotel!
- next we're going to make our way up to bangkok and catch a flight to vietnam from there we're going to....
- CAMBODIA! check out some really old stuff and some cool ruins (aka angkor wat) and hopefully see some beaches...from there we'll head out to...
- chiang mai for songkran! we'll be here for the thai new years which is basically a nation wide non stop water fight for 3 days which should be epic!
- next we'll head up to laos and do some tubing down rivers
- last stop will be back to chiang mai to catch a flight back down to bangkok and the next night they'll fly back to the states!
now this schedule is totally tentative, but its our basic idea and i'm stoked! needless to say i won't be updating this for 2 months, but i can promise you that once i'm back i'll have pages and pages of stories to share!
love you all!
