First Week in Chiang Mai

So much leg room!

I will start from the airport in Ko Samui. I got there with good time, but my flight was delayed an hour. Eventually when we  got our shuttle from the gate to the plane (got to love small airports) and we get on the plane, I check my ticket and find my seat. It seems as though I had been bumped up to first class. How lovely, mostly cause the leg room was amazing. It wasn't like crazy awesome first class with like my own little pod, but it was better then the seats in economy class. I noticed a girl looking at the seat beside me and at her ticket, fairly confused. I told her I was too but to just accept the fact that we got upgraded. So she sat down. Turns out we were both headed to Chiang Mai. It was a nice quick flight from Ko Samui to Bangkok. In Bangkok we had to catch a connecting flight to Chiang Mai, and because of the delay we had to book it there. We ran from one gate to the next, and made it just before they were boarding. We got on the plane, no longer in first class, but it was a short flight so it didn't matter. Arriving in Chiang Mai, I went straight to the baggage claim. I watched as bags were being claimed everywhere around me. I found my new friend and waited with her. Eventually no bags were coming out and we were bagless. A lady came over to tell us that those of us who came from Ko Samui's bags were still in Bangkok. She led us to an office where we could leave our information to get our luggage sent to us. It was my turn to go in. She took my information, but when she asked what hotel I was staying at and I explained I lived in a house, she didn't seem to understand. I showed her the address I had for my house, still no real understanding. She told me I could come pick up my luggage later, that it should be there by 730pm. It was 3pm at this time. I asked her if they were going to pay for my cab, as I probably do not have a way to get back to the airport later. She just kept telling me cabs were only 100 baht, even though that was not true. After a bit of a language barrier battle, I got the number to call to check if my luggage had arrived and I set out to find a cab. The first couple cab drivers I showed my address to, did not understand and sent me to find other cab drivers. I went to the next door where there was a lady in charge of a bunch of cab drivers. I showed them the address I had. The women kept saying it was a large area, asking what hotel I was in, the hotel's phone number, not quite listening to the fact that it was a house. No one seemed to understand the address I had, as I went around to any cab driver I saw. At this point I was getting emotional. I had tried to hold in the tears but without my luggage and not knowing where the hell I was going, I finally let it out. Thankfully I found a wireless signal and was texting Ryan through it and he calmed me down a little and put things into perspective, I definitely would've had a meltdown. I tried to find a pay phone, to no avail. So I found my new roommate, Kyle's, number on Facebook, who was waiting at home for me, put my sim card in my phone (oh the charges I will have on this month's bill) and called him. He gave me directions, using a few landmarks to help me out. When I relayed these directions to the cab drivers, the woman in charge kept saying they needed a phone number and that no one would drive me. Finally one of the more English speaking drivers called Kyle and had him meet us at a Pharma Choice close to the house. Then they sent a different driver to take me. This man was super nice, but as we are driving and we pass the few landmarks I remember Kyle telling me to look for, I got worried. I try to explain to him that we just passed the Pharma Choice but he doesn't really understand. He finally calls Kyle and does a u-turn. Then he sees a 7/11 (another of the landmarks near the Pharma Choice, but not the right one) and does another u-turn. I explain to him that it's not the right one... so after one more u-turn we find Kyle sitting outside the Pharma Choice on his bike, reading. Thankfully he was awesome. And he took me home.

Once we were home, two of the other teachers Linh and Leah, came over. Then the four of us went out to Salsa Kitchen for dinner to meet up with two other teachers Anna and Lynn. At some point I called the airport to check on my luggage, they said it would be in by 7-730. I said I would be there for 9, as it was the only time I could get there. She asked me to come earlier. I said I couldn't and asked if I could come in the morning. Eventually she gave in and said 9 was okay, apparently they close at 730-8, when the last flight has come in. So after dinner, Kyle, Linh and Leah, on their three motorbikes, took me back to the airport to get my luggage. Kyle and I went in, and they were sitting there waiting for me, we got there just after 8, so it wasn't so bad. We strapped one suitcase to the back of Leah's bike and the other to Linh's, and we rode over to meet Anna and Lynn at the Drunken Flower to have a drink and listen to a couple guys play the guitar and sing. It was quite lovely. We left my luggage in Anna and Lynn's car, and enjoyed the music. Afterwards, they took me and my luggage home. And I had a wonderful sleep.

