Tuk Tuks and Fisherman's Pants

I feel like I've been here for weeks, but it's really only been a few days. Right now I'm in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia. I arrived in Thailand last Friday, but I'm not going to tell you about that because I was less than happy that day. On Saturday, somebody picked me up and I went to the bus station with a guy named Paul. Paul has some time off work and decided to go through the TESOL training in order to travel a bit. Paul and I took a bus to Bangkok and hopped back onto a plane which took us to Cambodia. When we got to Cambodia, Trea picked us up, along with Amy. Amy is from the UK and has a year left of uni, but decided to do this over summer break. Anyways, a tuk tuk picked us up to take us to our airport. A tuk tuk is not what I was expecting. haha A tuk tuk is a moped with a cart attached to it that should be meant for about 4 people to ride in max, but in Southeast Asia, they cram about 7 or 8 people in them. So, their were 4 people, 4 suitcases, and 4 backpacks in this tuk tuk. It would have been a fun ride, but then Amy's suitcase fell out of the tuk tuk, we ran over it and it went down the street. She had to jump out in front of hundreds of motorbikes and go catch it. haha It was kindof scary. Then, later 2 motorbikes ran into our tuk tuk!! haha I was worried about them, but nobody stopped or seemed to care that we had just been in an accident. Since then I've had several rides in tuk tuks and they've all gone rather smoothly. haha

Their are 11 of us in Cambodia for two weeks and 7 of us live in the same villa. My room is upstairs and on the porch. Everybody else seems to think I got the bad deal, but I love it. I have a screen door and then a glass door and then a curtain, so everything is nice and open and I feel like I'm outside. Everybody is completely different here too, but it's been a lot of fun getting to know them. We all come from completely different backgrounds; different ages, professions, homes, traveling experience. It's interesting to hear how we all ended up here.

Over the weekend we took a tour of Phnom Pehn. We went on tours of the Royal Palace and of a temple that I keep forgetting the name of... I should ask somebody. haha Anyways, we're all kindof being left in the dark about a lot of things while we are here. It has definitely been a learning experience. One of the things nobody prepared us on was that their is a dress code at the Royal Palace. Several of us were out of dress code, including me. I was wearing shorts that day. Well, they made me rent these fisherman's pants which were a bit too big. Our very nice tuk tuk driver, Daria, had to help me hitch them up and tie them in a strange way so that they looked even stranger than normal. Needless to say, it was absolutely hilarious. haha We all looked so funny. I'm actually glad nobody told me about the dress code, because it made for some really good pictures.

Today was our first class day and it felt really good to be in class. I genuinely enjoyed it. It made me realize how much I really was not ready to graduate. I like learning. Teaching English is going to be really fun too. I get to apply some of the things I already know, but it's completely different also. A completely different student and subject area. You have to present the information in a different view. Ít'll be nice to do something different.

The rest of the week is full of class and hanging out at night! Then we are off to Angkor Wat this weekend, which I've been looking forward to the most about Cambodia!!