first week in Chiang Mai -- overview

     After leaving New York on wednesday, August 11th, 3 different planes, and an overnight in a hotel in Bangkok, I arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand on friday, August 13th.  The first plane we took was just under 14 hours in flight time. That being said, that plane was remarkably nice, and even for being almost in the back on the plane, in the least important class on the plane, the service was amazing.  We had our own personal screens in the back of the seat in front of us, where I had the option of playing video games, watching new release movies, and watching our flight path into the first stop of Seoul, South Korea.  Even with how nice of a flight experience this was, 14 hours is never a short period of time, and I was so ready to get off the plane when we landed.  This was not even close to the end of my travel time for the day though.  Once in the airport in South Korea, we had only an hour until we hopped on another (not as nice plane) to Bangkok, Thailand (a 5 hour flight).  My other peers I was traveling with and I all thought that it would be a breeze after being in a plane for 14 hours--we were all wrong.  On this flight, everyone was quite antsy to just get to Thailand already. 
     Finally, we arrived in Thailand, but we'd have to stay at a hotel in Bangkok before catching the short flight up the Chiang Mai the next day.  The hotel was remarkable, and one of the nicest hotel I've stayed it--and for such an inexpensive price!

     That was the first experience I had in Thailand of experiencing the extremely favorable exchange rate for the American dollar.  The next day, we hopped out plane up to Chiang Mai, and our abroad experience was really beginning.

     Now, we had the weekend to explore the city a little bit before we had to get into orientation week.  We explored the night scene a little bit, and spent a day walking around the city going to a few different Wats (Temples).

     Once monday came around, basically our entire group had arrived in Chiang Mai--the 10 or so kids from St. Lawrence, and then one or 2 kids from a handful of other schools, and we all add up to 23.  Apparently this is one of the biggest groups that has been on the program, which is really cool because we have so many different characters and personalities.
     Orientation week was really tiring.  We had a lot of meetings, and a lot of shuffling around the city in our big group.  We were basically booked solid from the 16th-20th.  Added into orientation week was Thai Language class everyday so that we could start to get a grasp on words and phrases that we would need right away around the city.  However this changes, and when all of our other classes start tomorrow (the 30th), we only have Thai Language 2 days a week for 2 hours per class.

     This post was a basic overview of what I had done in the first week of Chiang Mai, but in the next post I want to post a little bit more about the roommate experience with Thai roommates, and living in a city where I am now the minority, and many people I come in contact with have no idea what I'm saying to them, as well as visa-vera.