Today marks a week until Christmas day which I will spend in Bangkok with my mom and brother. I am very excited and lucky to be able to spend Christmas in Thailand with my family J Last night was Grace’s wedding reception. She is a Philippine English teacher at my school. The reception was held in the theater area of the school. Katie and I were invited along with all the other teachers at Bangplamasoongsumarnpandungwit School and of course the bride and groom’s family. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this event, but it turned out to be an enjoyable night; however not the typical American wedding reception one would think of by any means. Grace looked beautiful! Her dress was very simple but elegant especially with the way her hair was done. 
Toon was the host for the evening; she said a few words about the bride and groom and introduced the Director of the school to give Grace and Darwin his blessing. After the blessing, Grace and Darwin sang a song together and cut the cake. Before the cake was served, there were food items placed on each table, an assortment of different Thai dishes. The whole time the guests were eating Grace and Darwin were either walking around or were on stage. There wasn’t a table designated for them to sit and eat themselves. A group of four students were singing throughout the night, as well as one of the teachers. She sang Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, which I thought was an interesting choice for a wedding….The bride and groom had their dance together; besides their dance there wasn’t any other dancing that went on. It was very thoughtful and generous of the school and all the teachers to help put this event together for Grace. It is like we are all part of the Bangplamasoongsumarnpandungwit school family. 
This past Tuesday, Katie and I went with Toon in the school’s van to Ayutthaya to finish our work permits. We are now legally working in the Kingdom of Thailand. This process was completed much sooner than I thought too! It ended up being a fun day. On the way, Toon helped Katie and I learn some new Thai words and phrases that we will find helpful in the classroom. We stopped at a restaurant across from some of the ancient ruins of Ayutthaya, which is Thailand’s ancient capital. Toon did the food ordering. We had a delicious noodle soup with beef and an omelet filled with calamari, mussels, and shrimp. It may sound a little fishy, I know…..but it was really good! After lunch, we went to get our work permits. It was a very small room packed with desks and people standing waiting to be seen. It was worse than the DMV, luckily we didn’t have to wait too long. Next, we made a surprise visit to one of the floating markets called Ayootthaya. I wish I would have brought my camera. Definitely a place I want to visit again. It’s not your typical “floating market” where people actually sell things from boat; the shops sit on a boardwalk right next to the river. We strolled through the area and each store seemed more unique in its own way to Thailand, selling things from souvenirs and food to specialty items. Toon had us try a famous Thai dessert I’ve seen before but wasn’t sure what it was. I don’t remember the name of it, but it’s a roti pancake, very similar to a crepe, filled with a cotton candy like material. It is aroi….delicious in Thai. The rest of the week went rather well. My students were surprisingly well behaved for me this week. It was perfect timing weather wise in Wisconsin for me to be teaching some of my students about winter weather; I showed some pictures of the snow storm that hit Wisconsin recently to my students.
The students all seemed to be pretty surprised to see snow and said the pictures were “beautiful!”….thanks mom! One of the days after school, Katie and I began teaching a group of 20 students the “cha-cha slide” that they will perform at the Christmas program on Christmas eve. I’m not really sure why they are performing a dance at the program, but one of the Thai English teachers wanted Katie to teach the kids an “American” dance and since we couldn’t really think of anything Christmas specific, we thought the cha-cha slide would be a good alternative. I can’t wait to see them perform next week! Thursday evening it rained like cats and dogs here in Thailand; with the rain came a cold front and by cold front I mean temperatures are now probably in the 70’s. In our apartment the usual temperature is in the high 80’s sometimes even low 90’s, but Friday it read something as low as 69 degrees! It was amazing waking up Friday morning cold and drinking a warm cup of hot chocolate. Today I even got to wear jeans! I hope this cooler weather lasts for a while.
Tonight will be spent relaxing, drinking a glass of the first bottle of wine Katie and I splurged on since we’ve been in Thailand, and probably watching Bones or Elf. Unfortunately, the taste of that glass of wine didn’t live up to my expectation I had for it.... 
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