Ola....

So I figured that trying to learn one language wasn't a big enough challenge and that it was time to pop off to another country for a week, hence a fun week was spent in Portugal - a country I had never really thought of visiting and knew next to nothing about (apart from their pastries thanks to Sweet Belem in Petersham....mmmm! And Alex, Sweet Belem still has the best Portugese tarts I've ever had)

Taking advantage of the beautiful proximity that Europe provides Chad, Andrea, Marlys and I jetted off to Lagos in the south of Portugal for a week of beach bumming. On the train there we were approached by a lovely guy who offered the 4 of us a flat in his building for €15 each a night, so we had our own flat complete with kitchen, veranda and rooftop....

We met a great guy from New York, Jon, on the train. He fitted into our little posse straight away and became the fifth member of our little band of travellers. While most of our time was spent wandering along the cliffs from one little beach enclave to the next and enjoying home cooked meals and copious quantities of extremely affordable local wine at the flat, we also managed to fit a day trip on scooters to Sagres into our busy schedule. The south-western most point of Portugal, Sagres was at one point thought to be the end of the world... and it felt like it, it was freezing cold and blowing a gale, but absolutely gorgeous.

The ride along the coast was stunning and even better from the passenger point of view, we had a fantastic day driving along, stopping at beaches, swimming, eating and then motoring on a little further (after spending ten minutes trying to get all the bikes started).

However, the week of fun and frivolity eventually had to end and I'm now back at work. I'm currently at Petit Bois in Cosne d'Aller, which is apparently the 'bellybutton' of France. Halfway through my Amvil stint and the work is starting to become a little repetitive (don't get me started on the food) but every group of kids is different, so I'm still having fun (apart from having a kid throw up on me and then showing me a piece of half chewed candy with his tooth stuck in it the next day). The site here is based in an old chateau with a tree lined driveway full of crows. The chateau is supposed to be haunted by the philanthropic owner who left the chateau to the town and who apparently is a friendly ghost with a sense of humour... no sightings yet, but will keep you posted....

What the....?

Just when I thought Spring was settling in this is what I opened my bedroom window to last week. We got almost 2 inches of snow last Monday and by Tuesday it was gone and everything is now sunny again. Was a very surreal scene to wake up to, especially just coming from beach weather!

The job is going well and I am getting used to sounding like someone's mother (no offence Mum) with phrases like 'tuck your elbows in when you eat', 'wait your turn', 'say please/ thank you' and 'be quiet' coming out of my mouth on a scarily frequent basis. I am on my first day off after 10 days straight and am very much enjoying the peace and quiet. Oh, yeah, and I am heading to Portugal next week on my week off.... perhaps with a little trip to Morroco as well : )

Otherwise we have been making the most of our weekends with little trips around France. This is a photo of Talulah (aka Andrea) and I in Lyon. We all have American camp names and I am getting used to being Mitch from California. None of the kids have the slightest clue that I am not American (even when I draw blanks when teaching the map of the USA in english class). We have a pretty cool bunch of people here and we have lots of fun both working and hanging out (apart from the occasional moments of tension that come with living and working with a virtual group of strangers). I am teaching them lots of Australian, apparently we speak a completely different language, which was news to me. We get so much US media that I have no problem understanding everything they say, but half the time my vocab draws blank stares from everyone. I have already taught them pash, snog, dag, dob, Nigel and dropbear ; )

One of our little weekend jaunts was to Annecy, which was gorgeous, had quite a Swiss feel about it. The water in these canals was so clear that you could see right to the bottom.

This is me and a few of the team helping our favourite local bartender celebrate his birthday (all drinks ended up being on the house, I am really going to miss the Blue Bar when I move locations!)

After my week off in, um where was it ..... oh, that's right, Portugal, I am moving to a different camp location to help set it up. Should be an interesting change and will provide for some new weekend jaunt locations : )

J'adore....

.. France. I am completely smitten with France so far and am just wandering around in a happy daze loving every minute of being here. The food, the sites, the shopping, the people - it's all fantastic so far. Now I just need to learn the language!

I had the first week of camp this week, and if I thought it was strange for me to be up in front of a class teaching, it is stranger still to get dressed up and act in skits and sing songs etc. So far I have been an aerobics instructor; an actress; a bad cowboy and a bodyguard. And I've even sung 'You are my sunshine' in front of a class full of kids... never thought I'd see the day that would happen! The job is fairly full on with long hours and I feel like I am herding cats most of the time, but it will be a good experience. Our TEFL course certainly didn't teach us how to deal with children who are dyslexic, can't read or have had a traumatic childhood and just start beating their heads on the ground when they aren't happy - all of that was new to me this week.

Tour de Buis is a cute little spot about 30 minutes from Vienne; which is about 30 minutes south of Lyon. We've already made friends with the bartender at the local bar, so there are plenty of drinks on the house, which takes away some of the stress from the kids on a Friday night (and perhaps a Saturday and a Sunday night). I went to Vienne and played tourist last weekend checking out the Roman ruins etc and spent the weekend in Lyon this weekend. It was absolutely beautiful with great weather, it's warming up nicely for spring.

Sorry, no pictures this time. Haven't got the technology at the camp to upload to the computer, but I will find a way shortly I'm sure. I'm sure you'll find the pictures of roman ruins and churches a nice change to pictures of temples and buddhas!

Hello... you buy something?

Thought it was about time I took a break from working on my tan to update my blog. I am currently in Nha Trang on the coast of Vietnam:

I have been working for the last 2 weeks teaching English to a group of kids in a bar called Crazy Kims. I am absolutely loving it. Still never thought I would be a teacher, but have to admit I am getting a real kick out of being in front of a class getting them to work out different verb tenses... who would've thunk it huh!

