Adventures in the land of Thai

I went and had many adventures but I don’t feel like writing about them because this way they can hold a special place in my memory…except for two. First, about an amazing three day Eco-trek through the mountains of Thailand, and second, about how I accidentally got fake hair. Intrigued?

(these are some of my traveling peeps from San Diego with whom i met up with)

So my most memorable time in Thailand started out in Chiang Mai, a small northern city in Thailand where we stayed at the most unique little hostel for the most amazing prices. For a private room for one night, I paid less than three dollar. Scandalous it was. So starting from Chiang Mei, my friend Melissa from San Diego and I embarked upon the most vivid tour I have ever been on.

Starting Here:

We began at the long neck village, which is somewhat of an enigma.

Wait, is enigma the right word? Well, I will tell you what it was like and you can help me out with the right word.

The history behind the villagers is that this small land holds refugees from Burma and Myanmar, however, without any rights as Thai citizens. They are essentially allowed to live freely and self-sufficiently as long as they do not leave their allotted plot of land, which is perhaps one side of a hill, nothing more. Their village is set up with about ten or so huts lined up along the main road leading to a church at the top. That is all. The tradition in this town is that once the girls hit a certain age, she is required to put on a copper ring around her neck, adding a ring each year, gradually stretching out their necks. The girls can normally get around 10 heavy rings wrapped around their necks, hence the name the Long Neck Village.

What tourists get to do is walk up the main dirt path, observing the villagers doing “daily activities” like weaving, chopping wood, and molding copper wires. The odd part is that it feels kind of like a show put on for outsiders, especially since they don’t speak Thai or English and you cannot talk to anyone, or ask them about their lives.

You just look, buy a scarf or two, smile, and take a picture. It must be strange to grow up doing your daily activity for people to come and observe and take pictures of you all the time- in your home, walking, doing work. I had so many mixed feelings, it feels even strange to describe. Enigma right?

Then came the elephants, which was scary and magical and quite hilarious. I sat on the baby elephant’s head and thank the good Lord I had bought elephant pants because their little heads are course and hairy and not fluffy like one might imagine.

So with no guide, and only the mama elephant to follow, I held on for dear life, hoping to not fall off. We trekked down hills, stopped by a river for a quick drink and splash around, went through a jungle where all the elephants stopped to scratch their butts on the same rock, and then we stopped for a quick lunch of bamboo, allowing the elephants to fight with the thick branches of the bamboo shoots.

It was quite the ride on these giant elephants whose saddles were secured down by a long hose wrapped around their tail. Odd, this country. Odd, this people. Just odd.

We started our real trek when we met our tour guide, this little man who looked like the weasely animal in Madagascar who sang “I like to move it move it.” Oh yeah, and he insisted we call him Johnny Walker.

So this little old man, Johnny, wearing sandals, army shorts, a tank, and a shirt wrapped around his head, led us through the vast and intricate jungles and mountains that Thailand conceals.

We began our trek going uphill for five hours, tough business, and then we finally reached this oasis of a little village resting on top of a hill, overlooking nothing but forest and sky.

Up there, I ran across some crazy little kids, running around sharing sandals, holding handmade sling shots, and caked with dirt and mud all over. With no adults watching over them, they had created their own hierarchy, with the boys playing certain roles as the pestering troublemakers and the girls as the collectors, and dreamers.

Sitting on a stump, letting the girls dress me up with petals of flowers and dirty water, I looked in their eyes and saw full concentration, full attention to their task, as if nothing else in the world mattered then putting “blush” on this stranger with a flower and sprinkles of water.

And again I thought, how strange it must be, to grow up with strange white people coming by all the time, playing with them, taking pictures, and then leaving the next morning, always leaving. It broke my heart that they allowed me into their little world, knowing that I would leave them so soon. But each encounter with a person, to me, is a something special, something that becomes a part of me, and I appreciate that I could be a part of their little circle for even that short of a time.

We sat outside our hut in a circle on the floor under the proud stars, and ate our dinner together, as a group, as a family. It was something else.

Then we built a bonfire in the hut, played spoons, chatted, and clapped for a group of the village kids who came to sing for us.

We went to sleep in our bamboo hut with pigs and chickens snorting and clucking around us. We woke up the next day, started hiking again and stopped this time at a waterfall where we automatically stripped down and jumped into the freezing water. Letting our muscles and minds relax in the cold water and under the hot sun, we realized that this trip, this experience, was something special, something different.

