Nong Khai Pictures - Genie

It's been an adventure of a week and it's only Tuesday night. So instead of working (like Amanda, the responsible adult), I'm going to post some pictures.

We keep forgetting to take them. My eyes are too busy taking everything in to bother taking out my phone most of the time...

Amanda and me at the Nong Khai night market

I found these adorable glasses for 100B (3$)

I found unicorn ice cream. Amanda reacted accordingly.

Unicorn ice cream tastes like cotton candy. Appearance: 9/10. Taste: 4/10.

Cool green bug. Outside: 14/10. Inside: 8/10 please go outside.

This is our photo wall in our apartment.

This is the view from our M1 classroom.

Casual school lunch. Costs 35B (1.10$)

Woven fronds into these giant objects. It was clearly a competition of some sort.

I hit this poor guy with my moped, but he was so pretty! RIP.

We make some bomb ramen in our bed.

Nong Khai night market. 

This is how we get about 80% of our food now.

This is probably the most talented street artist I've ever seen. He was free-handing gorgeous paintings while holding full conversations.

If you want clothes here and are under a size 8, welcome to the easiest shopping experience of your life.

Nikki gave me this rock. I brought it to Thailand. We are going on many adventures.

I GOT A MOPED. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Me and my new pants on my shiny new toy. 

Our landlords keep the prettiest of flowers laying around.

Missing the Kitchen - Amanda

So we've now been here for 3 weeks and we've started to torture each other in the evenings by listing foods from back home that we are craving. I even had a dream about the French toast from Pescara last night (thank you Alex for introducing us to that deliciousness).

I miss cooking/baking at home. I miss the opportunity to go home after work and make what we feel like, especially our popcorn nights. Our meal prep game was on fire too! We made this amazing taco salad with a salsa/yogurt sauce that was scrumptious. It was one of the things we did when we got home, we'd make dinner together (I'm a pretty good sous chef), and I miss it immensely. Now us making dinner together consists of making ramen noodles with the hot water from the electric kettle we bought. It isn't quite the same. Though for your information, the small packages of ramen over here are pretty good. They aren't as salty as the ones back home and the flavors are better.

Over the past few years, baking has become my stress reliever. It's been over three weeks since I last baked and I miss it. I wouldn't have time to bake here anyway with the amount of prep we have to do, but maybe I would be a titch less stressed if I could bake a batch of chocolate chips cookies or some banana bread. Be warned, when we come back I'll be baking up a storm.

Motorbike Adventures - Genie

Guys, I got Amanda on the back of my motorbike and nobody was injured.

Last night I desperately needed to find some flowers. Why? Because I'm teaching about sex in basically every class I have and on top of playing the song from Once Upon A Mattress, I did need to show them the anatomy of a flower. So Amanda and I jumped on the back of my motorbike and for two hours we zipped around Nong Khai.

You know what we found? Nada.

Well, we found a lot. A pile of coffee shops (it's the only thing advertised in English over here), street food vendors, piles of sociopath drivers, and a lot more confidence on my new, sweet wheels.

We drove home. I was a bit dejected because I still hadn't found flowers for my 2 hour M1 lab. We went down to the laundry on the end of the street to throw a load in. We then discovered that the laundry machines only take 10B coins. Guess what we didn't have? Ayup. So I went on another adventure to the little grocery two blocks away and bought 4 eggs (something my doctor explicitly said not to buy from corner groceries in Thailand. Challenge accepted.).

I did not receive any 10B coins as change.

So I started trying to communicate with the elderly lady behind the window that I wanted a 10B coin. I showed her 2, 5B coins coming together. No luck. I showed her 10, 1B coins in a pile. No luck. I pretended to rip a 20B note in half. No luck.

I showed google translate to a 12 year old in the store and immediately got 10B coins.

Thank god for pre-teens and google translate.

We started a load of laundry and walked home. We stopped along the way to grab a couple limes from the neighborhood lime tree and then I spotted it. A TREE WITH FLOWERS.

Amanda and I scavenged the ground looking for flowers with all the correct parts I needed: stamens, pistils, filaments, ovules, petals, sepals, ect. We only found about 5 of them, but that was enough for me. My lab class went really well today. None of the M1s ever need to know that I didn't intend on only having 5 flowers. ;)

We got home after picking the limes and flowers and made a bowl of ramen.

