Plans change and that's life

Well, I went to the ENT only to find out that they're taking out my tonsils. Lucky me. The bad news of all of this is that I will be coming home a few weeks early to get them out. I will be saying goodbye to Katie in Paris and while I get surgery on June 1st she will be visiting England without me. I'm bummed,  but it could be a whole lot worse, right... I could not be going. So I will be finishing up antibiotics while traveling plus I have a three weeks supply just in case my tonsils decide to flare up again. We are hoping that they don't. 

This trip is a whole lot different from the last one. I have have a "whatever" attitude about what will happen. What could happen, I mean, I'm in a first world country and I have someone with me! A lot... but at least I'm in a first world country and I have someone with me...  All I need is my passport and credit card. How I get places and where I am sleeping is very far off in my concerns right now. This amount of time before SE Asia I slightly freaking out about what needed to happen... how I was going to get places and all that fun stuff. Katie will be picking me up from the Florence airport. What more could I need - she knows what she is doing. 

So our master plan, which because nothing is booked, is completely flexible, and may change 20 times before we even leave Italy:  I will get into Florence on Tuesday April 21. I will spend a few days wondering around Florence (or going wherever Katie tells me to) while she is in class. We will fly to Sicily for the weekend to sunbath with her friends. I will spend more time wondering around Florence while Katie stresses about finals. I'm so happy not being in school right now! We will be planning where we are staying and how we are getting places before setting out May 1st or 2nd on our adventure.  We plan to hop by plane or train to: Barcelona, Monaco/Nice, Geneva, Zurich, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Holland, and Paris. Tried yet? We will be spending 2 nights in most places before going to the next place. It will be quite the adventure and so different from my last one. I'm excited! 

Stay tuned. I will have a mini computer and I will see what kind of updating I can do while we are on the road. I'll be back May 28th. 

Katie and I last spring while I was back at WSU for a visit. We were put together freshman year in the dorms and it has been friends ever since! 

I have gone through my 4000+ pictures of SE Asia and have narrowed it down to 370ish pictures so you can see a mini version of my trip. I figure this way anyone can see them if they want and you can go at your own pace. Plus I have added comments so you can hear a little bit about each place as well. 

Take a look if you like: http://picasaweb.google.com/aewdenton

I'm off to Europe! 

While at Home

I've been home just over four weeks now and I realized that I missed my blog. So... I will update you on what has happened since I have been home. The first week was spent hibernating and adjusting to be back in the states. I finally started catching up with everyone. I spent ages combing over picture so I could get a slide show of my trip together. Some times a digital camera isn't a good time. 

My boyfriend, Michael, and I were able to take advantage of Seattle's 3 course meal for 30 dollars! We got all gussied up for the occasion. This is the dress I had tailored for me in Hoi An. 

While I have been home I have also been snowshoeing and camping on Whidbey Island. Snowshoeing was a cold experience but I was happy to finally use my snowshoes that I bought in June. 

The weather was wonderful for camping! The best weekend so far since I have been home - the sun was out and shinning! 

But while I have been home I have also had tonsillitis. And not just once, but twice! Talk about a miserable experience. And in a two week period! I haven't been a happy camper and have been getting to know the Group Health staff quite well. 

My plan is still to leave for Europe a week from Monday (!) April 20th. But before that I get to see the ENT to see if they would like to remove my tonsils for me. 

Happy Spring! It feels like maybe it has finally arrived. 

It looks a little different...

Yup, my blog looks a little different. I was ready for a change. Plus, the change comes with a new adventure. It is set - I'm going to Europe. First stop Florence and then Sicily! I leave in just less than a month, April 20th! This will be an 7+week adventure with Katie. More to come soon!

The last 3 weeks of pictures

Okay, so it has taken a little time getting use to being in Seattle. Trying to figure out where I fit in has been hard, but I figured it out - I don't fit in, I'm just visiting. I'm slowly but surely starting to get together with people. The first few days were a little overwhelming with the idea of seeing people. I'm starting my search for tickets to Europe; it looks like I will be leaving at the end of April to meet up with Katie. In the mean time I am kicking back and maybe cleaning house while I am in town. If you want to get together while I'm in Seattle please give me a call or email me. Here are a few pictures from the last three weeks of my trip with my parents. The whole time I was looking for our next “holiday card” picture... here are a few of the contenders.

Halong Bay - This was as nice as it got (weather wise). Our first day was very mystical with fog. 

The bummer part of Halong Bay was how nasty the water was. Anyone want to go swimming?

The family!

Hoi An - this was just about the only site seeing we did... we did a lot of shopping.

The family in Hue.

Liz and Terry's first Tuk-tuk ride in Phnom Penh.

Yes, that is a baby and a monkey sleeping on the woman's lap. This woman was begging at a Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh. 

Terry tried to ask the monk to take a picture of the three of us but the monk thought we wanted a picture with him. Finally after a little hand signaling we got both. 

Angkor Wat! This was my second time. I learned a lot the second time around - we had a nice tour guide. 

My favorite is still (this one) Bayon. 

Ta Promh - the tomb raider one... 

Sunrise! 

The names of everything on the second day slip my mind... getting up at 4:40am wasn't great for site seeing the rest of the morning. So this is... family at another old Wat... 

I got sick of just smiling for pictures. 

Vera (social worker), Liz, Terry, and Tipporn (nurse). These were our wonderful tour guides in Bangkok. Vera and Tripporn came to Seattle over the summer to look at hospitals and met Liz. They were so happy with their trip to Seattle that they showed us a very good time. 

