From the Land of Smiles...

great weekend

Hey Everybody,

I’m sorry if I worried you at all with my last post. I was just venting.
I had such a good weekend. On Friday my host mother took me to meet Nook and her friends to go bowling. First we had dinner and I met a few more of her friends. Then we went over to the bowling alley and again, we couldn’t bowl. It was really busy in there. So we just went to the huge market across the street. It was a lot of fun…and guess what?....I fed an elephant! It was sooo awesome! I had to pay 20 baht (less than a dollar)…and it was sooo worth it. I was so excited. Unfortunately, in my excitement I forgot to take a picture, unfortunately…oh well…

Then on Saturday morning I went to my friend Pu's house and she taught me 2 thai dances (that we were supposed to present in class today). When I got home I went swimming with my host sister and had dinner with alot of the family, then we went to a huge market. The difference about this one was that everything there was made in Thailand. They had such beautiful stuff, and for great deals. Oh, and A Su...my neighbour (and host mothers cousin's wife, lol) bought me these beautiful pink stone earings. They're soo nice. She's so sweet, always giving me things. She even told me once that she feels like i'm the sister she never had (i think she meant daughter). Isn't that so sweet? People are so nice here.

Then on Sunday we went sightseeing. My host mother, host sister, Na Pik, and Chia and I. First we went to the site of all of the statues of Sunthon Pu. He was a great Thai Poet. According to my host father the best, and first in the world (i'm not sure about that though). Then we drove all along the sea. We just kept driving by all of these beautiful things so finally I asked Nook if at some point we could stop to take some pictures. Na Pik pulled right over, and it just happened to be a perfect spot. I took a bunch of pictures, which i'll post after this. We stopped again to take pictures and walk around a bit too. The last time we stopped Kun Mae told me that we were going to wait for the family to come for dinner. While we were waiting I took a bunch more pictures. Then Chia's family, Kun Par and Nook's Grandparents came and We had dinner along the beach. It was all fresh seafood. I even tried sushi (uncooked shrimp). It was actually pretty good, but I only had one because I was afraid to get sick.

It was such a good weekend. Oh, and today, I got emails from my other 3 friends from district 7090 that are on exchange here. Thailia, who is in the south, is absolutely loving it here. She loves everything about it, including school. Bailey (in Korat) says that Thailand isn't for her, but she's making the best of it. Katrina (in Udon Thani) seems to be having similar feelings as me. She loves it here, but really doesn't like school. I seem to be the most homesick out of the 4 of us though, from what i've heard anyways. Apparently some of the exchange students in Katrina's city are really really homesick. She said that the other day during lunch at school, one of them just started bawling for no reason. I've never been that bad, luckily.

I'm going to post the pictures after this, and I'll post again soon.

I miss you all!

-Lauren

posted by Lauren @ 5:47 PM