Halloween 2005

Just got back from the most fabulous of weekends in Bangkok. A group of about 30 PC Volunteers were finishing their service, so a big gaggle of us got together to see them off. We all stayed at Suk 11 Guesthouse, a place we often stay when we are in Bangkok. It is down a side street and has a lot of character. Open air wooden reception area w big wooden tables and lots of plants. Upstairs is a room w couches, a big TV, and about 300 movies to choose from. Anyway, it is like our home in Bangkok, and it is so much fun to sort of take over the place with 30 friends. Whenever you're up, people are around. We spontaniously get 20 people sitting around to watch a movie or play cards.

So, as Bangkok always is, it was a weekend of good food and lots of spending. The food highlight was a turkey sandwich at Subway! I went Saturday with a group of friends after a basketball tournament that the guys organize with out PC doctor every few months. The other food highlight was a club sandwich at a bar where we had a private room Saturday night at the going away pub crawl.

So Halloween was on Saturday night for us and the theme was togas. Bangkok knows about Halloween, and they weren't too shocked to see 30 of us walking down the street in costumes, but they don't know about togas and didn't know why most of us were wearing bed sheets. I was going to be Chiquita Banana toga, but I scrapped the toga part and just went w Chiquita banana. You may remember I got this totally cheesy outfit last April at the Songran festival, one that reminded me of Chiquita Banana- yellow ruffles and all. Well I wrapped my head up, and pinned some fake fruit in- presto chango- Chiquita Banana!!

So I said good bye to some good friends, and in about 5 months another group leaves and my group will be the oldest. The next new group comes mid January. Remember how I came and spent 10 weeks in Training before we all left to our own sites? Well this year they moved the training city to be in my town! In all of Thailand, there will be 60 new Americans training about 3 kms from my house. In my town!

I am actually really really excited. It means I will get to know them pretty well. And whenever other volunteers come to help with training I'll get to hang out with them. When we were training at the beginning of the year, we had a place we would all go hang out at the end of the day, before heading to our host families houses. We called it 'the hut.' I'm hoping my house is the new 'hut.'