Cambodia

Wow. So much has happened in the last week. I'm in Cambodia now and for the next 3 weeks, I'' be staying at the MAD (make a difference)for good House. It's a house owned by the Starling family who decided to move to Cambodia and adopt orphans. There are 8 orphans and I teach them English in the afternoons with Sofi, the Starling's 17 year old daughter. It's very different than what I thought it would be, but I'm having a lot of fun!

Backtracking to Thailand, it was awesome! We took an overnight train to Chiang Mai (in the north). We stayed there for 2 nights. During the day, we went to a Thai cooking school where I learned how to make Cashew Chicken, Spring Rolls, and Coconut Milk Soup. We all went to the local market and got ingredients and learned abou the local fruits and vegetables. I tried a silkworm. It was disgusting! That night, we went to a Thai Boxing match. It got really intense and a little bloody, but it was cool.

After Chiang Mai, we drove into the mountains in the back of a pickup truck, which was definitely an adventure. Then we stopped at a local place for lunch and the trekking began. Since it's the rainy season, there was so much mud! Going uphill wasn't so bad, except for my poor calves! But on the downhill I was slipping and sliding everywhere! Over the three deays of trekking, we swam at a waterfall, rode elephants, and went bamboo rafting! We slept in these really cool huts in the hilltribe villages and our guides made us real, authentic thai food for dinner and sometimes lunch. When we got back to Chiang Mai, we took bikes all around town and then hopped on another overnight train back to Bangkok, where I met up with my parents and had dinner with them. Then my parents and I flew to Cambodia and now I'm here!

Later on I'll post pictures of the past week!

I'm here!

Today is day 2 of my trip. Yesterday we were free to walk around Bangkok on our own, which I did. At first I got totally lost with the map that the hotel gave me, especially because random Thai people on the street would see me walking around with a map and try to give me directions. So then I finally realized that I have google maps on my phone with a gps which tells me exactly where I am and where I shold be going. So, armed with my phone, I figured out Bangkok. I went to the National Gallery, which was ok. I was walking around the museum and I saw The Haywain by John Constable, except it wasn't by John Constable, so there was really original and quality art there. Then I made my way to the National Museum. They were doing construction, so the one building that was open was just a walkthrough of Thai history through diaramas. There were a ton of battles so all the diaramas were people swordfighting on top of elephants. That seems like it would be really difficult, because what if the elephant decides to go to the bathroom, or sees a peanut on the ground? Anyways, last night the group met up for the first time! Including the guide, there are 4 of us, but we're meeting someone else in Chiang Mai, so that's 5. It's a little less that I expected, but smaller groups can move around much more easily, so it'll be fun. My roommate's name is Gemma, she's from Scotland and is 23, her accent is hilarious, I can understand what she's saying about 60% of the time. So anyways, last night we went out for thai food on Kao Sarn road, which is really famous and way crowded. I got pad thai, which was delicious, the other girl on my trip, Juliana (she's Portugese but from Australia), got cashew chicken, which was awesome too. Our guide, Chai, is from Thailand and is not a pro at speaking English at all, but he can translate everything into Thai, which is useful. So I won't be updating for a few days because we leave for Chiang Mai and the 3 day hilltribe trek tonight and I doubt that there will be any computers in the mountains. Wish me luck!

Thailand on Monday!!

News!

So I have good news! I'm finally figuring out what I'll be doing after Asia. I get back on October 31st, so I have to do something! I spoke with my gap year counselor, Joanna, and she said that someone was looking for an intern for LILLY PULITZER! In MANHATTAN! For 3 MONTHS! I'm so excited! The internship is in the marketing and licensing office which is what I want to be doing when I'm older. If I get the internship (fingers crossed!), I would start in November and finish at the end of January. After that, I might do another internship in Tel Aviv or London for a month or two, and then go on a GVI (Global Vision International) program in the Seychelles! The GVI program is 5, 8, or 10 weeks long and involves scuba diving, marine research, and wildlife conservation. I've never done anything like that before so I'm way excited. So this itinerary is Plan A. I'm working on Plan B now, so it might include the scuba diving in the fall or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, but Plan A and B are based on whether or not I'll be in New York for the rest of the fall. I can't believe I'm leaving on Monday!