Vietnam was a bit of an adjustment to Thailand. It definitely doesn't feel as safe here - as soon as the Vietnamese figure out we are teachers and are staying here for a little while they tell us to be careful and give us advice on not getting our bags stolen etc. Have been lucky so far, but have heard stories from other travellers. I am also starting to become immune to the constant greetings of "Hello, buy something", "Hello, motorbike?" etc that you get every minute walking down the store. The kids I teach work on the streets selling postcards and everyday we get requests to buy postcards, or buy them ice creams.

Am still doing the tourist thing though, went on an island tour yesterday which was great. Stopped off at 4 islands around Nha Trang to snorkel, swim and float in the water drinking mulberry wine... it's a tough life!

I am settling in though and am really enjoying it here, especially being 5 mins walk from the beach and getting to swim everyday. The kids are really sweet (when they're behaving) and it's really nice to walk around and have them spot you on the street and come and talk to you. It's going to be really hard to leave this for France, but I have to go on Wednesday. I've got a job there starting next week, so will be cutting my summer teaching holiday short to go and work in wintery Europe.

Pai in the sky....

It's a tough life... have just gotten back to bustling Chiang Mai after a week in the small northern Thailand town of Pai. This is the view from the rickety bamboo bridge we crossed to get to our little bungalows

Pai is nice and small compared to Chiang Mai, full of hills and valleys. We bit the bullet on the second day there and hired scooters to ride around the neighbourhood. A little wobbly at first, but got off to a good start and were soon tearing down the country roads at breakneck speeds of around 40km/hr.

First stop was the hot springs, which weren't nearly as impressive as the public toilets nearby. Clare - I thought of you when I saw this.....

Looks like a bit of mould at first, but zoom in... uh uh... daddy long legs the size of my palm... everywhere! This is just one corner of the bathroom, several other corners were the same. We got more up close and personal with them on the following day on a 5 hour waterfall hike. They seem to like living in massive groups near water, so there were many moments walking along the river when it was safest just to not look down to avoid seeing them swarming all over the ground.

Apart from these adventures (and a small mishap on the scooter... resulting in a couple of bruises and some wounded pride) it's just been lounging around, drinking with travel buddies and seeing the sights.

(A couple of people I shared a dorm with in Chiang Mai - Geoff and Selina)

I did manage to fit a cooking class into my busy schedule though.. here's me whipping up cashew nut vegies:

I leave Chiang Mai for Vietnam on Friday, where I'll be volunteering in Nha Trang for 4 weeks before heading to Cambodia. Look forward to hearing how everyone is going!

Playing Tourist

I have been very slack on the job front in the last week. Have been pretty much just hanging out and playing tourist. Am really enjoying Chiang Mai, it is one of those cities that really grows on you and it would be really easy to live here. It's a funny place, in some ways the Thais can be very organised and clearly have set ways of doing things, and in other ways it's chaotic here.

The traffic has it's own set of rules I have yet to decipher, everyone arrives at an intersection and there just seems to be a random sort of order as to who goes first, they sort of just take turns. In other cases cars just honk as they approach an intersection as an indicator of ''coming through, beware". I have seen very few accidents though and given you see a full family on a scooter (mum, dad, child and little baby in someone's arms) all without helmets, it seems to be safe enough. Apparently the mentality here is that any accident is your fault. A nice change to the 'who can I blame' Western mentality! I even saw a Border Collie happily seated on a scooter as it made it's way through the traffic. How the hell do you train a dog to sit on the back of a moving scooter??!

Crossing the road is fun and has involved a fair amount of running rather than walking. The pavements are haphazard to say the least (where they actually exist) and you need to watch your head wherever you go. They have a few pedestrian crossings where you get about 11 seconds of green light to walk, and even then it seems optional for the cars to stop. You have to wait to make sure they are really going to let you across and the cross as fast as you can.

The food is interesting, lots of unidentifiable stuff, and unlike Bangkok, not everywhere has English menus, so some of it is still a mystery to me. The bug stands are very popular though, you can get any kind of deep fried insect your heart desires - grubs, crickets, cockroaches... all there for the eating. Yum!

Went to the Zoo yesterday. Was like most zoos in the sense it was as depressing as it was interesting, but still, was nice to get out of the city to somewhere with trees and less pollution. They had more birds than anything else, spectacular sorts of pheasants and mackaws etc. Very pretty.

We got to get right up to a family of elephants, one of which could play the harmonica... as elephants are wont to do....

I loved the orangutan though. Was sitting on the edge of the water just chilling and chewing on fruit. He seriously could not have cared less.....

After the zoo we headed up to Doi Suithep, the Wat towards the top of the mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai. Very pretty and great view, but absolutely packed and very touristy.

Even the monks were behaving like tourists here, wandering around getting their photos taken in front of Buddhas:

It was a fairly clear day yesterday (ie, you could actually tell you were in a valley surrounded by mountains for a change) so the view from the mountain was pretty good. Here is Chiang Mai.. I am staying within the old walled city (which is a square within the centre of the city)

The guest house is the opposite of luxurious and some days there is water and others it's hit and miss, but its 80 baht ($2.50) a night and I'm in the dorm on the top floor, which has windows, two day beds outside and a balcony area that no one knows about so we have it pretty much to ourselves. Am feeling quite comfy there!

Enough rambling for now!

More Chiang Mai

Geckos hanging out around the light outside our dorm room - fast moving little buggers that make a weird bird like noise every now and again

One of the many beautiful Wats dotting the busy streets

The view from my rooftop hostel room

Wat?

"grey" water rafting - very tame, but still fun

Elephant Trek

Feeding bananas to our elephant - whose trunk kept coming back for more long after they were gone.

Wat Chedi Leung - destroyed by earthquake.

Buddhas, buddhas everywhere....