We stopped again at a two-hut village. One hut was for us to sleep in, another for the two women who lived there and our guide. We took turns taking cold showers in a little stand outside (which was not built very tightly and didn’t conceal much to the outside world). But it didn’t matter that the water was cold, that there was no privacy, no mirrors, no electricity, it really didn’t, for when we were immersed in such a pure atmosphere, certain things just ceased to matter.

At night we sat around our bonfire, silent for a while, in a trance from the fire, from the exhaustion, from the purity of the night and the stars in the sky. I talked to a boy from Korea for a long time, asking him about his travels, his country, what it is like to travel alone, to be Korean. I talked to the two Australian girls who were so funny and real and unconventional. I talked to Johnny Walker who in turn showed me a few magic tricks that I have already forgotten.

The next day was the last of our adventure. We woke up to hike again. Through the forest trees, rivers and rocks we hiked, stopped by a waterfall where only an older couple lived, widdling cups from bamboo, and watching over the falls. We continued to our “white water rafting” which seemed more like drifting down the calm river, but we didn’t mind, we sang and tried talking to our guide who had a lisp and talked like the brother in 50 First Dates.

When we got to the end of the “rapids”, we saw the long bamboo rafts we were to finish the tour with. “Sit two and two” he said, and just as I was beginning to relax and sit down as we drifted down, he looks at me and says,

“no, you, go to the front and stand up.”

Come again? But feeling ashamed for being singled out, I stood up at the front of the raft like he asked, trying really hard to balance on the swaying unevenly tied bamboo sticks. He came up to me, gave me a long pole and said,

“Ok, guide everyone down the river and I will meet you at the end.”

Come again? Doubting my bamboo rafting skills and unsure of what to do with a long stick and seven people on this oddly long raft, I miraculously steered everyone down the river, coming close to hitting a few rocks and going backwards a few times.

With my natural bambooing abilities (taking a bow), I brought everyone safely to shore, a bit sweaty, shaky, and full of adrenaline while everyone looked well relaxed and sleepy. Eating our last meal together of Pad Thai, we became seriously sad to part with our experience and with the people we had allowed into our personal world for those three days. Alas, we parted ways and said our goodbyes and now I can tell you my second story.

The one where I accidentally got fake hair:

It’s not really that big of a deal.

It could really happen to anyone, really. When you are in a foreign country, especially Asia, you can easily walk into a hair salon, ask to get cool dread-looking braids (which I had seen on this cool Korean girl named Annie on our hike), show them with hand motions what you want, sit down, watch Borat, and 3 hours later look in the mirror to find that you suddenly have hair down to your stomach and no braids.

See, no big deal. But the real problem was coming back and having to explain to people why I suddenly had really long hair, how it is perfectly natural to accidentally get fake hair. Go ahead and judge me, but next time you are in Asia and go to a salon for a haircut and walk out with extra long hair or a shaved head, I will look at you, smirk, and say, “Ha!”

I kind of like it now I do say, though I must confess that I do have one little, itty bitty problem: my hair naturally gets really curly when it is wet or humid out…and the fake hair gets very straight.

Taiwan is VERY humid.

But mullets are in these days so once again I say that it could happen to anyone.

Do you know who sings this? Adventures in Australia and New Zealand

“Do you know who sings this?” asked our not so Australian balding taxi driver on our last night in Sydney. It was 2:30 AM, we were four Armenian girls with swollen feet and thumping heads from the terrible techno rave music that we had been listening to for the past 3 hours while 15 year old boys shimmied around us.

“Frank Sinatra?” I guessed, knowing I was right. I had heard the jazzy blues song before, before the stupid electronica unts unts unts had been beaten into my head and I couldn’t think as civilly as I would have liked. I was being nice to the poor taxi driver hauling our sad looking selves to our final destination, but all I really wanted was to get to the house and feel the sweet release of taking off the clogs I had been wearing all night, trying to impress God-knows who….or what. It was our last night in Australia and my mind was beginning to fade back to real life.

But then there was a pause.

“No!” He exclaimed, making my head spin for a moment, “It’s ME!” He said this in the excitement as if he had just found that out for the first time too. “It’s me singing. I am a singer. Here is my CD!”

At that instant, my grogginess and soreness disappeared as our vibrant Ukrainian taxi driver began to belt out “New York New York” out the window on that humid Australian summer night. The louder he got, the more awake we became, clapping, singing, and even attempting to cancan in the back seat.

