I don't look for bright sides. I don't dig deep to be positive. I'm negative and you can count on me for it.
With that, there are negatives about this job. There are negatives about this school. There are negatives about the company I work for.
This weekend had no negatives.
Even the things about this weekend that should have been horrible were amazing.
Let us set the scene:
After a long week at school, Amanda, Roxi, and I all got off early because Roxi's school had an early release and Amanda and I pretended to have an appointment. In reality, our department is the only group on campus that has to stay past 3:30 on Fridays. We took a leaf out of the IP department's tree and headed back early. We changed into gym clothes and headed to our outside gym for a pre-weekend workout.
We didn't know Roxi got off early on Friday but figured it out quite quickly when we saw her bike at the gym! We all did our own workouts for the next hour and met back up around 5 to discuss the most important part of the day: dinner.
We decided to get PP's restaurant. We got BBQ and khao gee toad (fried sticky rice dipped in egg) and fried fish. We spent the evening cooking food, chatting with PP, and de-stressing from the long week.
After dinner (and BBQ at PP's restaurant is at minimum 90 minutes), we dropped Roxi back at home and all went to bed. Honestly by 9pm on a Friday, I'm completely wiped and we knew we were going to have a long day on Saturday!
Saturday morning we got up bright and early. I was out of bed by 11am! We were on a mission to take a pile of cute photos. So I got out of bed, grabbed a quick shower, picked up Roxi, and brought her back to our apartment. We then got all gussied up! We were all in dresses with our hair and makeup done. Amanda even let me give her some eyebrows!
We started with the most important part of the day: food. We grabbed khao gee from a street vendor and found a coffee shop. Another mission of the weekend was to find more coffee shops around town.
We started at Doichang Cafe. This was my favorite tasting drink all weekend. We also got an amazing squid and rice dish that I'll dream about for a long time.
Then we went to our workout park to take pictures. It's one of the prettiest places in Nong Khai. The best part was Roxi having an Americano before we went and she ran around like a 3 year old at the playground.
It all went spectacularly until she got bit by an insect. My suspicion is a horsefly or some cousin of the horrific insect from back home, but we also found quite a few of these bees ... so the jury is still out.
But seriously, my friends are so pretty.
I'm going to make you look at them.
It's because they're pretty.
Again we got to the point where we needed to take care of the most important thing: food.
It was Saturday night, which always makes that option easy! We went to the night market and got back and foot massages. I still can't believe that we can get 90ish minute massages for 6$ (with tip I usually pay about 9$).
We then got an absolute pile of food and headed back to our apartment to eat and watch Netflix. A large thunderstorm hit right after we got back home and it was perfect timing to get back, turn on some tv, eat our dinner, and spend the rest of the night gossiping and laughing.
Sunday morning we went on another coffee adventure. We checked out a place we drive past all the time, but have never stopped at: Cake at Toey's.
We got delicious coffees/teas and a toffee cake that I would definitely eat again! We sat in the cafe and played Go Fish and listened to the HILARIOUS music they had playing. The coffee shop played everything from Fever to Baby It's Cold Outside. We sang along to our favorites and the staff laughed at us and definitely took some videos of us.
Then we went to the mall to try and find Amanda some new sneakers.
First we had to figure out European sizing, because that's how shoes in Thailand work. At the third place we looked, we found her the cutest shoes! And then we went to find popcorn - because the movie theaters on the second floor make the entire mall smell like popcorn.
It was the worst kind of popcorn. They. Put. Cheese. Powder. On. The. Popcorn.
Monsters.
I ate one piece of popcorn and let the other two finish what they wanted. The popcorn was dead to me as soon as I realized it had been tarnished by GARBAGE POWDER.
We dropped off our stuff at the apartment and started to discuss dinner. We decided to go out and about to see about finding a restaurant we hadn't seen yet. We got on the moped and headed out. We started driving in one direction we saw a number of temples and finally pulled over to check one out.
Photo borrowed from Roxi's Instagram.
