August 9th - Travel

My mom and my brother in the U.S. made me a cake. Here it is:
The Thai flag looks a lot like this

Thanks Mom and Antero

And with that, we're up at 5:00 on Tuesday to go to the airport. I flew to Seattle with Ellen, an outbound from Minnesota going to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Our flight was delayed. In Seattle, we met some Rotary students from the west coast going to Thailand, but after that I connected through Tokyo and they all went through Seoul.

The flight to Tokyo was boring even though I had a window seat with extra space and there was a midflight ice cream service.
Notice me not being completely squished against the wall

So many drink services

Actually the ice cream came right in the middle of when I wanted to be sleeping, but still quite classy.

That flight was also delayed by an hour, landing after my scheduled board time for the flight to Bangkok, so I rushed through Narita airport. When I got to the gate, I realized I was safe - my next flight, like the first two, was delayed.


So finally, after about 26 hours awake, the plane touches down in Bangkok. Just between the plane and jet bridge, I realized something profound: Minnesota is not as hot and humid as we like to think it is. Not to sell it short, Minnesota gets sticky in the summer; it is not a winter paradise all year. Thailand is, however, on a different level. At this point I was actually starting to get dizzy spells from being tired, so I went as fast as I could through customs. My phone doesn't work here, and the airport WiFi wanted my passport number and everything else about me, so I figured it would be easiest to just go looking for my welcome committee. They were super excited and friendly. Due to being tired and embarrassed at how late I was, I couldn't match their excitement on the outside, but it was a relief to finally be here.




My first host mother and grandmother

We got home at maybe 1:00 (AM), making a grand total of too many hours awake.








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