I do not know what they do to ramen here, but it is significantly more delicious. It's spicy, tastes like fish soup, and is quite delicious just by itself. However, now we had four salted eggs and two limes. So our noodles were quite decked out last night!

That's another odd part about being over here. I'm hardly ever hungry. And when I am finally hungry, there's no food that is convenient. We now have a kettle and ramen - so we can eat at home, but even after school all I want is a big glass of water and a nap.

I didn't mean for my adventure to Thailand to be an adventure to a healthy BMI, but that's certainly where we're headed. (It's also where my M1 health class is headed next week... the BMI is so much easier to calculate in metric. EVERYONE QUICK SWITCH TO METRIC IT IS SO MUCH EASIER TO DO LITERALLY EVERYTHING.)

We've got 2 hours until the weekend.

But fortunately, we work for MediaKids, the slave institution, so we get to lesson prep all weekend.

Ok. Since I'm rambling at this point (great job if you've made it this far in the post. 13/10 for you.). But our boss at PTK, who looks like a life-size, Thai Barbie. I'll try to snag a picture of her at some point, but she is probably the prettiest person I've ever actually seen. She's also incredibly good at her job. Today she came up to all of us to apologize for being so busy lately. She gave us a lot of good advice about the Thai students and told us if we were ever having problems, to let her know and she would call the kid's parents and put a stop to the nonsense. She also brought in Lychee fruit for us to try. Weirdly enough, I've had these a million times and never knew what they were called. I used to eat bowls of them when my parents would take us to Chinese buffet in Rochester! She also brought these delicious chicken strips. Well. I ate one and said thank you for the chicken strips. Then she said: "potato and banana". So I was radically wrong. They were the best vegan chicken strips ever. ;) 

Power Outage - Amanda

We just experienced our first power outage. The sky was starting to look ominous around 3:45 and we were all starting to wonder if we would get home before the rain started. We were told that we had to remain at school until 4:30. The four of us in our department wait patiently until 4:30 while we see ESL teachers in the other department start to leave around 4:00. We were all waiting around until that magical time as the storm loomed closer and the winds began to pick up. Luckily one of our Thai co-teachers encouraged all of us to leave early, it was five minutes early, but we were very thankful. I headed out on my bike, something I haven't ridden in over 15 years. The traffic after school is a mad house, with 3,000 kids that's to be expected. Lloyd also has a bike so the two of us crossed the road together. I felt like I was playing frogger. We zig zagged between the sidewalk and the street due to all of the sticks on the ground. There was a tree down on the road thanks to the wind. I saw about four Thai men working together to lift it out of the way to clear at least one lane of traffic. By this time it had started to sprinkle and I was glad that I had a bike and didn't have to walk the 20 minutes back. We pulled under the awning as the clouds opened and the downpour began. We were at our apartment for maybe 15 minutes when the power went out. We ate some of the food we picked up at Tesco Lotus over the weekend, neither of us enjoyed them, with some light from our 5 liter container of water sitting on top of a cell phone flashlight (Genie's ingenuity). After beginning to listen to the most recent West Wing Weekly Genie fell asleep so I sat on our stoop and watched the rain. There's something so calming about rainfall. The power returned around 7 pm so I guess I better get back to lesson planning.

Transportation - Genie

We did it.

We got our own transportation.

Today we hiked into town as early as Amanda could get me out of bed. (Our bed is incredibly uncomfortable and I'm having a lot of problems sleeping. Jet lag: none. Sleeping in a Thai bed: none.) By the time we left our apartment, it was 9:45am and 35 C (95 F). We walked 3.5km (2.1 miles - I'm gonna start making you do your own conversion math soon) before arriving, miserably hot at the Mut Mee Guesthouse an hour later.

We headed there because the bike rental place is across the road and we knew we could get some cold water on the cheap from the MM. We grabbed bottles of water and sat under a hut cooling down. The owner, Julian, came over and started talking to us.

I've decided he is one of the most interesting people in Nong Khai. We swapped stories. He taught us about the history of Vietnamese people in Thailand after the French invaded Laos in 1895. We taught him about the Amish people of America. He asked what we were doing in town and we stated we were on the search for bikes. Julian, the trip MVP, whipped out his phone, made a call, chattered in Thai for about three minutes, hung up, turned to us and said: "he'll be across the street from here in 10 minutes to help you get bikes."

