alive and well :)

I made it to Thailand.... Udon Thani, Thailand to be exact. It's absolutely beautiful here and well worth the 22 hr+ trip.
I got in to the Ricefields yesterday sometime around noon along with 4 others (I'm staying in the garden room). A lot of the rustic pathways staff has been here since yesterday, and we were quickly embraced by them. I met them all in a matter of 30 minutes. Learning that many names + lack of sleep + terrible memory = having to ask them their names over and over again... but it's ok, we've all established that the general attention grabber "hey, hey you" will be used often in the upcoming days.
But I did get to remember my room mates names: Haley, Gaia, Shae. These girls all have really interesting stories and I'm inspired by them. Lucky to be rooming with them.
After lunch, and nice long meeting to go over our duties as a service leader (the responsibilities are a little overwhelming...) I was finally able to catch up on some much needed sleep. I could barely hold a conversation and decided that this was not the first impression that I'd like to leave people with.
Rested and ready, we all met up to take songthaews into town. This was the best 15 minute public transport ride I've ever been apart of... imagine bumping thai pop, 10 outgoing strangers and a impromptu dance off. I didn't want it to end.
Then we got to the market. Each group was given a list of items we needed to purchase, some being much easier than others. (the game was intended to teach us how to use receipts, recording items bought...). One of the items was a throwing star, which our group was the only one to find. We asked a lady where we could find one, and with a wave of her finger she quickly pulled out a black box from under her table and layed out a variety of some serious ninja weapons. It was very blackmarketish...
We got back around 11pm and I quickly retired to my room. My intentions for this trip is to be a yes girl... but a yes girl is no fun without a good nights rest... today I'll start :)
...forgot to mention the storm... first one on the first day and it was awesome. Lightning, thunder, pouring rain like I've never seen before and just like that... done... it did hinder the volleyball game that was in the works, but it's forgivable.