Birthday Weekend July 24-26

Sorry for the limited posts this month. Even though I only had about fourteen real teaching days, I still managed to be super busy. But today is Sunday, a wind down kind of day. I just finished doing a massive load of laundry and now I'm listening to Hall and Oates in a really hot bedroom. If I turn on the air con, though, I might wear it out before night time comes. That's when I really need it. Hall and Oates are complaining about a woman that's gone and I realize that I need to get out of the house. So, I'm leaving after I write this.

This year's birthday was so awesome because I spent it in a pretty awesome city, abroad. Also, it landed on a Friday. Celebration bled well into Saturday and today too, I guess. Who's going to stop me from making it a three day festival? Here are some photos:

My 3/6 Tourism students surprised me with a cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to me. It was the best English I'd ever heard out of them. Their thoughtfulness made me a little tearful. They were upset by this. "Teacha! Don't cry!" The students had reports due that day. They didn't do them. Mmh.


That's my badminton friend Nut sitting next to me. He's got the responsibility of teaching all of these new Chinese students Thai. They're all really lovely and enthusiastic about learning though. They also sang "Happy Birthday" This led to believe that this song was obviously universally know. Friday was also my scheduled cooking lesson with Nut in the cafeteria. We learned how to green curry. The girls and I sampled more than we took notes.



Friday night! These are Dave's three friends(Sarah, Lauren, and Jenny), who just flew in from England that day. They were lovely enough to come out to help celebrate. My other friends Grace and Lynda joined in as well a little later. Our first stop was Mulligans' Irish Pub.

Grace and Lynda impressed? Maybe.

That was an extremely long night and it will be a long time before I have another. But it was really enjoyable and something to remember forever.

The next day, Saturday, was more mellow but equally fun. I met my friend Cindy at the largest and most elegant mall in the world. One could go to a Coach store, walk out of that and into a Prada store, and then into a Gucci store. Would that person buy anything? Maybe not, but this is where the more affluent Thai and rich tourists shop. On one floor you can buy a Lamborghini!

Cindy introduced me to the biggest English bookstore I'd seen in Bangkok so far. It was so exciting to sit and browse things in English! I'm definitely going back because there was a coffee shop to sit at and read too. It really reminded me sitting at Borders with Noah.

After that, we went to our friend Bo's place where he and Pak had a lovely lunch waiting for us. It was just supposed to be a birthday tea time, but when I wasn't paying attention, Pak came out of the kitchen with a cake! It was sooo nice! Here's a look at it, it says Happy Birthday Miss Gra-tai, Thailand 2009, I think.

So that was the weekend. It has started raining right now and the clothes I just hung out to dry are getting a bit wet. I'm going to have to let you all go rescue my underwear before it flys off my balconey and then go get something to eat. But I will try to get back with you regularly, okay?