It really was that easy.

We met this lovely Vietnamese man outside the Mut Mee fifteen minutes later and he quizzed us on what we were looking for.

I wanted a motorbike. I vehemently wanted a motorbike.

He asked me if I'd ever been on one before. I had once, way back in the day. Mr. Dave Smith had one that I rode around for a couple weeks when I was an early teenager, but I'd never taken one for a spin outside the comfort of my parent's driveway.

I hopped on behind him and he showed me the wheels. It turns out riding a motorbike is very similar to riding a bike and a horse at the same time. We got back to the MM and we swapped spots. It's either just as instinctual as I assumed it would be, or I'm just naturally a good rider? I really do think all those years of going everywhere on a scooter/bike/horse put me ahead of the competition. So thanks Mom and Dad for the opportunities I was provided when I was younger.

Amanda got a bicycle. It's actually a really pretty bike. It's got a basket on the front big enough for a small backpack. She tried the motorbike and decided not quite yet. We're going to practice on some quiet roads by our apartment and hopefully by next month, the confidence factor will be there.

The hardest part about the motorbike is driving on the roads with other people.

The whole time I was riding back to the apartment, I was repeating to myself: "LEFT SIDE. LEFT SIDE. DRIVE ON THE LEFT SIDE. LEFT TURN ON RED. LOOK DOWN THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD FOR APPROACHING TRAFFIC BEFORE TURNING RIGHT. LEFT SIDE."

By the time we got back to the apartment it was about 3:30pm and we desperately needed to plan some lessons for the week.

We dropped our new transport at home and walked over to Lofter. The employees know us now and greeted us enthusiastically when we arrived. It's kind of like going to Acoustic now... except nobody is making me a hummus sandwich.

Now I have to stop procrastinating and make a powerpoint about sex.

You thinking I'm kidding?

We're doing the birds and the bees in basically all my classes in the next two weeks.

I. Found. Coffee. - Genie

It's a Christmas miracle! We found a coffee shop!

Lofter Cafe

I got a vanilla americano. There's Wifi. There's outlets. There's air conditioning.

I'm home.

Finding Other Expats - Genie

Last night we went on an adventure to the Mut Mee Guest House. It's this adorable little hotel (I use the word 'hotel' very lightly here) down by the Mekong River (separating Thailand and Laos).

The Mekong River Levee

I say the word 'hotel' because it's owned by a lovely couple (an Oxford educated Englishman who has lived in Thailand for 30 years and his lovely Thai wife) that rent out these little pieces of houses to people like hotel rooms. In reality, they own about an entire city block of houses and have turned the alleys between the houses into these beautiful walkways covered in plants. Next time we're there, I'll take pictures, but my eyes were too busy taking everything in to bother thinking about my phone. Imagine walking through old, colorful houses on cobblestones surrounded by hanging plants, palm trees, and the sounds of frogs. Colorful lizards poked their heads out at us and we saw the craziest beetles. Honest to god they were 5cm long and 2cm across!

We ate dinner in a giant, open-air hut. We had a green, fish curry that was one of the best things I've eaten since coming here. It was also one of the most expensive things we've eaten since coming here. It was 150B or 4.70USD.

After sitting and chatting with Fred, Lloyd, Sue (Lloyd's mom), Manders, and this horrific British expat, we abandoned the British expat and wandered off to find a little Australian bar. We didn't mean to end up there, but we saw one of the other English teachers from our school (who works for a different company) and he waved us over. His name is Rob and he's been in Thailand for almost 20 years. We sat and talked for hours about his favorite places and were joined by Julian (the owner of the Mut Mee) who also contributed to all the places we should go see.

By the time we wandered home it was around 22:45. We walked about three blocks to the front of the hospital and tried to get a Tuk Tuk. Unfortunately, it appears that the city's public transit shuts down before 22:45. On top of that, we're struggling to explain where we live. So when we finally ever find a Tuk Tuk driver, most of the time we end up walking anyway. This is exactly what happened last night.

We had to walk 5km home.

Now I like walking, but I'm getting a touch sick of having to because I can't communicate how to get home. This is what I'm learning first in Thai - directions.

