Monday, September 1, 2008

End of class term and Julia's visit, & political instability in Thailand

Julia and I made Kaiserschmarrn (Austrian pancakes) for our students on the last day of class
students from Chong Fah
out to dinner with John. Julia and I bought the same dress. :)
Paul making friends with a water buffalo at the Moken Villae
German class
with the Ramada class
Helmets are very fashionable
Benz & Julia at the sticky rice restaurant- girls' night!

  I just can't believe how fast this past month went by, and Julia's already gone! :( We had so much fun together; I'm really going to miss her. This is what I find so difficult about being here: people are always coming and going constantly. It makes me tired.

 Yesterday it was uncertain that Julia would even be able to fly out of Phuket, because there have been some major protests against the government going on in Thailand, and the demonstrations have escalated over the past week. The protestors succeeding in shutting down the main airports in Thailand for a few days (though not for international flights from the main airport in BKK. I was supposed to fly from Phuket on the same day as Julia, and then it looked like we'd have to take a bus instead. So we bought bus tickets, but praise the Lord- late Sun. afternoon we found out that Julia would still be able to catch her flight to Bangkok! I couldn't get on my flight though, so I'm leaving in about an hour to catch the overnight bus. I'm not really looking forward to going to BKK and Cambodia because I'll traveling by myself again. I've been a bit worried about the situation here too, but Kim Quinley assured me that it's still safe to travel to BKK. I think I'll have a good time once I get there; there's always lots to do in BKK. But I also have a lot of things to take care of.

  The end of our class term was great; I think that these classes (except maybe my evening class) have been the best ones for me at Step Ahead the whole time I've been here. For our last day of German class, Julia and I made Austrian pancakes and ate breakfast w/ our students. Then they offered to cook lunch for us on Saturday at Step Ahead! One of the guys from Baan Khao  Lak (hotel) is the restaurant supervisor, and I think he can cook really well! But unfortunately, he ended up having to work, so we went out to eat instead to save time. It was still a lot of fun. On Friday night, some of our students from Chong Fah invited us to hear live music, and Julia, Paul and I were so impressed! I didn't expect the music to be that good, but it really was cool.  They were kind of a reggae/ country band, and they let us request songs. On Friday we also went to the Moken village again to teach, but this time it was me, Julia, Paul and Benz, and we had so much fun together. I'm starting to really love that village and the sweet kids. 

  It's raining now. Julia was very lucky to have so much sunshine during her stay here! Now I think it'll rain just about every day, as it normally does in the rainy season.  

   

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