My first week here, after my nightmare day at the airport, was great. I felt like I really just fell into place. I started teaching on the Monday, which was such a great day. I am teaching Grade 6 Language Arts, and my students are amazing. Grade 6 is broken up into two homerooms, and so I only have 13 students at a time for each class. The school day is broken up into 6 periods, and I teach 4 out of the 6, and have two 50-minute prep periods to plan and mark. It's pretty nice for my first teaching job. I got right into the swing of things, planning out lessons for each aspect of language arts that I teach. And it's actually really enjoyable. I have had a lot of jobs in my life, and I have liked some of them mildly, but it is so much different to go into work every day and enjoy what you do. Teaching is that for me. It's been so nice to actually be excited about planning lessons and teaching classes. I haven't felt this happy at work in a long time. Aside from teaching, my first week was very relaxed, as most nights were spent at home hanging out, even though we didn't have internet at home until the Monday after I started teaching. It's amazing how disconnected one can feel without internet. My only form of communication was emailing while at work, and a couple phone calls on my cheap Thai cell I bought, literally costed me like 20 dollars Canadian for my cell phone. The first Friday night here, we had a few of the girls over for dinner. It was lovely. All of them are so nice, and I really enjoy hanging out with them. Linh and Leah took me for my first ride on the motorbike, me driving. I took Kyle's and they took their own and we rode down the street to the little store. It wasn't a long ride but I was pretty shaky so that's probably good. The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxed too. As most people just got back from holidays and pay day isn't until the end of the month, trying not to spend too much money until then seems to be the plan for most, myself included. Kyle and I went over to the girls' place to use their internet, and Kyle let me drive the motorbike home. Aside from my shaky u-turn, I think I did pretty good.

After that, we finally got internet on Monday, after a struggle making plans for them to come install it and to fix it, and all that. It was a blessing. Then we had to move the router upstairs after a couple days of realizing the range is so bad we couldn't get signal in our rooms. So now we have internet upstairs, but not downstairs. Which is fine, but kind of sucks if we want to sit downstairs or if I want to use wifi to iMessage people back home while I am downstairs. Clearly my life is rough, internet only upstairs is my biggest problem. Well one of. We also went over to the night bazaar on Thursday, which was awesome. I love the night markets. I love markets. I love cheap shopping. I could have bought so many things. It was ridiculous. We had some really good Indian food at the night bazaar and wandered around...

Night Bazaar, loved it!

Night Bazaar

Colourful umbrellas.

Random little trinkets.

Scarves, so many colours!

One of the booths at the Night Bazaar.

Friday night Kyle and I went over to the principal's place for dinner with a bunch of the teachers. It was a lot of fun. We had a great meal and lot of laughs with the principal and vice principal. Who knew you could have that much fun hanging out with your bosses. It was great. We left there around midnight, and stopped at 7/11 on our way home for some random treats. I bought a bun for breakfast the next morning. Kyle let me drive home, since there weren't a lot of cars on the road and I need to practice. This time I feel I did really well. I need a bit more practice and I should be good to rent one after pay day, well mine will be more of a scooter, less sporty. I am pretty excited.

Saturday, which was yesterday was fun and random. Kyle and I went to Duke's for lunch, and then decided to go scope out a bike for me. The place didn't have any at the moment but said they should have some scooter types by pay day, so I will definitely be going back. We strolled along that random street, went for pedicures, journeyed through a temple we came across and then went home. After we were home for a bit we headed out again to see the Umbrella Festival. We wandered down the closed off street looking at all the stalls of things to buy/eat, and met up with Linh and Brigitte. They were getting their portraits drawn by some art students who's teacher is dating Kyle's TA at school. So we got ours done afterwards. Kyle's turned out really good, mine makes me look like I have no chin, but it's pretty good otherwise. Then we wandered around some more, I bought a dress (of course) for 190 baht ($6CAD) and we bought some sweets for less than a dollar. It was a great day of random adventures, I really enjoyed seeing all of it. I took so many pictures of anything and everything. I'd rather have too many pictures while I am here, than not enough :)

Pretty bench swing and unmbrellas at the Umbrella Festival

Guy drawing me, Kyle in the background

Me and some umbrellas 

I bought two.. they were delicious.

So many random umbrella displays.

Kids making their own umbrellas, so cool!

I wanted one, for no particular reason.

Just cool.

Me being like the girls who posed before me.

And so that is up to date, my posts will never be this long again! Promise! Now onto some lesson planning and such. Maybe go outside and read a bit first. I am almost done this book and it is amazing, The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett and Amanda Pressner. Read it if you like reading/travel, it is excellent. That is all.