Hello everybody!! It has been exactly one month since I arrived here in this amazing country (Thailand of course). I thought that it would be a good idea to not post every week until I fully acclimated (though I will probably never truly get used to this heat), so here is an overview of my first month. I will just post the super exciting things and leave out all of the fluff.
Arrival: I hope that many of you have read my airplane story, and if you haven't, I truly recommend it. But after I finally found my host familes, we all had to take pictures, and then everybody told me their names (which I immediately forgot) I was to travel home in a van with my third host family to my first host's home. Then we left the wonderful, air conditioned airport, and for the first time I experienced true heat. You can feel true heat in any number of places, one of them being Thailand (others include: the surface of the sun, boiling water, lava, dragon fire....etc...) As I walked to the van, I thought that some parts of me melted off, but I made home all in one piece. When I first walked into my new home, I half ran, half stumbled to my new room while my amazing host mother was graciously allowing all of the other guests in and showing them to the dinner table. She pointed to my room and said ไปนอน (go to sleep). I went into my room, wearing my blazer, and shoving my 49 pound bag, carry on, personal item, brick, elephant, distant moon (just kidding, but it seriously felt like I was moving a mountain.) I found the remote to my AC unit and turned the unit to full blast and I fell fast asleep in jeans, convers, and my Coloradical shirt that my friend Autumn gave to me. I slept for about six hours.
The first week: My first week in Thailand was mostly napping, waking up in the middle of the night, furiously learning Thai, and meeting other RYE people. I went to Central Plaza (a huge shopping mall) and found the necessities of American life, peanut butter, nutella, pancake mix, a selfie stick, and other things that I felt embarrassed to carry. To be honest, I do not remember a lot of my first week because of the jetlag, it was so bad, there is a 13 hour time difference between me and the motherland, so I was a lottle of of sorts (a lottle is like a little but a lot). One of my host brothers was leaving for exchange in California a week after I arrived, so I talked to him a lot because he was awesome and his English was great!
Starting School: The week after I arrived I started school, the night before, I was so nervous because I had to give a speech to my school , and there are 2,500 of them, then I went to my class. School in Thailand is so crazy, you choose your major/area of study in high school here, I am an art/biology major. I made a TON of friends, because I am like a pig among guinea pigs, different, bigger, and a little more pink (I have been sunburned a lot since I arrived, sorry mom). After school ended, I went with my host brother who was leaving on exchange to a small party for another inbounder, and that is when I met Paola, and Brenda, and Pooh, and my host brother's name is Toey. When I walked into Paola's home, she was curled around a pillow sleeping, while Toey and Pooh went off to make food, Brenda and I woke Paola up. Brenda and Paola are both exchange students from Brazil, Toey left for the USA and Pooh left for France. It was a fun party because I got to meet another inbounder!!!
Bangkok: The first time that I went to Bangkok was to go to the rotary center, all of next year's exchange students were still in the interview process, so a lot of us inbounders just talked to students who wanted to go to the USA, Japan, Brazil, France, Germany... we all had a lot of time to socialize and eat apples (which are scarce here) and then we all went home.
Ayutthaya: Ayutthaya was when I really started to love Thailand because that was the day that I rode an elephant! My elephant was so cute, and it really liked to play. I also visited my first floating market, which was amazing!!!! I loved all of the smells, tastes, and colors. It was the best sort of overwhelming, I ate food and then I pet a tiger, the tiger was asleep of course, but I could feel its heart beating and its ears twitching, I nearly fainted. After all of the animals/market/lunch, I toured the historical city, which was the Thai empire's capital for 700 years! So there are a lot of old ruins and many religious sites. And it was almost easy to see the Thai way of life back in the day, all of the ruins were very well built, the only reason that they ever fell in the first place was because of war, otherwise the master stonework probably would have stood for a long time. Then I went and visited the summer palace of the person 5th in line to be king, this person deals with relations with China, it is his job. His palace was so beautiful, it was all built in a traditional Thai/Chinese style. I took a lot of pictures!!! All of the ruins in my pictures are from Ayutthaya.
Siam Center: One day, I went to Siam center to meet Kim!!! I went with Paola and Brenda because they live in my province, so we travel as a package, Siam Center/Siam Paragon are huge shopping malls, they are so beautiful, and there is so much to do there, (in fact I am going again in two days!!) Kim brought some of his friends too, and they were all so nice and funny (which is the way that all Thai people are). We ate pizza for lunch which made me, Paola and Brenda very very happy, then we explored the malls, we went all the way to the top, and then all the way to the bottom, then we moved on to the next mall. In Siam Center, we discovered that Victoria's Secret was handing out balloons, with helium, so we all got one and inhaled the helium and tried to converse in Thai. It was very fun, we took so many selfies with stuffed animals, and I almost bought literally everything in the Disney Store.
Meeting other exchange Students: I went to my district's orientation and met the 26 other students in my district!! They are all so funny and nice, there is not one person that I dislike!!!! We all traded pins and business cards, now my blazer has that little twinkling sound to it when I walk because of my pins. I love everybody so much that I could not choose a favorite or least favorite person if my life depended on it!!! After orientation, I went to Siam Center again because, well, I like spending money...
That is all folks, I did do a lot of other fun, exciting stuff, but these were the main points, in the future I will post once a week to keep you all better informed!!!
Thank You!!!
Quinn