First day, FREE – September 24-25, 2011

The next 24 hours after the family left was CRAZY! Meredith and I unpacked our room! The apartments are brand new and beautiful! The rooms look like a really nice hotel! We have our own bathroom  (with hot water), air-conditioning, a huge fridge, huge closet, lots of drawers and cabinets, a microwave, a balcony, and even internet! Our Ethernet cord isn’t working though. But it’s really amazing. The apartment building has a pool and workout facility on the ROOF that overlooks the city. It’s unreal. I never imagined it would be this nice. So, we were obviously excited.

We headed to Gat Luang to get stuff we needed for our rooms. That took a while but eventually we got everything and headed out. We got back to the apartment, and decided to go swimming!! We packed the pool. Everyone was just so excited to be free so we were all discussing what we would do for the night! People had different ideas so a bunch of us made plans to go to a nice dinner for Meredith’s birthday on Nimman Haman street (the high street) and get some drinks. It was a GREAT dinner. I only spent about 400B ($13) on a really nice dinner of chicken parmesan, hummus, a mojito, and a large beer! NEVER IN AMERICA! We stayed for a while and then headed back to the apartments. We passed a Roti place (sort of like crepes but better) and all got DELICIOUS Rotis. I ate SO MUCH. I asked the waiter for his recommendation and he said the “Thai Sweet” Roti. It was delicious. Although, it had a weird kick to it and realized there was a good chance that there was some sort of crab flakes added to it. So, that was weird.

We continued the walk back and hung out in the apartments for a while with the group! We went up to the roof and had some beer and just chilled and talked for a while. Then a few of us decided it was time to go out! We had heard of this club called “Warm Up” that all the Chiang Mai University students go to! So, we headed out and a bunch of people decided to come along, as well. We walked all the way back up Nimman Haman street and found the club. This club was crazy! There were many parts to it. The inside had American music and there were groups of friends drinking and socializing around buckets of ice/drinks. Not very much dancing… But we had our hearts set on dancing so we did it anyways. Definitely not appreciated and I sensed it…so I decided I was done with that and we started to head out. As we were walking out, the rest of the group came in! We went to a different area where there was a live band (boy band!!) playing. We all went to the front and a few of us got RIGHT front and center and got really into the music and danced A LOT! I had a great time!

After a while, we headed out of that area and back to the main area with the bar and tables and we found some more people from our group who said the rest were in the “lounge”. So we walked in and it was all crazy lights and dup step! Of course, we couldn’t pass it up so we danced there for a while too! We even tried out our Thai with some of the locals! I think they sort of understood. It was a cool experience but I’m not sure how often I am going to take part in this scene. It’s a little intense.

Meredith, Mel and I took a Tuk Tuk (3-wheeled motorcycle with an attached seat and roof) back to the apartments! We immediately fell asleep and woke up LATE the next morning. First time sleeping past 8am!! We were not feeling so hot in the morning so we got smoothies and breakfast and then it was time for homework. We had to do our homework early because we all wanted to go to Walking Street Market (the one I went to with my family and LOVED).

Walking Street was a little overwhelming today. It was much more crowded and we were so exhausted from the night before. So, we got massages on the street (60B/$2 for a half hour). Massages here are SO CHEAP! There is a spa outside our apartments that have a full body, 2 hour massage for 200B (<$10). I will definitely take advantage! We ate dinner, shopped a little, and then took a Tuk Tuk back. Tuk Tuks are my new favorite way to travel. They are so comfortable and you get a great breeze and the view is great.

Agroecology starts tomorrow! It seems like we haven’t been in school in forever…LONG weekend! But, it was a good one. I could live here for a while.