Meeting new people

This hotel is pretty much full of people from my programme, so it's going to be a few days until I really get the full Thai experience since I'm going to be surrounded by Americans for the next week.

Had dinner with two girls from the Boston area, go figure I manage to find girls from the city I lived in for four years! It's kind of like being in the first year of university again, everyone's just running around the hallways desperate to meet new people. At least it's a good conversation starter. If they're clearly Western (i.e. white...haven't seen any other ethnic groups represented as of yet) and look as wide eyed as me, it's a pretty safe bet to ask "are you here with CIEE?" 

Goodnight!

Bangkok!!!

After a very very long day of traveling, I am finally in Bangkok!

By the way, unless they go bankrupt (which may happen any day now...) I would highly recommend Jet Airways - I had a pretty decent flight. 

I met a girl on my flight, Lucy, who I hung out with in Mumbai during our connection; she'd been to Thailand before and helped calm my fears a little bit, and gave me a few tips on how to get around, plus she gave me a big hug which is really what I needed. I'm not suggesting that you are guaranteed to have a friendly English girl to help you out on any Jet Airways flight. Aside from meeting Lucy, I would still recommend this airline if they still exist by the time you're reading this.

At the Bangkok airport I discovered that my mobile phone is still locked, so I can't use it at the moment, and my credit/debit cards aren't working even though all my banks/credit companies know I'm here! That resulted in several minutes playing the 'how do you call the US collect from Thailand?!' game so that I could let my parents know that I am indeed still alive and well despite being slightly, okay very, overwhelmed.

Meanwhile I have 20,000 baht to play with. How stupid does that sound?? 20,000. I've never had 20,000 of any kind of currency in my hand. Except maybe in Hungary...I seem to remember the exchange rate there being pretty extreme too. But if you convert my thousands of Baht you will realise it's only about £240. 

I got a little ripped off by some taxi company to get to the hotel; I was way too out of it to do any real arguing about the price. They can be pretty scary and in your face, which is hard to combat when you've been more or less awake for two days straight.

So that's it! I'm in Thailand! Orientation starts tomorrow morning with an introduction to the Thai education system, information about my visa and stuff, then some teacher training and my first Thai language lesson!

On Monday we're going to visit the Emerald Buddha Temple and the Grand Palace before more training and a lesson on how not to die in Thailand (I think they have a better name for it...)

Tuesday and Wednesday will be more training, language lessons, and seminars about living in Thailand, then on Thursday we go on a two night trip to Kanchanaburi where we're going elephant trekking and bamboo rafting!! Then we are visiting a children's orphanage village, where we have to present a lesson. So I'm really excited about that! Especially the elephants!! 

I just had the best nap ever, and now I may venture downstairs to try to find food. I'm still waiting for my roommate to arrive, I hope she has as much luggage as me so that I don't feel too stupid. :) 

I MISS YOU ALL!! Please keep in touch, and send me your address and I'll try to send lots of postcards! (marianne.sheila@gmail.com)

Leaving tomorrow?!?

So here it goes. I'm actually going to do this.

I don't have too much time to write now, but I will try my best to keep this updated as often as possible, although who knows what my internet access will be like once I get to Thailand.

My flight leaves tomorrow morning from Heathrow at 9:30am, then I get to hang out in Mumbai from 11pm - 1am before finally landing in Bangkok at 6:50am on Saturday morning to start my week long orientation with CIEE!

Right now I am incredibly nervous and having a hard time leaving behind all my amazing friends in London, but once I'm there I'm hoping to be too distracted to think about all of that!

For now, back to some last minute packing and cleaning before going to see Oasis in concert tonight!!