So the walk home was pretty straight-forward. Walk 2km on one road, turn and walk about 3km until we see the road for our apartment. All was going well until we got to the end of the 2km road.

A Place My Mother Would Encourage Me To Avoid

The best and worst part of Thailand is the dogs. Dogs are all outside here. They wander in packs and it's rather like packs of wolves wandering the streets. The clearly dominate the roadways after dark. I've always been afraid of dogs and last night was no exception. I can't express the terror that is walking down an unfamiliar, dark road and being followed by a pack of growling, angry dogs.

When one pack's territory ended, another would pick up. The would follow us, walk with us, and guarantee we left their area before backing off.

We walked through six different dog districts last night.

When we finally got home, our hearts were racing, our clothes were a sweaty mess, and we were both a bit shaken. It's definitely something I'm going to bring up when we're at school to see what the students know about the packs of dogs. Honestly the M3 students are the MVPs of helping me learn about Nong Khai.

A Good Day - Genie

Today is going really well.

It started yesterday afternoon. We discovered that we have a surprise vacation in July! For two weeks in July, our school shuts down for a military training.

You know what that means? Vacaaaaa! We're thinking Chang Mai. If you have other suggestions, we'd love to hear them in comments!

So that's a great way to start an evening. After that we walked home, jumped in and out of the shower, ate our delicious street food, and got to work lesson planning.

After about two hours, we called my mama and talked for an hour or so. We got to tell her about all of the funny stories that have happened over the past week and honestly, complained quite a bit. 13/10 for great listening, Mom.

After that we went to bed. We're old people now. In bed by 22:30, up at 6:30. (Ok. Amanda gets up at 6:30 and drags me out around 6:43. We already knew she was the real MVP here.)

We walked to school (it's already hot here in the morning - about 28 degrees!) (That's like 82 for my non-metric folks.) and I have my favorites today. All day. Don't tell the others, M3 is my favorite. Their English is at a high enough level (mostly) that they get a few jokes. Today we talked about unzipping genes.

One of the boys in the back piped up: "Aren't genes pants?"

Well, then we got into genes vs jeans and how they are pronounced the same. So the M3 class is now all aware that helicase is important for unzipping genes and consent is important for unzipping jeans.

I have M3 again this afternoon for health.

Conveniently we're learning about sex ed. :)

Tonight, Amanda and I are going to this adorable little coffee shop down the alley from our apartment. She pinky-promised, so obviously it's happening.

So I'm raising my bubble tea to the first successful day of teaching 2/3 under my belt.

***

Thai Words of the Day:

Smile: Yim (rhymes with him)
Cheek: Kam (pronounced like the cam in camera)
Milk Bubble Tea: Cha num kai mook

Adapting to Thai Culture - Amanda

They tell you to prep for the culture shock and I was definitely not prepared.

~ the weather - I knew it was going to be hot but I feel like I'm walking through water constantly in this heat. I'm usually cranky in this heat and I'm doing everything I can to not let that get to me. Bring me 60 degree weather any day (apparently that's the coldest it can get)!

~ the restroom - So there are two types of toilets (Western and squat), luckily I've avoided using a squat one. Here's the thing, their sewage system is not able to handle toilet paper so if you choose to use it you must toss it into the garbage and not the toilet bowl. The other option is to use the badet hose. I'll admit I've tried it since arriving, I don't like feeling wet after going to the bathroom but I also don't want to have used tp in the garbage...one of those catch-22 situations. And being a menstrating female trying to figure this out isn't helpful either...tmi?

~ the smell - Honestly this was worse in Bangkok...just imagine walking past a pile of manure every 10 to 15 feet...ok that might be a bit of an exaggeration but that's what it felt like.

~ the trash - finding garbage bins is like searching for Waldo! I have no idea where to put my trash or when it gets picked up. You can't drink the water here so it's a bottle water haven...but I see no recycling at all! (Ben Gorman I'm losing it for you) I recycle back home and it's so hard for me not to...I feel wasteful. I have three empty water bottles sitting next to my desk right now because I don't know what to do with them.

~ the language barrier - I only know one word and I'm not even 100% sure what it means. This lack of communication makes it hard to order food, buy anything, or get directions. I'm well aware that this was going to be an issue and once in a while we're lucky and someone near by knows enough English to help us out.