Hopping back on the moped, we headed back to town. We were about 3 minutes into a 10 mile drive when THE SKY OPENED. Rain fell so hard that traffic slowed to a crawl. For the entire drive home (which should have taken 15 minutes and it actually took over 30). The entire time, Roxi had her arms up over my head to try and keep the rain out of my face. Our eyes were all stinging. The roads had started flooding. We made it back to our apartment and stood outside the door deciding whether or not to go in. We were sopping wet.
We took off as much as was appropriate outside and stepped into the apartment. I threw Roxi a change of clothes and we all got under some blankets! We were freezing! (Ok, Roxi and I were freezing. Amanda was comfortable.)
We were in our apartment discussing dinner when the lights all went out. It's not weird to lose electricity when storms hit. Thailand does not have the infrastructure set up for a power plant to survive being struck by lightning, so when a storm does hit, they just turn the power out.
Of course, by this point, the sky was so dark and it was late enough to be dark anyway. It was pitch black and we were not ready for a power outage. We sat in the dark while a storm raged outside. Thunder and lightning clapped so often that we couldn't count seconds between them. It was the loudest thunder I've ever heard in my life. We heard trees creaking and snapping outside.
It lasted for over an hour. During this time, we decided on getting sticks and banana pancakes was the only thing that MIGHT be open.
WE WERE COUNTING ON TWO LADIES WITH FOOD STANDS ON THE SIDE OF THE STREET TO BE OPEN DURING THIS STORM.
We waited for a break in the storm and when it hit, we headed out. (It was after 7pm at this point, so we knew if we wanted food tonight that wasn't from 7-11, we need to GO GO GO!)
Two minutes into our bike ride, it started to rain again. I was driving in the direction I thought wasn't going to be flooded.
I COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG IF I TRIED. The end of every road had a massive puddle and when we finally got to the highway, three of four lanes were flooded higher than the engine of my bike. Cars and bikes were merging like absolute idiots. We all were fighting for spots in a right turn lane that wasn't completely underwater.
We got to the road where our main squeezes are usually parked and like saints sent from above, they were there.
They had been standing outside through that entire nonsense.
Have I mentioned how much I love them?
We got piles of food from them. We got banana egg pancakes, egg pancakes, and enough sticks to sink a ship. We thanked them profusely and threw money at them. They tried to give us change and all three of us girls were like: "you've been out in the rain the entire time and gave us piles of food. We love you. Shut up and take our money."
Unfortunately, we don't speak that much Lao or Thai, so we said "please" and "thank you" and did the Thai *little heart* symbol at them.
We went back to Roxi's apartment and got her rice cooker started steaming vegetables.
We stayed up too late watching Netflix and then headed back to our apartment. (It started raining again while Amanda and I were driving home, but how surprised are we about that? 0.)
Monday was a holiday. It was the Queen Regent's birthday and therefore it is the Thai "Mother's Day". We got up and met at Roxi's for lunch. We ate at the vegetarian restaurant (really it's vegan) that she gets lunch at every day at school.
It was amazing. I understand why she eats there every day.
We then went to the Tha Sadet Market to try and find some postcards. Postcards seem to not exist in Thailand. We were hoping that a touristy area would yield some results... we were wrong, but we tried! While we were there, it started pouring. Again. We headed up the road to a sign I couldn't ignore:
Even in Thai, this clearly says "stop for coffee".
Wait.
That's English.
The coffee there was a raging success. The barista spoke a lot of English and got very excited when she got to practice. It's funny, because we all like practicing our terrible Thai when we get the chance and the feeling seems to be mutual. We got wonderful not-coffee coffees and a cake with Thai custard and fried onions on top.
Post-coffee and shopping, we got food at Jai Gouaen's (stick lady) and made veggies and sticks. It wasn't raining, so it was SO much easier!
We all went home early and went to bed. Tuesday was going to be hard to wake up for. The weekend was almost too much fun!
****Amanda's Two-Cents****
What kind of girlfriend would I be if I didn't add photographic evidence of how beautiful Genie is??
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