I love my neighborhood

Moving to a foreign country is kind of like being an infant (or so I think). The littlest achievements seem so big.

Wednesday nights find Megan out of town for the night and me all alone in the big city. (So I'm not alone, there are lots of people to hang out with but I chose to take a lone evening). On a street about a block from us, there are food stalls lined up either side. Most thai people get take away from these stalls, although many of the vendors have set up a table or two behind their place to sit and eat. I'm a little shy to stop and eat because it can be hard to figure out what it is that each stall serves. However, I haven't really found anything I don't like to eat (except maybe that chicken foot floating in my bowl of soup the other day) so I decided to just try whatever this particular stall has. The guys was really nice, told me to sit down and brought me a plate of rice with some of the best chicken that chickens can make sitting on top. As I'm eating an older woman sitting next to me figure out somehow that I'm not thai and kind of keeps looking over at me. So I say hi. She says hi and then starts asking me various questions in English. I try to answer in Thai (although I don't really know enough yet to answer much) and soon we are talking. She just finished taking a course in English from the British consulate and really wants to practice her english. So here I am, sitting at a food stall in my neighborhood, talking to my neighbor and feeling like I belong here.

After a while, I leave the stall still feeling a bit hungry so I go to another stall that is only take away and order some Kale type thing, rice, and some amazing chile sauce all in thai. The woman serving it up smiles and waits patiently as I try to speak thai, and sure enough, I get what I thought I was going to get. I'm pretty much feeling like the man.

This must be how infants feel the first time they learn to communicate exactly what they want.

Oh yeah, and I can read again. The thai letters are starting to make sense. It may take me about 30 seconds to sound out words, and I have no idea what the words mean once I say them, but at least I can read again. Maybe I'm progressing to the feeling a 5 year old gets.

And here are some cute dogs on a rack.

Marshall