Week 1 (Has it only been one week?)

Time has been passing at a strange rate – I can’t believe we’ve only been here three days. The time flew by, but it feels like it's been so much longer than three days. We've been going non-stop since we arrived. Tomorrow, we’ll be meeting the homestay families with whom we'll be staying for the next two months of training.

We spent most of the day biking and learning about bike maintenance yesterday. My group's instructor's name was Bottle. (Thai people have very interesting nicknames. And they're usually a lot easier to remember than their actual names.) I thought I knew a lot about biking but realized I knew nothing about bike maintenance! We learned how to take out (and put back in) the front and back tires and patch a flat tire. Never done that before. There's a first time for everything - why not do it in Thailand? :)

This morning we met the governor of the province of Ayutthaya. It must have been their casual Friday because he and members of his staff were wearing Hawaiian-looking shirts that featured native things to Ayutthaya. Each of us stood and individually introduced ourselves to him in Thai. In his welcome speech (in Thai), he told us there had been a cowboy party the night before. "Sorry you missed it," he said, lol, but promised to host another one before the end of our training.

I haven't uploaded photos yet so this post will be just words (I know, when was the last time I did that?!) They tell us internet access will be sporadic for the next two months at least. Therefore, not sure when I'll be able to update next, but stay posted.