~ the food - no complaints here so far! Almost everything I've tried so far has been wonderful. Today we got these little balls that reminded both of us of brats...13/10 would have again. At the hotel, they had toast, I know it's just toast but it tasted amazing.

~ the bowing - ok I get it, it's a cultural thing but I think it's weird. I'd rather they just wave and smile and move on.

~ the stray dogs - this is by far the saddest thing I've seen here, there are stray dogs just roaming the streets. They looks hot, tired, and thirsty...I feel ya buddy. And it doesn't help the missing of our pup.

~ the beauty of the country - Where is it? Seriously? Nong Khai reminds me a little bit of your average Midwestern town just with palm trees. The only 'interesting' thing in this city is apparently the Laos-Thailand Friendship Bridge ( a man made structure)...not what I'm here to see.

Not Prepared and Not Supportive - Genie

That's about as much praise as I can give MediaKids for my placement.

We're at PTK school in Nong Khai.

We're teaching M1, M2, and M3 students. Assume I just said 7th, 8th, and 9th graders.

Imagine this was your timeline:

Day 1-2: Traveling
Day 3-6: Orientation and Traveling to the city we're teaching in
Day 7: Teaching

Did you anywhere in there get a schedule of what you're supposed to be teaching? The correct books? A syllabus? Course outline? Background on the English levels of your students?

No.

Because MediaKids is radically unprepared.

For the past two days, I've been scrambling to create lesson plans. I've been taking pictures of my student's books when I'm in class with them and creating lessons for the next day at night.

Now for me, this is purely frustrating. I CAN write my own lessons. I CAN plan my own curriculum. I've been taught to do this. I went to college specifically to learn how to. However, my placement was changed from math to science.

How much high school biology, chemistry, and physics do you remember?

Now stand in a room with 30 students who barely have a grasp of the English language and improv a lesson on physics. Now run to another classroom. Improv a lesson in chemistry. Now run to another classroom and improv a biology class. Now run back to classroom number one and for no good reason, teach them something completely different about something in science - because they have "supplemental science" which is a different class than "science".

There's another guy in our group.

He teaches 'computers'.

We get paid the same.

We have the same "responsibilities".

He teaches 3 classes.

I teach 18.

Can you see why I have no eyelashes?

I can only imagine how this is for Amanda with no formal teacher training. At least she doesn't have to re-learn physics, right?

The nightmare is real.

The nightmare is MediaKids.

Pathumthepwittayakarn or Anubanchaiyaphum -Genie

Honest to god, those are the names of the schools I’m being asked to choose between - or my mother’s cat moved to Thailand, grabbed my phone, and sat on it. (It would definitely be Tiki.)

Two days ago, Amanda and I were asked to consider different contracts. After debating between our old and new contacts, we settled on the new one. Therefore, on Sunday we will be moving to Nong Khai City.

In reality, it was a super easy decision: better location (25km from the Laos capital), more money, and now we’re in the same school! It’s a brand new program within an international school. In the US, think of it as a new Gifted and Talented program for a foreign language. Amanda will still be teaching English - but now it’s going to be more advanced to prepare students for university studies. I will still be teaching Math and English, but now I will also be teaching Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computers, and Health. And the best part: I get the equivalent of 10th-12th graders now!

However, by the time we got our new contracts, we had already been with our Chaiyaphum group for two days. Honestly, I haven’t met a single person from this group that I don’t like. We have yet to meet anyone from our new school. I’m nervous that they won’t be quite as spectacular as the Chaiyaphum group... but one way or another, we’re now headed very far north for a job that starts on Monday morning!

We Got Promoted? - Genie

Wow.

If you want to experience stress, I highly suggest doing the past two days of what Amanda and I have just been through. I officially have no eyelashes or eyebrows (sorry, Mom).

So we left off in Minneapolis where all seemed dandy. Our flight from MSP to San Francisco was perfectly fine - a little delayed which made our layover even less pleasant.

We finally arrived in San Fran about 25 minutes later than expected. Normally you'd celebrate this, right? Less of a layover? Well, we would have except that our next flight was on the other end of a different terminal, the train between terminals was broken, we had to re-check luggage, and go through security again. And now we had to do all of that in 52 minutes.

