Strange New Things

Oooooffff..... It seems to be harder to keep up with this blog thing than I expected. I've been meaning to write out something all thoughtful and good and edited and such- but it doesn't seem as if that is going to happen any time soon, so I guess I'll just type up somehting quick for now.

Spent the weekend with my host family. I am living with a chain of women. There is grandma-who I'm supposed to call Mom, (she's like 55 I think.. around my parents age...) and Pi Ahn  (the pi part means older sister... in Thailand you adress everyone as if they were a family member. So anyone slightly older than me I will adress with a Pi infront of there name.... any one younger than me I will adress with a Lom, for younger sister/brother, infront of it.  I think I'm supposed to adress all the non pi/lom folk as uncle or aunt.... but I haven't learned the word for that, so for now I just smile and nod...), and then Ahn's daughter Shaw. there are also Host mom's parents, who are old, live next door, and tend to appear in the house from time to time. Great Grandpa likes to wander in the house from time to time, and read the newspaper on the floor.

I have eaten, seen, and smelled the strangest foods here. Those of you who know me understand that the fact that I'm saying this means a lot. Thai markets are probably the coolest things ever. Everytime you turn your head, you see something new. Yesterday, walking down the street- I turned my head and saw a pigs head sitting flat on the table of a pork vendor, right next to a clothing store. (there were flies. It stared at me. I stared back. And longed for a camera.) Markets are filled with the strangest looking fruits. fruits I thought could never exist. My family bought a huge bag of these strange things that are red with a zillion stringy lime green spikes  coming out of it.Its this wieerd fruit, and I can't pronounce the name of it for the life of me. All I know is its title sounds a little bit like the sound of my cat when she's trying not to barf. But the fruit tastes wonderful. the bright red/ stringy green part is this waxy harder shell. You cut it open with a knife, and it reveals this whiteish clear intrior, thats sort of the shape of an egg. Kind of the color of a pupa or something... not to gross all you out or anything. Anyways. Its waxy, juicy, a little rubbery, and tastes sort of like a strawberry.

There's anouther GIANT spiky fruit that I tried that has a really creamy interior- like cool whip. A great texture. Unfortunatly, it tasted like a strange mixture of vanilla and garlic. peculiar... interesting... but lets just say its not my thing.

I ate cubed pigs blood in a soup the other day. And I'm pretty sure those funny wiggley things were intestines.
 Moments between thai class consist of a flurry of exclamations concerning the peculiar things we have eaten, seen, heard, and have been asked to do.
A girl in my class was telling me today how her host parents enthusiastically dug out a thai-english dictionary, so they could tell her that she was eating pancreas.
Pancreas.... I wonder how that tastes. Or maybe I already know with out knowing it yet.

Soooo.... we had our first physical fitness test today. and I had a massive asthma attack. Asthma- this new thing I seem to have developed, which I'd hoped was only a result of me moving from Michigan back to Colorado. HA.HA.HA. I was wrong. Day one of our lovely physical fitness training- where we sprinted all of 200 meters, and I sound like a squeeky toy from petsmart. Lovely, just Lovely.

On that note- I have agreed to go on a bike ride to a hotsprings this weekend! Up hill! With my neighboorhood's competitive bike team! I'm So excited!!!!!!!!! I'm Not Being Sarcastic here!!!!! I can't wait!!!!!! It's 60 km, but that can't be as long as the kal-haven bike trail- and Kaitlin and I powered through 20 miles of that in the rain on a shitty ass bike made for small children. So I think I got this covered. Plus, 55 year old host mom is going, and Pi Ahn- host moms daughter- is going to drive next to us the whole time( to watch us struggle? make sure I'm safe? i don't know) they're gonna try and get me a team shirt. I'm pumped.