So after over 30 hours of traveling from the east coast of the US to Bangkok, Thailand, Rachelle (my roommate) and I grabbed a cab from the airport to our hotel/apartment
This picture was on the window of our cab, I'm not really sure what all the symbols mean but apparently this cab company has had some issues
The day after we got here was orientation, where we found out that we actually had the next two weeks of school off because the first week there are games where all the universities in Thailand come to Chula and compete in all kinds of sporting events and the next week the smaller teams within Chula (kinda like the intermural sports at home) play each other. We also picked our classes and what not and then a Thai student named Mo took the 11 engineering exchange students to MBK to get our uniforms. Rachelle and I are the only girls in our exchange program and since Rachelle is Canadian, I am the only American. There are a couple guys from France, Finland, Singapore, and Hong Kong as well.
We got our uniforms, after they searched the store for the largest sizes possible. Turns out im an XL in this country. Also for the girls uniforms you have to cut off the buttons and replace them with silver buttons that have the crest of Chula on them. Kinda cool.
So the next few days we went to a few classes. The classes here seem to move a lot slower than at Dartmouth and the students act a lot differently. In my biochemistry class the professor gave us a 10 minute break. So after ten minutes me and 4 other students were in the room out of the 40 that were in the class so he just started teaching and people just came in probably 20 mins later, no big deal. It was strange.
Life here is a lot less stressful than in the states or at least at Dartmouth. People just kind of go with the flow and if stuff doesn't happen the way its planned, not a big deal. It's kinda nice, very different though. So far I like it.
Most of the exchange students are staying in Evergreen Place, as well as about 50 other business exchange students so its nice we all have a central location. A few of us went out the first week to an area called RCA to a bar called Route 66. It was a funny experience. The bar was pretty much all Thai on one side, with live Thai music, and the other side was all Western music and a lot of Westerners. We also got to see a few Muy Thai fights outside MBK (muy thai is the national sport here). The sport is very respectful and the locals love it so it was really cool to watch. These guys look small but they're so strong.
Since we had no school for the next two weeks. Rachelle and I planned a trip to Vietnam for 10 days since it was the farthest away of the places we wanted to see and this would probably be our longest break. But right before we left for that I got to practice with the university volleyball team at Chula. There is a women's and men's team. The women's team has about 9 girls, one head coach, and about 3 other coaches who I think are all graduates of Chula and played while they were there. Everyone was so nice and it was pretty good volleyball. I played for about 4 hours... I was a bit sore the next couple of days. One of the first drills they did was the pit drill, where the coach just throws balls in every direction, on of my favorites, I went last and was diving and stuff, they were all yelling for me and whistling. It was pretty comical. Afterwards the team took me out to dinner too which was such a cool experience. They ordered everything and would just kinda watch me eat to see my reaction. I'm pretty sure they all just made fun of me in Thai but whatever. They invited me back. One of the girls, named Eye, is studying English and Thai so I'm going to help her improve her English and she's going to invite me back to play volleyball :)
So far I'm in love with Thailand haha the people have been so nice and did I mention its so warm! A nice break from the winters in the States.
So that's the beginning next is 10 days in Vietnam!
ps this is our apartment!
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