repeling, eggs, and friends!

Weekends are generally a good thing, but for some reason I had an absolutely spectacular weekend. It started with our group from ISDSI (17 students and 3 instructors) heading out to a site outside of Chiang Mai called “Crazy Horse”. Crazy Horse is a site for a series of caves and cliffs. We spent the morning exploring a couple different caves and learning about the different features of caves. We then zip-lined across one cave to a stalactite and repelled down 150 feet! It was pretty thrilling. We had lunch and then spent the afternoon rock-climbing the cliffs outside of the cave. I’m not the best climber, but I was surprised to find that I was very capable of climbing the different rock faces. I spent Friday night with my host family, and singing chereokee with Nong Yeem (my younger sister).

Saturday came and for the first time in about a week I got to sleep in! (til 9! haha…) I ate breakfast and did some homework, and then my Paw said that I needed to relax from my long day of climbing….so….our family went to the hot springs outside of the city! My afternoon was pretty harsh….taking a hot mineral bath (pretty much like a hot tub) and ending the day with a Thai massage. The hot springs are a popular picnic area, and when people eat at the hot springs, they boil eggs in the hot spring! haha it’s pretty sweet! My Paw asked me if I wanted an egg, and I said yes, so he popped an egg into the hot spring bath for about 3 minutes and bam! soft boiled egg!

On Sunday my Mae took me to church, which was mostly in Thai, but very relieving to be in communion with all kinds of people worshiping God (I love it when my definition of church is changed and expanded because of experiences like these). Then I ran errands with my Mae for the next couple hours, and while we were in the heart of the city, I actually had the opportunity to see a very good friend from Calvin (I know, crazy, huh?). She had been gone this past fall semester serving abroad with YWAM (Youth with a Mission). Needless to say, the long-awaited reunion was definitely exciting! Please pray for her as she continues her work with YWAM in the states this spring (her name is Emma by the way).

Annnd, after all of the excitement this weekend, I have to say that this week has been pretty amazing thus far. We just started our Foundations course, which deals with the history, geology, and culture of Thailand. We are learning super interesting and useful things in this course! It’s very different from taking some classes back in the U.S. where the information you learn may or may not be applicable to your everyday life. I think it’s safe to say that I use just about everything I learn in both my Foundations class and my Thai language class-it’s a very satisfying feeling! Thai culture is very interesting, there’s so much to learn. I feel like I’m learning so much all the time (to be honest sometimes I feel like a toddler). But, it’s very good, and I am loving it so far! More to come soon. Hopefully pictures too if I can figure out how to post them…

lovelovelove,

Bets

Advertisement