Woohoo!

Just to let you all know, I love it here!

The people are great, the food is good and I just started my Thai training program.

Let me explain. Opal, who has a little bio on the Centre's site, has been showing me around. She was really surprised when the first night I wanted to have local Thai food instead of foreigner or "farang" food. I explained that I'd just had farang food, and so wanted to try the local food. It was great. Later that night, we went to a karaoke party for one of the graduating students. It was a lot of fun. We sang some english songs, but even for the Thai they showed the phonetics, so I followed along as best as I could. What I lacked in pronunciation, I made up for in volume. :):)
Anyways, Opal found out two ways to make me her new best friend. 1. she drives me around on her motorscooter. Lots of fun. 2. She finds me good Thai food, and doesn't let it get too spicy. Oh, and one more thing. 3. She's my new jogging partner. We went this morning and then had breakfast together. (For those of you from ECAC, she is a 25 year old version of Angelica Lee, Amelia's sister. Exactly the same. Makes me giggle) We had grilled pork on a stick with sticky rice, all of which you eat with your hands. Delicious! She pointed out a bridge over canal this morning. It's a flat bridge, maybe 15 meters long. She told me that when she saw that bridge, she knew she wanted to study here in Chiang Mai, because it must be a good place to have a such a bridge. Then she told me she came from a very small home town. I was still trying to figure out what bridge she meant.

I started teaching yesterday. I have two classes. My first is a level 2 class (the centre goes up to 4). There are 5 students, but only 1 showed up, because it is graduation ceremonies at the University, so most students are very busy for the next 2 days or so. The other class is level 1 1/2. They don't speak very well at all, but they are very enthusiastic. They are taking me out for supper today and Thursday. That will be fun I'm sure.

I almost cried this morning. I found a place near the Centre that makes bubble tea. Such transports of joy flowed through my veins I wasn't sure what to do. So I bought one and quickly consumed it. It was delicious. I think I'll be back. A lot.

I left my camera at the Centre this morning when I went running, but I hope to download pictures tomorrow.

They keep asking me if I'm cold at night. I look at them incredulously. I think it goes all the way down to 17. No, I'm really not cold. And then they look at me like I'm weird. I should pull out my pictures soon. They only have three seasons here, winter, rainy and summer. Right now it's winter. I laugh. I tell them we have the same in Canada, except that they are almost winter, winter and still winter. I'd add construction in as one too, but I don't know if they'd find that as funny.

Well, my brother is harassing me to phone home, so I'll post more in a couple of days! Miss you all!