He went on to explain how he was a grand singer back in the Ukraine and how difficult the transition had been to singing in English in Australia. “But I do have a show coming up soon, I am getting bigger. My name is Zachary…”

……

And this is why I travel.

Welcome to my life. The Armenian wanderer’s life.

This is my story. More specifically, this is my story about my travels to Australia and New Zealand. This is my story about falling in love, my story about adrenaline, about adventures that even I could never have made up myself.

Warning: This is a VERY long blog post and if you make it all the way through, BRAVO! If not, take a meander at the pics of my adventures and as always, write me a comment and maybe, just maybe, we can all be friends.

…………………….

Sydney, Australia December 26,2009

I arrived in Sydney the day after Christmas and was welcomed warmly by my cousin and three friends who had flown in earlier from LA, equipped with Santa hats, hugs, and of course the stormy weather that we seem to unintentionally pack on every trip we go on. We were welcomed into the home of a loving Armenian mother and daughter and after having been in Taiwan for six months, eating Armenian food and being surrounded by “my people” warmed my little Asian heart.

The five of us, Evelina, Karine, Jackie, Luiza, and I spent a few days in Sydney, exploring, getting lost, enjoying the Australian accent and the constant, “cheers mate” as a reply for pretty much anything. How do you respond to that? “You’re welcome? No problem? Checkmate?” Meh. I just smiled.

The next few days were, for me, a transitional culture shock period as I accustomed to seeing the “whyguo” what the Taiwanese call foreigners or literally translated “white people”. I was not used to seeing so many “foreigners” and hearing so much English and it kind of freaked me out for a while, trying not to stare at every white boy or eavesdrop on every conversation just because I could understand.

So frolicking through Sydney brought its own adventures, as many adventures as six Armenian girls can run into. We danced, we walked, we took jumping photos, and we waited for the sun to come out. It didn’t. So we went to Melbourne where we could test our weather luck again.

Melbourne, Australia December 28,2009....or 27th?...I'm confused

It's 5:00 in the morning. Flight is at 6:30. We arrive at the airport. Say our Goodbyes. Go to the self check-in counter. Hmmm? too early to check-in you say? OK. We will wait.6:00 AM, still to early to check in you say? How is that if our flight leaves in half an hour?....oh, wait what? We are too early? Yes, just a little bit, only 24 hours too early to be exact. At the airport on the wrong day, we contemplated sleeping in the airport, paying twice the amount of the original ticket to fly out at that moment, or getting a room for 3 at the cheap airport hotel next to the Krispy Kreams where our borrowed rainbow umbrella got thrashed and tattered in the storm we got stuck in, only having packed clothes for a sunny summer vacation....

Comprendes?

Either way, one of those days, we finally made it to Melbourne and this time the sun finally made a guest appearance.…but all too quickly. We, and when I say we, I mean, “I”, got crisped by the sun. I got Taiwan red, and immediately started peeling, so attractive I was. I made do with my new look as we ventured through their version of a night market (which is exactly the same as the ones here in Taiwan), ate delicious Greek food (go figure), and as we finally got to spend Christmas the Australian way, basking under the sun in our Santa hats.

Making the metro driver hold the train for us as we ran down the ramp, walking all over the city in high heels looking for a dance club that had been right next to our hotel, sipping champagne on black tattered leather couches at a rave club avoiding talking to a sweaty Latvian boy with his shirt tucked in his back pocket while my cousin twirled around the empty dance floor at 4 AM….well these are just the beginning of my adventures.

Sydney December 31, 2009

Zoo

Real Australian Kangaroo. They don't make em like that anymore.

I think they are being a little over dramatic.

Cutest little guy.

One of the largest crocodiles ever. He killed two of his previous mates and lives all alone now. Sad little guy.

Now on to New Year's Eve

OOOohh, New Year’s Eve 2009, Thank you for all the lifetime full of memories you have provided me with. I am forever indebted. Yours truly, Anna.

Now, there is much I cannot say about that night, but I can give you a glimpse. Picture this. It is my cousin’s birthday, so of course we are going to celebrate her and give her a bit extra to drink and be merry. Somehow when we got to the club that we had reserved months in advance, we were all a bit too merry.

Enjoying ourselves at the empty hub, we did what girls do best when they are together; we took pictures of ourselves, hugged and said, “I really do love you, so much”, and scanned the place for guys to talk to. In the midst of our scanning and mingling, the security at the club got suspicious of our merriness.