Arriving at the ticketing office, out of breath and chugging down our water bottles (can't bring water through security anywhere - there's a drought in California but sure, let's dump our nice, potable water down the drain), we finally get to the EVA Air check-in station. A very timid young lady did her best to help us and did... frankly a crap job. I'm almost certain it was her first day based on the people buzzing around her (I was doing my best Mandarin eavesdropping... it turns out I'm still "meh" at best. But it also turns out that "meh" is much better than nothing.) but that still does not excuse the phrase: "here's your boarding passes. You're going to be turned away by Bangkok immigration. Sign this paper so we not held responsible."

INSERT MASSIVE PANIC ATTACK.

Like. What do you do when you hear that?

Answer: you whip out your phone and email your school company with an all-caps headline. It turns out Leon (our MVP rep from MediaKids Academy) will email you back relatively quickly. But not quickly enough. We had to go through security, sign the forms stating if we were turned away, we would need to pay the full ticket price to get back, and boarded our flight.

Then had to make a calculated choice. In order to be guaranteed access to Thailand when we arrived on tourist visas, we needed to have proof we were leaving the country again. So we needed to book further tickets. However, since we were already in midair above the Pacific at that point, it wasn't really an option to whip out our phones and book something. (I am not rich enough to afford in-flight WiFi. If you are, please Venmo me some money or Paypay - I'm not choosy.)

After a very stressful flight  (so stressful that my 'when you're stressed all food makes you feel nauseated' senses kicked in), we landed in Taipei, Taiwan.

But I go too quickly. The flight was, in theory, pretty grand. We got 2 meals. They thought I was a vegetarian from India so my food was actually spectacular. There were piles of movies and an interactive map stating where we were and a bunch of statistics about the plane and where we were in relation to what was below us. Also, there were two planes leaving from the same company doing the same route but 10 minutes apart (thank god we were on the later one). So our flight was only about 1/2 full. This meant that Amanda and I got 3 seats instead of 2 and we got to spread out and relax a bit which was lovely on a 14 hour flight.

Also, at the beginning of our flight, I started waving into the camera of the lady who was sitting in front of us. We got to talking and it turns out that she used to live about 30 minutes from where Amanda and my contracts are. She was very cool and gave us her phone number in case anything bad happened in the next month. 14/10 these people are basically midwesterners.

Anyway. So we get off our flight (which was, wait for it, late) and head over to our next concourse. This was THE COOLEST AIRPORT. Like I wanted to wander around all day and just look at it. It had little stations that were all themed for the waiting terminals. Honestly I wish all airports were like this. Imagine if every terminal was a mini-museum for something. There was one for the history of the Chinese postal system. Another was for their water purification center - which you would think isn't interesting, but we've already covered that I'm a nerd.

We thought it safest at this point to buy tickets from Bangkok to the capital city of Laos. This way we would be guaranteed a way into the country - but we weren't guaranteed our money back when we cancelled the tickets.

The flight from Taiwan to Bangkok was delayed due to what the captain said was a: "mechanical failure" WHICH DOES NOT HELP ANXIETY. We knew before we left the ground in Taipei that we were going to miss our bus to the hotel.

That plane ride was 100% uneventful. We sat next to a guy named "Papa Steve". He was ... a 50 year old 'dude bro' who once knocked up his Thai girlfriend when he was a contractor here about 10 years ago and now he visits his daughter twice a year. He was an interesting fellow.

This plane ride, I was apparently not a vegetarian.

The normal people food was not as good.

Life hack: register as a democrat and a vegetarian.

So that plane landed, we got off, and began the freaking nightmare of an adventure through immigration.

First we headed through what felt like a maze of passageways following signs for "Immigration and Baggage". When the maze finally took a split between "Immigration and Baggage" and "Visa on Arrival", we went to "Visa on Arrival" (in the US, we lived too far from a Thai consulate to get a 60 day tourist visa and were informed we would need one when we got here.). We filled out the two page document, went to the photo center, got told by the lady at the photo center that we needed to go to immigration processing first, went to immigration processing, and promptly panicked. You needed 5 things to get in on a "Visa on Arrival".

