Naam Toum!

Flood! This Monday Goi and me were on our way to work when we got a call saying worship was canceled and we had to come straight to our office. It had rained unusually hard the night before (any rain, we should just say is unusual right now actually, its been dry for so long now) and the roof had leaked. It wasn't just the type of leak you could stick a bucket under though. The Mission roof is designed *un-designed* to have a giant seam/dip in the middle that happens to form right over our wing. The seam had leaked to the point of pouring everything on our neighbors P.Yuwana and P.Saipins desks. Their computers, books, printers, scanners, everything was covered in water, this wasn't everything however. Because of the giant leak there, the water had traveled into the neighboring offices too. Ours in particular was about four inches deep. We bucketed water out the windows for several hours until we could mop and use rags. The powercords to the computers were pretty waterlogged and we spend the remainder of the day moving out *incase it rained again that night* and blowdrying the equipment.
SIDENOTE: (Funny blowdrying story tangent) Goi was trying to dry her hair the other day, and I always teased her because it took her little blowdryer hours because it was so weak. So I loaned her mine...haha. I had it set on low but immediately you could sense the change, it was almost as if her hair was in some wind tunnel/vortex/jet-wash. Her hair was BLOWN backwards and she screamed in shock. A couple minutes later she was shouting 'dron dron dron' *trans: 'hot hot hot'! I was laughing SO hard but I showed her how to use the 'cold' setting whenever it got too warm. Now she's addicted of course...
So back to our story. P.Yuwana had come back from her house with a blowdryer and had started on their sopping wet books and computers when Goi walked in. She saw Yuwana and was like, "Oh! I know the PERFECT thing!" I saw her later showing them how to use it and they were ALL screaming at how strong it was! Gotta love American technology...
We've been officially relocated for the dry-time-being into the radio room down the hall and it looks like the rain should let up soon and we can move back in :) We do have another office with equipment, but it has a giant hole in the roof!! Apparently the ceiling broke a couple months back and caved in on Andrews computer so we haven't been in there since...ironically however this room didn't leak a bit!

Castellano?

When I came to Asia I was under the impression that speaking Spanish would be relatively useless here and I'd come back speaking it worse than ever...boy was I wrong! Yesterday a friend texted me and told me to come to a different church because two Argentinian friends of his were visiting. After the sermon we eventually found each other *its a massive church* and went to potluck together (the Argentinians, my friend Bronsen, and me). When we got there we ran into Flavio, a volunteer from Brazil, and his house hostess who's from Brazil as well. They joined us and practiced their Spanish as well and we all ended up having Mate after at their house! Haha. It was definitely the most 'out of Thailand' I've felt since I've been here. It was an experience totally disconnected from Asia, like we were really at their house in 'la villa' sitting on the porch after culto. So cool!

Winding Down

So the weeks are winding down...and it kinda sucks.
Seems like the work just HIT this week and I got totally submerged. I walked in this morning and had a stack of things to do on my desk, finished a couple off, worked with Andrew on some motion graphics, met with Doug (my boss), met with Jon (my other boss), met with Doug again, then called Jon, then before I realized it the day was over and it was time for dinner. I grabbed some Pat-Priaw-Wan (Sweet & Sour Chicken and veggies *my fav here* NOT to be confused with Chinese food however, its totally different) then headed home. Goi basically collapsed on the floor mat in exhaustion and is still basically unconscious at the foot of the bed, fully clothed, haha. I was gonna head out and do some yoga but got totally distracted on design prep for job searching this summer. Its definitely feeling closer!

Krabi

Glap ik! Back again! Suprise, after Cambodia I was not done traveling for this month. One more trip we had scheduled was Krabi! Rock climbing in Railay, Krabi has been on the top of my checklist since I arrived here. Amazingly yet again however, learning nothing from our unplanned Cambodia trip, we didn't plan anything this trip either. We bought tickets for Thursday night from Bangkok to Krabi, we had a suggestion for a hotel, knew we'd have to haggle for a rock-climbing deal there, and needed to find a ticket back! So Thursday arrives, we all get to the bus station (Amazing considering our taxi diver was thoroughly lost...we told him "Oh! It's here, turn right." and he says, "You were going HERE?! I was taking you somewhere else!") Our bus was late so we figured we'd try again to see if we could get return tickets, last time the counter lady had just said flat out "No. Cannot." This time we tried again and got tickets. Brenda and me had to run back to the bus and managed to hop on just before it pulled out. Sitting on the bus relaxing however, we realized a mistake. The ticket lady had re-issued us the tickets we already had, we had TWO trips TO Krabi now, and still no ticket back. Woops. The bus ride otherwise was un-eventful, we all slept great and woke up in the islands!
When we got there we got a very helpful tuk-tuk driver that helped us find everything, hotel, return tickets, and a climbing package for a half day at Railay. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing on the beach *sunburning* doing some quality people-watching. Beaches here are practically European, old women are usually topless, if they have bathing suits they rarely cover enough, and its fun to guess where everyone's from. The guest house was great, at first we were worried it was a little sketch and didn't know what we were getting into...from the outside it looked like a Chinese restaurant but they had rooms upstairs that were perfect! We got stuck in a rainstorm on our way back from the beach and the owners of the guesthouse had a good laugh looking at us. Their guard asked to take a picture with us and then handed us some bananas while we dried off under the eaves so we didn't get their lobby wet. The next day we took a long-tail boat *canoe with a motor* to Railay island where we rock climbed! The Thai's on the boat ride over with us were our belay's when we rock climbed later and super entertaining. One asked me when I strapped my harness on if I had climbed before. I told him I did back at school but usually just indoor courses. He said, "Oooh, outdoor rock-climbing very difficult...no rope!" I stared at him, then he says, "Joke! Joke!" Hahaha. They spoke this local islander language that sounded sorta like if Bob Marley spoke Thai, "Jah Mai!" haha. We were allowed to climb anywhere there were ropes hanging down basically. Lots of the climbs took longer because they were SO high. Most weren't too difficult but your muscles got super tired about halfway. When you got to top there were amazing views though, my belay 'Raam' helped me strap my camera to my harness before going up so I could snap a few photos :) All in all it was an epic trip and totally worth the chaos and bus rides there and back (The return trip was probably one of our grossest bus rides, but we were so tired and sunburned it was easy to sleep through).