Sitting At Starbucks...

July 2, 2008
Exactly 6 months ago tomorrow, being July 3rd 2008, I boarded a plane in Seattle, which carried me half way across the globe to my new home country of Thailand. For those of you closely following my adventures, you know that its been quite an exotic, educational, exciting, exhilarating, eye opening (wow, that’s a lot of adjectives that start with ‘e’…wasn’t even trying), challenging, growing, and quite the once-in-a-lifetime experience. I almost threw in the towel, as they say, a few weeks ago but here I am, still here. Not feeling well really shook me up and made me feel that I needed to head home. As with everything in life, I made it through that time, and now I’m out the other end and proud to say, I’m still here.

Albeit, I’ve asked for a few weeks off….27 days to be exact. I am using a 50/50 combination of vacation time and unpaid leave. My boss is extremely appreciative of the work I do and gladly granted me the time off. (I feel very blessed!) It’s the low season here so it’s the ideal time to take time off. As of the day after tomorrow, I’m jumping on a 6 hour train and heading down to one of the picturesque southern islands. (Think: San Juan Islands yet in the tropics…swaying palm trees, clear blue water, pearly white sand beaches, amazing snorkeling, and cozy beach side bungalows for dollars a day…ahhh.)

But, I’m not on the train yet. My time off was officially supposed to start as of yesterday but my co-worker Monica had a horrible bout of food poisoning last week. (Not even from the local food though! She accidentally drank some of her own out-dated soy milk…yikes! She ended up spending a night in our local hospital to rehydrate herself with fluids via an IV.) Needless to say, doing our job of being ‘wellness’ experts is a bit challenging when you’re not feeling so well yourself! Thank goodness, she is almost back to feeling 100% but I took her clients for her yesterday and then went in this morning to save her from an energy sucking client she was scheduled to see at 10am. (A mother who is here with her 26 year old daughter. I met them on their first day and listened to the mother tell me how unwell her daughter is, as her daughter sat there not even able to get in a word for herself. As the mom continued to speak for her daughter for about an hour, the mother then tells me, “She needs to be more independent!”…gee, maybe allowing her to speak for herself would be a good start, I thought to myself. There was no point in actually verbalizing this thought because anything I did try to say seemed to just bounce around on the walls like a little rubber bouncy ball that eventually just ended up ignored in some corner somewhere, forever to be forgotten.) Anyway, needless to say, I knew that if Monica had to see her, she might wish she was back in bed sick with food poisoning again….so I came into to save her. Murphy’s law…I set my alarm, put my uniform on, went into work…and the crazy lady had cancelled the appointment.

That was this morning. Then I went to the gym. Took a nap. And now…I’m sitting at Starbucks. When I first arrived here in my town of Hua Hin and discovered that there were two Starbucks here, I thought to myself, ‘Well, if I ever get homesick, I could come hang out at Starbucks, drink coffee, and work on my computer.’ And here it is, exactly 6 months into my life here, and the time has arrived. I’m drinking an Americano (the most apropos of choices of course), in the same white-mug-with-Starbucks-logo mug I would using be if at home, sitting at Starbucks, working on my computer. And this is hilarious…its raining. I kid you not. I’m sitting at Starbucks in Thailand, drinking coffee, and its raining.

The rainy season has arrived and will be around for the next few months, which means it rains for at least an hour or so almost everyday (and sometimes accompanied by the most earth shaking thunder I’ve ever heard!!). But today, Seattle weather is in full bloom. I woke up to clouds, and they haven’t budged all day. Now of course, there is one thing that’s a switch…. At first, I was sitting inside in the exact same cozy brown chairs and little wood table that I would be sitting at if at home….but the air conditioning was on so strong that I got TOO COLD TO STAY INSIDE….so I had to COME OUTSIDE TO WARM UP. “I don’t think we’re in Seattle anymore, Toto!”

So as I sit here in my shorts and flip flops in the rain, I am being entertained by the events in the street in front of me. I am watching all the locals driving on their motorbikes, (the main source of transportation here; if you drive a car, you better get out of the way...) holding umbrellas as they drive. They somehow manage to do so without the umbrellas flipping inside-out from the wind. I’m very impressed.

What else? Well, tomorrow I’ll pack, do a few other odds-and-ends things and then head south. More to come from the pristine islands of Thailand over the next month! Until then!