finally!

okay.
i've now been in chiang mai for.. about 3 days? 2 and a half? whatever.
i will go back and fill everything in to the best of my ability.
i have some pictures to help.

we got in around 5ish, and then we were driven to the campus in a red truck.
apparently that is how we go most places.. they have a deal with the college or something.. it's pretty cheap if you have a bunch of people (about 20 baht per person, usually).
this truck..
well it stalled before we left the airport parking lot.
it has a covered back..
without a door or anything.
that's where we sat, on benches that went lengthwise down each side of the truck bed, staring out the back and windows the whole way to campus.
a lot (and when i say a lot, i mean A LOT) of people drive motorscooter things.
they don't go in the lanes, usually. then again, i'm not always sure the cars do either.
driving is insane.
so, we got to campus and went to our rooms. my roommate was here. her name is Tei.. it sounds like "toy". she's an english major, as are most of the students we see, for some reason.. hmm..
the room is amazing.
it's like a hotel room, really. we have our own bathroom.
the weirdest thing, besides the general lack of toilet paper just about everywhere, is that there are no drawers in the rooms.
i have one tiny drawer in my closet. everything else is shelves.

that night, we went to carrefour. it's basically french walmart.. with a bunch of other stores connected to it (in front there were several vendors as well).
we went with this girl named shannon, who got in that day and was a bit jet lagged (she's still claiming to be today, and i told her that the excuse won't last much longer). her roommate drove, and my roommate sat up front.
when my roommate turned around to talk to us, shannon got this amazing look on her face.
amazing in the sense that she looked rather..
scared to death.
she hadn't realized that her roommate was driving (on the right side of the car). it was quite amusing.

on sunday, we met all of the ipsl students.. we all went out to lunch with adam, the program director. he took us to a wonderful restaurant.. decorated with.. parrots.
it was good food, and we found out a lot about the program.. like that our first home stay is next week. aah!

last night, we went to the old part of the city (we being all the thai studies students.. that's who the we will generally be from now on.. all or just ipsl students..) we ate dinner by a buddhist temple, and spent a good portion of the evening walking around the sunday night market.
there were lots of.. street acts.

here are pictures of one act (a puppet show) and a buddhist temple

kids playing instruments, a statue.., old men playing instruments, kids dancing, disabled people performing (a boy hitting a bell together when he managed to coordinate his hands through extremely heavy shaking and a blind girl singing to a radio she carried on her back and set down where she set up to perform..) that part made me feel a bit sick to my stomach.
then we tried some
horribly disgusting drinks. (some juices of things we'd never had..)
i mean, really horrible.
really.
gross.

today was the first day of classes..
we spent the morning doing orientation things.
we all showed up at 8:30 at the president's office.. in uniform.
there, we got packets.. and more parts to our uniforms.. belts and buckles, button covers, and pins for the girls.
ties and belt buckles for the guys..
after that, we went on a campus tour with some thai students, and then we all had lunch at the pentacost building (where most of our classes are), and then we had our first.. dun dun dun!
thai class!
it was good.
it was good for the first hour.
then i think everyone started to get a bit overwhelmed.
to start a semester with 2 hours of learning foods in thai.. i don't know.. it's a bit intense.

theeeen.. we all walked to the bookstore and bought little things we needed, came back and rested a bit, and at 6:30, we went out to dinner to this amazing place.
we sat on the floor, and it was basically like tapis. i don't know if that's what it's called in thailand, but that's the closest thing to what i know that it seemed like. as we ate, people came around, put rose necklaces on us, and took pictures with us.
i managed to take probably the most awkward looking picture ever. it pretty much tied with jess's (another ipsl student), and she was purposely looking awkward.
it's amazing. i'll upload it when i take a picture of it (they sell the pictures to you for 100 baht in a little picture frame).
then, after we ate, there was a show with music and dancing. it was pretty awesome. there was a "fingernail dance" a sword dance, and a dance with candles..

and now, i'm here and ready to collapse.
tomorrow we go to a buddhist meditation retreat overnight, so i will hopefully update again on wednesday.