1. Passport
2. Boarding Pass coming into the country
3. Boarding Pass leaving the country in no more than 15 days
4. The name, number, and address of someone in Thailand to vouch for us
5. 2500 bhat each (~75$)

We swallowed our nerves and walked up to the counter. I was very aware that we didn't have 3 and 4. I was getting ready to argue it with our boarding passes we booked in Taipei for 21 days from now. I even had the contact number of someone at the school screenshot in my phone if it came down to it.

But after waiting in line, the immigration officer took one look at my passport and said: "American? Oh no. Just go straight through."

WE DID ALL THAT PANICKING FOR NOTHING.

So we got to head right on over to immigration. We got through that in about 15 minutes, grabbed our luggage, and were disastrously late for our bus. Thankfully there was one more bus to go out today and boy oh boy am I glad we were on it.

We met some lovely humans today. First it was Fern and Penny from MediaKids. Then it was Bianca from Toronto. Then Rachel from Orlando, Sarah from Dallas (formerly Iowa but wearing an Idaho shirt), and Ashley from California. Bianca, Rachel, Amanda, and I got to sit around for 2 hours waiting for Sarah and Ashley's flight to come in and in that time, there wasn't a silent moment. They were super fun.

When Sarah and Rachel did arrive, we boarded a van and took off for our hotel.

This place is gorgeous in a very "American Horror Story: Hotel" sort of way. I'll definitely be taking pictures to post later.

We got all checked in, got our super attractive uniforms, new SIM cards for our phones, and then were taken aside by Leon (mentioned above MVP) and Dana.

Now. If you've just moved to a foreign country and two people who are essentially your bosses pull you aside with the phrase: "we need to talk", what do you do?

Guys, you know me by now.

You panic.

You think of everything that could be wrong: visa problems, job issues, I talked too much in the van ride over... I don't know. It's just... what you do, right?

HA.

I love being wrong.

Take that, anxiety.

So Amanda and I have been offered different teaching jobs. These are at an international school. It's better pay and a better city. We have until tomorrow morning to talk it out, but we both think the answer is pretty obvious. We'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, it's 6:30pm and we have a dinner date with the ladies from the airport van.



TLDR: we're safe, very warm, and freshly showered. Fear not, we have also found the Pokestops (though we don't have data plans yet - so forgive me for slow gift giving!)

Today is the Day - Genie and Amanda

Well. Here we are. Perpetually early and sitting at our gate long before we needed to be here. We highly recommend flying out of T2 at MSP. The line is nauseously shorter.

Per usual, both of us got pulled aside in security. Amanda made another best friend with her pat-down buddy and all of our board games in my bag got personally screened by a man who referred to me as a "dork". I couldn't argue. He wasn't wrong...

Today went remarkably smoothly. This morning started with an instant replay of my high school days when my mother came over to find me still asleep past when she thought I'd be up. (Admittedly it was before my alarm went off so for once, I didn't sleep through it.) We then hiked it to the bank and got a bunch of paperwork notarized. We left Lanesboro around 10:30 am.

With the road between Chatfield and Marion closed effective this morning, we took a detour through Stewartville and grabbed Amanda's mother in Rochester. We then went out for the most spectacular lunch.

Seriously.

Go check out this menu. 

We split a wild mushroom bruschetta and then I had the most amazing wild mushroom pasta. They handmake the noodles in the morning and they tasted like ... ugh. I can't describe it here. People are already looking at me as I roll my eyes back remembering the scallops. And then the dessert. It wasn't a mousse; it wasn't a cream. It was like if you folded egg whites into a lemon custard. Except it wasn't that.

Just go there and eat it. What is this? A food blog? (Amanda: "I mean... kind of?")

We then drove north, stopping for a round of Chai teas at Moka, and arrived at the airport approximately 5 hours and 45 minutes early. We then got a lovely tour of my mother's old stomping grounds and then decided to head on over to the airport to hang out for a while before Amanda and I bopped through security.

After about 2 hours (or 8$ worth of parking at MSP), our mothers departed back home and we went off through security. We won't see our checked baggage until Wednesday afternoon, so I hope the poor people of Taiwan and Bangkok are ready for how poorly I'm going to smell in 2 days!

And now we sign off from Minnesota. We have to go find some place for me to plug in my computer. Handmaid's Tale isn't going to watch itself...