Abroad Trip Day 4

I did not sleep well at all last night. Despite the fact that I was running on 4 hours of sleep for the past 3 days, I woke up after about 3 hours, and continued to wake up every 20-60 minutes after that. I woke with a headache that stayed with me for most of the day.

Breakfast was eggs, tomatoes, toast and coffee. It was delicious and exactly what I needed.

We started off the day taking seelaws to ISDSI. Seelaws are red pickup trucks with tall toppers over the bed, and benches in them. They're a mix between busses and taxis. You flag them on the side of the road, haggle a price per person for where you want to go, and then hop in the back. However, you may not be the only passenger, because they stop to pick up more people if they have room.

Anyway, ISDSI stands for International Sustainable Development Studies Institute, which is a group which studies development and sustainability through agriculture and education. We had a lecture from Amanda, a PhD candidate from Cornell, who talked about citizenship in Thailand, and why many people who have lived in Thailand for hundreds of years are not recognized as Thai citizens. They then brought in lunch for everyone. I am not entirely sure what I ate, but there were many delicious greens, overcooked bacon and congealed blood. ...Yum... (it actually wasn't bad. Liver-ish).

Then we went to an elementary school to learn how schools function here, and explore how schools deal with students who don't have citizenship (all school is provided for free from 1-9^th grade). The talked with the principle of the school and a professor from CMU. Two girls brought everyone coffee and a snack for everyone. It was awesome. We played with the 6^th graders, and we taught them songs and they taught us songs.

After, I went to the mall. I needed shampoo and conditioner. I bought some for 70 baht each. They're dark purple in color, which is weird to me. I also bought a nice green Thai shirt. One thing I learned about Thai culture at the mall is that when people walk past each other, they walk toward their left, not their right. They drive on the other side of the road as well.

I ate dinner with a few people at the restaurant in front of the organic vegetables restaurant. We don't know its name because I can't read Thai. 30 baht for a good sized and good tasting sweet and sour chicken.

After that, homework and bed! Awesome.

Piran Day 4

This morning was unfortunate. I had trouble sleeping from 3-6 again. At 7, I woke up, went down to breakfast, ate a delightful meal (although the eggs were scrambled with ham this morning instead of sunny side up, so I did not eat them). Then I went upstairs to see if my last grade has been posted yet.

All that showed up on my computer was a blue screen. A blue screen of death more specifically.

It was a disappointing morning. Now I won´t be able to use my own computer until I get back to school in February. Alors, I am using the computer in the hostel, which has a slavic keyboard. Easier to use than French because most of the letters are the same, but the Y and Z are switched around, which is surprisingly more annoying than I imagined. Also, it took us about an hour to find the @ symbol.

You must hit ˝Alt Gr˝ + ˝V˝ @@@@@@@ I found it!

Anyway, if there is a random z in my post, please forgive me.

Back to Day 4, now. We went to class, in the warm and humid classroom at the Institute. Interesting lecture, but warm and humid and full and tired = one sleepy Catey!

We ate a quick and filling lunch after in a hotel's cafe. I don't really know what I ate, but it tasted good. The waiter said it was like soy cakes, but they tasted like crab to me. It was served with some sort of mashed potatoes or polenta or something. Plus we had a delightful appetizer of brown bread, lettuce, tomatoes and some sort of potato salad/cole slaw/something. It'd be nice if menus are in English or French but it tasted good even if I didn't know what it is! I'll upload pictures to facebook once I get my computer working again.

Then we watched movie about the 12 day war of independence in Slovenia. I didn't really know who all was talking, so I was kind of confused. The fact that the warm, humid, dark room + food in my belly made it hard to stay awake.

Then we went to the market and bought stuff for dinner. I made penne with diced tomatoes and peas with some sort of cheese (like gruyere or something). It was pretty good. The kitchenette is limited, but nice to have.