With a huge grin on my cousin’s face that spoke of a life thoroughly lived and a night already enjoyed, security escorted her out of the club. Not one to ever miss an adventure like this, Jackie and I went out with her and even at this point, I knew that what I had here was a story to tell her grandchildren. We decided to sober up a little by walking around and dancing in the streets and when the time felt right, we decided to try again at our previous location to rejoin our group of friends.

Security did not buy it. “Take another walk around the block,” he said.

That was enough to cause the sequel to this story, “The Revenge of the Evelina”. Sure we were a little wobbly, and our smiles couldn’t hide our true feelings, but it was her birthday and we were causing no sort of trouble. I thought it was pretty funny, but Eva for some reason did not. With tears over her face and anger over her eyes, I am sure the club will be shut down in a few months. I have always wanted to know what it feels like to be kicked out of a place, you know, maybe check off one of my “100 things to do before I die” list. But her story will have to do.

Finally meeting up with all the girls, we walked to the fireworks show, admired the spectacular spectacular (or what each of us saw), and Eva, Luisa, and Karine spent the rest of the night walking the city looking for a taxi while Jackie and I had our own adventures. All getting home at the same time, around 5 in the morning, we lay on one bed, laughing about our lives, about how somehow we had ended up being all together in Australia on New Year’s Eve 2009.

And that is how we brought in the New Year, uncomfortably sprawled on one bed in our fancy dresses, laughing. Perfect.

Auckland, New Zealand January 1, 2010

If this is love. If this is loooooveeeee.

What did we NOT experience in New Zealand?

So not to be rude, but while you were probably sitting at work counting numbers and the hours until lunch, or unintentionally watching American Idol (or whatever show is popular these days), or just sitting on the toilet contemplating your life….

I was:

Free Falling from 12,000 feet from a tiny airplane, looking like an egg head screaming for dear life;

Repelling down the side of a mountain along a waterfall, lowering myself down by one rope;

Strapping on white plastic shoes to be able to walk in the dark caves 600 ft. underground and inner tube underneath glowworms that appear to be the sweet touches of God’s lights (though it is their poop that glows);

Driving a giant ATV, guided in the jungles and breathtaking countryside by a native Mauri tribesman whose family has lived on the land for 800 years;

And finally, rolling down a hill in a ball with my cousin. No explanation needed there because all I remember is laughing until my throat was sore and my face distorted.

Basically I fell in love with the vast green hills, the peace that comes with the people that live in that kind of simplicity and the beauty of the whole country and everything it stands for. So here is my love letter to NZ, or to our mulleted tour guide in the Waitomo caves where he serenaded us while we drifted on our romantic inner tubes.

Dear country/mullet boy,

I had traveled and seen much of the world, but I never understood true living until I met you. Thank you for making my heart beat faster than anyone ever could, for making my adrenaline force bravery upon me, for allowing me to pee in the wet suites though we were specifically told not to, and for just being the peacefulness that you are.

You are quirky and for that and for all the adventures we had together, I will remember you and will one day come back to you as many lovers promise to one another.

So wait for me, as I will for you. Stay green, uninhabited, beautiful, and foxy. I love you. Yours Truly.

We had not much time to shed tears for departing from our new love because we left our hotel 3 in the morning, awaiting our flight back to Cairns, Australia, where we would get our last fill of adventure.

January 6, 2010 Cairns, Australia

One thing about Cairns before I get deep and lyrical… there are bats! And I don’t mean the cute ones (if there are such) but big juicy scary ones that hang from trees right above the sidewalk, ready to strike down on any defenseless foreigner ignorant enough to walk the streets at night.

Seriously. If you have been brave and patient enough to have read this whole blog post, take away this thing and this thing alone, NEVER walk the streets of Cairns at night because Dracula’s minions will inevitably squawk and attack with their vicious wings and moonless night black bodies.

I mean, we actually never got attacked by them, but one did chase Luiza and me down the street all the way back to our hotel as we ran in the middle of the street waving our hands about and screaming in a mix of English and Armenian, for fear that it might understand one language or the other and call for backup.

But other than the creepy inhabitants of the night, Cairns truly was amazing. We went to a night market which was again, nothing more than a small version of Taiwan, where I got to practice the little Chinese I know and where we sat on black leather recliners, taking swigs from a fruity wine, and getting our feet massaged by gawking Asian boys. That is called living the good life.

