Learning curve

Oh, the things we are learning right now as we are experiencing a whole new culture. It certainly has been an adventure these last couple of days as we have dipped our feet in, made plenty of mistakes, and laughed a lot.

A quick overview of our first days:
7/15: toured the school, ate some delicious Thai food, went to the grocery store, got ripped off at the market, had an elderly Thai man instruct us on which toilet paper to buy (all in Thai), slept like there was no tomorrow.

7/16: looked at school curriculum, ate some more delicious Thai food, went to what could be considered "Walmart" in Thailand and had several store workers speak to me in Thai, got my finger slammed in the taxi car door, went to dinner at the headmaster's house with a family from Australia, learned a few differences between Aussie English and American English, bought what we thought was sweet rice wrapped in banana leaves only to find out it was raw looking meat with onions... and were thoroughly disappointed.

Things we have learned:
-Stick deodorant is basically non-existent
-Cereal and shaving cream are quite expensive
-There are several different types of mangoes, all of which are green so it's hard to really tell the difference between the sour ones and the sweet ones
-Apparently the way the banana leaves are wrapped (their shape) determines what is in it... so we need to find the shape that contains the sweet rice so as not to be disappointed again
-Carry a hanky with you at all times to wipe off sweat
-It pours like a banshee for short periods of time each day during the rainy season, which is now
-You have to weigh and label your fruit in the grocery store before checking out
-Rambutans (hairy pink/green looking fruits) and mangosteens are the best fruits ever
-Bright pink eggs=scary looking and probably fermented
-To get what you want without knowing the language you have to smile, exaggerate your hand motions and point... A LOT
-We are FAR from what is considered the "downtown" of Bangkok... the area that you would see on the travel channels/travel books

It's been an adventure, but we didn't anticipate anything different. Pictures to come...