I am a very logical person who can figure out what to do in situations when presented with relevant information. Unfortunately, I am not very good at gathering this information, or frankly, noticing obvious things. This is compounded by the fact that I am in a foreign country where people do a bunch of weird stuff. This week's post will be dedicated to stuff that I struggle to understand.
My buddy Jody and I went out to some bars by his house. He lives about an hour north of Bangkok, so the people there are different (fewer fat, old, white men buying Thai girlfriends). The white people that you see in Ayyutaya (where Jody lives) are mostly younger backpackers, and travelers who are there to see the famous temples. This encourages a more pleasant night life when compared to hookers and bald men.
First we went to a restaurant where they served white people food. I got a wonderful double cheeseburger and fries for 3 dollars. I don't know if it's because I was 3 beers deep, because I've had rice and chicken for every meal for 5 months, or because I was actually 6 beers deep, but damn if that wasn't the best burger I've ever had.
After the fantastic food, we went bar hopping. There was a nice little bar that had a pool table and beer. What more could anyone ask for? We went inside, sat down, and sure enough, it started pouring rain.
Now, when it rains in Thailand it is completely different than anything I've seen in America. If it starts to rain in California, you look up at the sky and say, "darn, my hair might get wet." When it rains in Thailand, you look up and get hit in the eye by a marble sized rain drop. You quickly learn not to look at the rain.
So we're stranded in this bar because it is POURING. The combination of alcohol, fury from getting whooped in pool, and inexperience with actual weather, kind of put me in a trance. I just stared outside for a few minutes, hypnotized by the fact that the air was more water than actual air.
My trance didn't last long, because my toesies started to get wet. And if there's a terrible feeling, it's wet toesies inside shoes. Apparently this bar was 2-3 feet underground, which was terrible planning in a tropical environment. Since it was raining 6 inches per hour, the bar quickly turned in to a pool party.
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| I heard you liked pool, so we put a pool table in a pool so you can play pool in a pool |
Remember that little kid in high school that had the backpack that was way too big for him?
Remember how he ran to each class for some reason?
Well, don't worry, he's also over here in Thailand. I tried to take a picture, but he was too darn fast.
I was teaching commands to the students. You know; "Sit down! Shut up! Go outside! Stop crying!" and so on... I was teaching one of my... less hard working classes, and some of the students just weren't interested. So, being the good teacher that I am, I decided to help them, and get them engaged. I walked to the back of the class and a student says "Teacher smoke weed?" I laughed at first, but then figured that I could use this as a teaching point.
I pulled out a pen and wrote on his paper "I smoke weed". I explained that we could turn this in to a command by crossing out the "I" and adding an exclamation point. Unfortunately, this kid was apparently too damn high to understand English, so he starts telling everyone that I smoke weed. The following week involved a lot of 14 year old boys trying to give me weed/ get weed from me.
Hey, look at this dog's tongue. I thought it was carrying something in its mouth, but nope. It just had a really long tongue.
I went to the next province over to visit one of my friends. We wanted to go on an adventure, so his landlord let us borrow a scooter and some helmets. I weigh 2-3 times as much as Josh. When the person riding in the back weighs that much more than the person in the front, a scooter can be very hard to control.
So, smaller Josh rode bitch the whole time in a Hello Kitty helmet.
I lucked out and received the coolest helmet/goggle combo ever, since my head was too big for Hello Kitty to handle.
Seriously, can we just appreciate the awesomeness of those goggles. Chrome plated AND the rainbow reflecting glass. Man, I felt so cool.
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| Imagine me saying "vroom, vroom" because I was. |
I was one of the first passengers, so I had choice seating. Other people started to board, and one of them was playing music on his phone speakers. I suppose he didn't have any headphones, but it didn't seem to bother him. He sat down in the 14 person van and just sat there, blasting "Rock You Like a Hurricane" by the Scorpions. He was seriously loving that song, and did not even notice that there were other people being forced to listen to it. Not only was he un-embarrassed, he actually seemed a little proud. As if he were sharing some artistic masterpiece with the rest of us.
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| Here I am... |
The song finished, and I expected his display to end. The Mysterious Asian Hair Band Lover had other plans. The next song in the playlist came on. Something that was still the Scorpions, but not as popular as "Rock You Like a Hurricane". The man could tell that he was losing the interest of his audience with this less popular song, so what did he do? Certainly not turn off the speaker so the other 10 people weren't subject to his musical whims. Instead, he played the classic Scorpions hit, "Rock You Like a Hurricane". Again. I found this amusing, but put my headphones in. No one should like that song THAT much in this day and age.
That's it for this installment. I'll be returning again next week with stories of love, disappointment, and infections.
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| haha.... |