What else I did get to see of Cairns was another world completely, literally. We took the day snorkeling tour and saw a world that had a life of its own: spiraling colorful coral, eclectic sea anemones, jumping fish, and of course, the most exciting, a huge homey sea turtle that gently swam around and came up for air. Ahh! Such an amazing experience that made me realize how much this world sustains itself without our meddling, and there it was, right under my floating mass, easily disturbed by one wrong kick of my flipper. Incredible, the whole idea that this world is mostly water, mostly them, not me…not us.

Our bro SCUBA instructor graciously suggested a place for us ladies to go out at night and when later we got to the bar in the Great Barrier Reef capital of Australia, what we found was a country bar called the Woolshed where tables were set up for dancing atop. What a silly thing to find. But it worked for us and apparently it worked for our instructor and his compatriots as they began arriving FOB, literally, still smelling like fish and SCUBA gear. Characters they were and characters they will be, in flower swimming trunks and a black suit jacket. Classy. Needless to say, we enjoyed our night, dancing and laughing and even having a go at the tables, though my clumsiness allotted only a two minute dance before I got back on solid ground.

And that was our adventure in Cairns and almost the end of our adventure in the Great Down Under.

Sydney, Australia January 9, 2010

We went to a rave club, had a meh time. Little did we know our lives would never be the same as we walked out of the club with sore feet and bleeding nerves, as we hailed the first cab we saw, and sat in on the best cab ride ever….

“Do you know who sings this?”

Big Gulps huh?....Welp, see you later.

Big Gulps Huh?
Sometimes life accumulates so quickly that I have not the realization that so much time has passed by.
This month will mark the four month anniversary of life in Taiwan and I can't imagine it otherwise. I don't know if "I'm happy" is the right emotion or sentiment to describe about living here. Of course I am happy and content being here, but it is so much more, oh so much more.

I have dared to live outside of my normal life and here are some of the adventures that have occurred recently so Come along.

There are so many ups in being so far away and in such a strange place, but don't mistake these adventure stories for a happily ever after story.
I have had my hard days and one such day was the passing of my beloved uncle. He was literally one of those people in life that can just laugh and pull out their clarinet and make the world a happy and innocent place once again.
After suffering much, he passed away and left such blessed memories of his beautiful life.

He was a special person, and noticed by all...by the people he tried to talk to in his verrrry broken English, the people he would sing to when he didn't know what else to say, even the nurses whom he swooned whilst being taken care of.
They would ask me on several occasions, "Is he your grandpa? Because he is one special person".
And yes, he was often confused for my grandpa, but no one ever doubted how special he was.
The only confusion I ever had was which to compare him more to: the Monopoly or the KFC man. He was just that kind of person.

Last year, before he got sick, he met some of my best friends from college and he showed off his amazing power to laugh and have a conversation without understanding a word my friends said.

And when all else failed, he went to his room and pulled out his clarinet that he hadn't tuned for ages, dusted off the mouthpiece, an prdoceeded to play for us such unfamiliar and stringy songs that we couldn't help but cheer him on and laugh and understand that this was no ordinary man.

Well one of my friends, Jess, after hearing about his passing away wrote me an email expressing her sorrow for such a loss. She also wrote this ode that seemed so befitting. It is real. It is beautiful. It is Lova.


Ode to Armenian Uncle
oh giggly, Armenian uncle
you will always be in my honorary, Armenian heart
i am delighted you are frolicking around on Mt. Ararat
on a mound of Akmak's and lavash,
spread with lebne aplenty
Armenian heaven rejoice.




Jess, it is lovely. Thanks.

After the pain of losing such a beloved uncle, something else quite crazy and out of control occurred.

After a long day of work and bowling until 2 am with my awesome Smokin Shoes team, I came home exhausted and ready to sleep so I could go to work at 8:30 for my kindergarten class. That was not how the night proceeded.

