Merci Beaucoup!! (and Orientation)

Hello Everyone,

I had a chance to look around a bit more today on this whole blogger world and I just noticed that I have received several comments on my blogs!! Thank you all so much!! The love and support from those few comments is astounding and it really makes me happy that y'all are actually reading this thing.

I'm sorry I didn't notice them earlier, and I haven't quite figured out how to reply to them yet so please know that they are truly appreciated. I love hearing your responses and I love the fact that you don't need an account with this site to do it! So if any of you have any particular questions, ask! And I will try to answer.

So school was getting a little boring. I've managed to keep on a cheerful face for the past month or so and it was starting to wear a little thin. I would go to class, sit there reading my book (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand...who is a genius) and struggle to speak in broken Thai to the giggling girls around me.

But Luckily for me I got a break.

This past weekend was the Rotary Orientation in Lampang. There are 25 Exchange students in District 3360 but only 22 showed (I'm not sure what happened to the extra 3....)

The kids came from all over; Cambodia, Brazil, Mexico, the US, Germany, Taiwan, and Canada.

Oh my gosh this weekend was so much fun!! It was exactly what I needed to get out of my weird slump. Now I feel refreshed and willing to tackle the mysteries of Thai. *muahahaha*

So here are some pictures to fill you in.....

When we first got there we had some lunch, listened to welcoming speeches, went over the schedule, and had a torturous thai lesson.

As soon as the word "free time" was mentioned, at least 19 of us left the hotel and hopped into a couple of tuk-tuk's to go to the market in Lampang.

No, we weren't really allowed to do this, but we figured after being told to embrace Thai culture that we would go and experience some together... and out of the hotel.

It was awesome.

This was the view from our window.

Our first night there we didn't really know what to do but then again we didn't have a lot of choice because the Rotarians had decided to tape our doors shut overnight. This way if we left the room there would be hard evidence. My roommate was a German gal named Dajana. She is wonderful if a bit nutty, but maybe this is why we got along so well. So we watched a few episodes of House (German with English subtitles), talked about life, the universe and everything, then crashed.

The next day we visited a famous ceramics factory in Lampang. The first thing they built was this huge chicken bowl...

Nothing quite like boiled teenagers, mmmmm.

The next place we visited was a coal mine.

We took a tour, met Mr. Coal, and slid down a huge hill.

And yes, this is a picture of the coal mine. They took all of the earth they had taken from the mines, put it in a big pile and made a golf course out of it.

Now it looks beautiful.

So yes it is a dirty ol coal mine, but at least it doesn't have to look like one. Even better news is, that when the coal runs out in 30-40 years they are going to turn the land into a state park (after fixing it up of course). Gotta love those Thais.

To be continued....

Coming Soon....

Orientation Pt. 2