Ayer

The EIS Church in Bangkok **more pictures on Facebook**

So yesterday was pretty sweet, but will have to be crammed into one paragraph because I'm feeling pretty hungry. The smoothie lady wasnt at her usual station (its the weekend) and I missed breakfast on my way to mooch good internet at the office for a bit and skype some of you people...you know who you are ;)
Sabbath I decided to go to the "farang" church, (foreign) church, they speak english and its a very westernized church service. Really great actually, I'd love it in the states but it's nice to be a part of the thai culture and the church plants here around the city too. So when I walked in a missionary friend of mine, Bronsen (Spanish teacher here at the school) told me there was someone I needed to meet. He introduced me to Damaris, a girl from Spain. She spoke some English but we talked mostly in Spanish. Damaris told me that she had just gotten married and her and her husband had come to Thailand on her honeymoon and they had been separated at the airport when they landed. He was originally from Romania but lived in Spain, so needed a special visa. They had let her through customs though, so now SHE was stuck in Thailand and he was in Malaysia getting a visa to come to Thailand (with all their luggage). So she was luggage, and husbandless in Thailand for the last 3 days and had come to the church because she was Adventist.
We ended up spending all day together and a group of us went to the MBK mall here so she could make some international calls to her family (they didn't know about the honeymoon-disaster yet) and then we took her to dinner and a night market. Damaris said there was a tour guide taking her on an outing every day the rest of the week but she has my number just in case she needs a buddy ;) Amazingly she's only 21!!! I kinda flipped when I realized, Christine will be getting married at 21 too! I was standing there thinking, if this was my sister, stuck in like Fiji on her honeymoon alone and not able to speak ... fijian? or whatever language...I'd be so worried!!
It was really fun being able to speak Spanish in Thailand of all places though, "its a small world after all!" Terrible that she had to come meet us without her husband though :( She was super brave to have made it even to the church on her own, apparently the taxi driver helped her find it! Amazing considering the size of Bangkok and small amount of Christians.
Later after we dropped her off, Andrew, Toshi (a japanese student here at Mission College) and me went and did Cosmic Bowling and got ice cream. The bowling alleys here are FANTASTIC, its basically Cosmic Bowling only, all day long, black lights and stuff. They also had a DJ on staff who mixed English and Thai songs (she was super good).
Pretty much the end to a perfect Saturday...I'm definitely enjoying a weekend off just to figure stuff out on my own. Seems like there has always been a plan the last couple weeks (not a bad thing, I totally appreciate it) but it was really cool just to see how we survived on our own for a day in the city. I'm getting a bit more confident with my limited Thai and navigation skills. I may not be able to find new places but I know I could always make it back home...