I've only been here 2 months and I've already been given a Thai name!

The computer teacher, who I mentioned before, who is a Christian and her husband is a pastor, has been a great addition to my school life here! She is very friendly, spunky and very helpful and is always offering her services.  She came up to Cailin and I the other day and said she decided it's too hard to remember our English names so she was going to give us Thai names! She looked at me for a while and said, "Goo la pa." Pat for short. It means strong, brave, wise woman...strong like a diamond. Is this lady good or what!

This is a picture of the sunrise that shines bright on my face about 7am every morning!

Random photo: This picture is for my father, to give him a little comfort to know that even people half way across the world have to deal with milk weeds!!!

These next 2 pictures are of Cailin and I trying something new.  Let me tell you I wasn't going to try it and no part of me wanted to!  But Cailin set me straight by giving me a stern look and saying, "Lacey, didn't you come here to experience and try new things!" BUSTED! So, needless to say I tried it! I thought it was something with eggs, but it was actually a rice, coconut milk sort of mixture. It was quite tasty...I even had seconds!

This picture is of me and my new friend Bobbie. She is a fellow Dakotan! (From the North though!) Unfortunately she has finished her stint here in Thailand and headed home already! So now I'm left with Steve and Cailin, the east coasters!

This past weekend we traveled to Lopburi because they had a festival/celebration going on and James said we should go. This is also the monkey town, so I got to see some of those furry creatures up close again! I got to do some walking around by myself for a few hours and I was impressed with myself at the Thai that I am actually picking up! I know my numbers pretty well and I know how to ask "how much," so I had fun going around to all the stands asking the price of things and trying to figure out how much they were asking! I'm also learning how to ask for some foods and how to say not spicy or a little spicy! I am trying to push my limits on bit on the spicy factor so that I can hopefully build up a tolerance! I will admit, there have been a handful of times when I thought my my tongue was on fire, burning!

This was the bus that we took to Lopburi. It was only about 65 cents for the half hour trip!

These are a few pictures inside the temple area where the main festivities were being held.

In my travels walking by myself I found something that excited me! A potato on a stick!! Brilliant! The put it through a little slicer machine, cook it, and cover it with any flavor or spice you want! Delicious!

This little guy stole one of our water bottles while we were waiting for the bus and was then trying to open it with his feet. The whole thing was quite impressive!

I'll have to write more later! But I will leave you with a few random pictures that I got from Cailin. I have a question to leave you with as well. Do I need to be posting more pictures? I just never know what to do! I don't want to bore you people! I suppose you are more entertained by the pictures that my chatter!

This was at one of the temples that we went to and JJ, our guide was showing us the proper way to give your respect to Buddah. This is also when you give him your thanks and concerns. The only rules are that you cover your sholders and your knees and take your shoes off.

I believe this was in Lopburi when we were visiting some old temple ruins. Don't be fooled, we are really holding up these gigantic doors!