At 4 am, I shot out of my bed (much like I did that night in San Diego when the drunk girl crashed her car in front of my house), as I heard the doorbell ringing and ringing.
One emotion I felt, FEAR. Understandably right?
With my hair swooped over my face and my makeshift pajamas, i tiptoed to the door and ever so frightfully opened the door.
Is my building on fire? Should I grab my valuables? Do I have time to pee?
I didn't have time.
I had no time to react for when I opened the door, there was no little Taiwanese man standing there yelling and motioning me to run for my dear life, instead it was my mother, my very own blood mother who stood in front of me jumping up and down...if you know my mom, that is not an exaggeration. She was literally jumping and dancing and not allowing my mind to process the scene before me.
Hmmmm. Hmmmmm. I don't understand.
"Mooooom?" I said as if I needed to prove it to myself...."mooooom?.....what.....are you doing here???"
Was all I could produce.
Well she came and she cleaned and she cooked, and she mothered me for a few days and then left me alone to wonder if she was ever really here. But the chocolate in the fridge is proof enough that she was.
It was lovely having my mama here. No matter how old we are or how independent, we are reduced to babies when our mothers are around. Once again, if I had to sneeze, she asked if I was sick. If I was too tired, she would bring food to me and tell me how amazing I am and say things that only moms can get away with for saying. It was grand. We had much fun and random adventures together.

We went to a cultural boat burning festival. We stood till 5 am in the ocean next to this grand wooden million dollar boat, waiting for it to set sail and burn in the horizon against the rising sun,
.... but instead after all the waiting, we got smoked out and became part of the sacrifice as the boat was burned on the sand.... right in front of us....and 20,000 people...without ANY safety regulations. Sometimes the things that don't make sense here, just don't make ANY sense.



After surviving that together, we hiked, drove along the mountains, got massages, and spent some time with my students dancing and being the people we are best.

She said the best part of Taiwan was my group of friends. So cheers to them!


Plus i got this amazing "jumping" pic of my mom which I cry from laughing every time I look at her face!! It is out of control!
It looks like one of my students. She is Taiwanese. Her name is Mendy. She is two.

Moving on.
Went on a girl's camping trip to this beautiful island where we camped, hiked, swam, snorkeled and of course got attacked by a swarm of jellyfish in mating season. At least that is what it seemed like. Out of breath and having survived a jellyfish guerrilla attack, we met this man who let us roam around with starfish and sea slugs and all kinds of strange and colorful sea creatures, reminding us that Taiwan is some kind of special. It really is.

Camping in this amazing island has just been one of the many mini adventures that reminds me what my life if about. Sitting over the cliffs overlooking the most amazing sunset and eating squid on a stick that we had just barbecued, I smiled. Yes, that is it, I smiled. It was for real though, one of those deep smiles that is utterly necessary to feel alive.

In between weekends, I spend days playing Settlers of Catan with Sandra and my coworker Miranda and her boyrfriend, going to night markets, going to dinner with the crew, watching The Office, bowling, reading The Idiot by Master D himself, and going to yoga on monkey mountain every wednesday where i get to hike and swim after with the monkeys. Just kidding, the monkeys no swim. They afraid of water. But they do hike with me.

And then Halloween happened.
That is a different kind of story.
Halloween just came and went by. What more is there to say? Had a party at school that we had been preparing for months, where all my munchkins showed up as vampires....of all things.
Here are some of them in class while I am attempting to teach...attempting mind you.

Then afterward, we all got ready at the Babbaganoush. Sandra dressed everyone up and we ended up with a Newsie, a Soviet Union Spy (Svetlana Fyodorovna Barashnikov), Frida Kahlo, A dirty Mexican, and a gypsy.

Normally the gypsy is my easy outfit, but I decided to be a little more sly this time so I bought a gun, put the soviet flag on my fur hat and called myself a russian spy. Done and Done.


We went to a party at a place called "The Roof" which was not to be confused with actually being on the roof. I give it a little credit...it did have a balcony.

People had some incredible outfits ranging from little boy superheroes,

to bunnies in body tight outfits....boys in body tight bunny outfits,

a golden Buddha, which won the grand prize of $10,000 NT

H1N1, and the other seriously odd costumes and get ups.
this is our friend Trevor from Canada. He wears afros.

All to say, after dancing alllll night, we got home at 6 in the morning, rested our weary heads, and called the night a success!!

That brings us up to the present. The present of me sitting here, the weather getting cooler, nay, colder. The present where my classes are starting to feel normal and I know the kids' names and kill at least two cockroaches everyday. The present you know, when life seems to be settling in.

I miss my family dearly. I miss friends nearly and clearly and ever so merely.
To those who read this blog, thanks for connecting with me and for letting me know.
Emily M and Emily S, Ashley, Evelina (my sista from another mista) and all those who read it that I don't know of.
Knowing others read this somehow makes me feel not so far away, not so distant.

Sending enough love to barely cross the Pacific and make it around the world to you guys. Life is good. Love is good. Loving Life is really good.

Welp, see you later.