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!