 

That's it for SE Asia right now... I might continue the blog for Europe - I will let you know via email. Thanks for following me on my adventures - it was nice to know that people were interested in where I was and what I was doing! 

Back in Seattle and it's a little strange

I’m back and I have to say it is a little strange. Today I was with my parents shopping for groceries and I was standing watching people and it felt so odd. I miss SE Asia. I just miss it.

The plane ride back was fine, 13+ hours of flying plus some waiting time. We had a semi bumpy flight from Taipei to Seattle – I’m not sure exactly how bumpy it was – I took a sleeping pill and was happy to wake up and find that I only had two hours left until we were in Seattle. I’m not sure what time zone my body is in right now. The last few nights I have taken sleeping pills to try and get back into Seattle time. I tend to be waking up early and ready for bed in the afternoon.

I am in hibernation mode. It is COLD! Already I have seen snow, rain, sun, and wind all in one day. Somehow I managed to get some sort of stomach bug during our last few days in Bangkok and brought it home with me so I don’t feel the best. I think it is funny that the sickest I have felt has been on the way home and not when I first got to SE Asia. It’s funny how some things work.

Traveling with my parents was great. We managed not to get sick of each other the whole time and I am still happy to be with them. This week Terry heads back to being a handyman while Liz heads back to the VA. I will be working on adjusting to being in the US as well as going through all my pictures! I’m trying to cut down my slideshow from 14+ hours to something a little more reasonable for my friends and family to sit through.

While I miss being in SE Asia there are some nice parts of being home – being able to drink tap/shower water. I really had to think about not opening my mouth in the shower while I was away. I guess I didn’t know how much I liked drinking shower water from the showerhead. I like having milk and hot, hot, hot showers. I finally feel clean after a few good scrubs. I have to remember that I can finally throw my toilet paper in the toilet bowl and not in a trashcan. I love being able to have safe water at a restaurant and not having to buy something to drink. It is the small things that I have missed that are the simple pleasures right now but how I would love be back there and wouldn’t even mind needing to remember to bring my own toilet paper or how dirty my feet would get. A hard thing being back is how much everything cost. I could eat three meals a day out on less than 10 dollars and here I don’t think I could do that and have nice meals. Oh, yesterday I found out how low gas prices have gotten and was flabbergasted. Somehow no one told me that I wouldn’t have to come back to paying four dollars a gallon on gas!

I’ve said it before but this was an amazing learning experience for me and I’m so happy that I went and did it. Thanks for all the support along the way. I haven’t figure out whether or not I will keep updating my blog. For the next week or two I will be low key and will be catching up with friends. My hope/plan is to meet up with my friend Katie in May in Europe. One thing that I have learned is that no matter what my plan is, it can change at any time, and that until I am doing it I can’t count on anything – so we will see what happens. More pictures of the last few weeks will come in the next few days.

Start to finish back to Bangkok I go

So... I'm doing a pretty good job of not thinking about Friday and coming home. I think in a lot of ways I didn't know that I could do this - travel on my own and be okay. Yes, the beginning was bumpy and I didn't know what I had gotten myself into, but now I am doing great and don't want the adventure to stop. This has been an amazing growing experience for me and I am so happy with myself for doing it. Having my parents here the last few weeks has been nice. I have been the one showing them around.

Yesterday we saw the sunrise at Angkor Wat - what a beautiful experience! And 5am is the perfect time to be up in this weather by 7:30am it is HOT! I think 2 days of seeing Wat after Wat had us a little exhausted - plus the heat makes us drop so much quicker. I thought that it was funny that some things had changed in the 3 weeks since I was last here. Wooden walk ways had been put in place in some places that weren't there last time. Today we are being lazy. I think more shopping at the market is what Terry and I are up for - I'm not sure Liz likes it as much as we do. And then this afternoon we are going to a spa. I will never be able to get a facial and hour massage for under 55 dollars at home! While we are wimping out in this heat I am very happy that I'm not in the snow. I'm going to go into shock getting off the plane coming from weather that is 30+ degrees C to 30+ degrees F!

Tomorrow we head to Bangkok for our last stop before home. Liz knows a few nurses who did an exchange at the VA so we will tour around with them one of the days. Other than that I plan to soak up the last amount of sun and warm weather by the pool before getting on a plane Friday night.

Pictures will come once I get home with at least one follow up entry to my blog and maybe what I will be doing next. If you know of anyone who needs someone do to odd jobs for them I'm available for hire just as long as the job is indoors! While I'm sad to be leaving this side of the world I'm looking forward to getting together with everyone once I am home.

Wats, wats, and more wats plus a Citadel

Boy oh boy is it hot! I didn't know that I could sweat this much!

We left Hoi An and took a private car to Hue. We had one full day there and we spent the morning at the Citadel and then took the afternoon off to rest. We had been busy in Hoi An and didn't really have any time to rest. From there flew to Phnom Penh (PP). PP is a place that I had been through but didn't really seen until now. We hired a car and saw so much in one day. 2 Wats, the Killing Fields, S-21, the Royal Palace... it was a full day but worth it. The Killing Fields were pretty in a very eery way - the memorial way very peaceful. S-21 on the other hand was very hard for me to look at. There are pictures of the people who were there and you see such young children who were killed. I found one picture that reminded me of a boy from CCPP - that was scary for me.

We took the six hour bus ride from PP to Siem Reap (SR). This was a bus ride that I had done before and as any bus ride was happy when it is done. SR is a funky little place. I really enjoy the size of the town. We hired a guide and car and saw the main places in and around Angkor Wat. At about 8am I was ready for a cold shower. We just came in from our day out and my next stop is a cold shower and then a nice cold beer... maybe some shopping afterwards.