Fourth of July

We had a great fourth of July, at times it even reminded me of home. We had two things to celebrate. First, the freedom of our country that was bought at a high price. Second, our independence here in Thailand. Since we got here we have been tied down without any transportation. We spent a lot of time calling our already extremely busy boss to come and pick us up random places often when our song tow (a form of public transportation) drops us off at weird out of the way spots. Our boss lent us his wife's car for our five day weekend. We were sooo excited! Learning how to drive here is a very scary prospect as there really aren't any rules or laws. People pretty much do what they want. To make it worse the cars are standards and completely opposite (since they drive on the other side of the road.) Sarah (one of my housemates) drove us to the office (the only place we get internet) but we were disappointed that the internet didn't work. But the biggest part of our day was spent at Tesco, the local Walmart type store. We don't get to go very often so it is always a big event. We ate in the food court, which is really pretty good. I even ordered halfway in Thai. After that, we spent hours searching for school supplies, groceries, and other necessities. I even got a fan!!! Which is really exciting since I don't have air con and it is often 94 degrees in my room.
After Tesco we met our boss and some other friends and went to the Fourth of July party at the American consulate. We got our makeup done and housemate pictures taken for free. We also had the choice of several American foods that we are otherwise unable to get here such as: cream soda and ribs. We felt like we were at home since nearly everyone there was American, but we looked up the mountains and trees reminded us that we were still in Thailand. The night ended with a good fireworks show. After a song tow took us back to our car we made a trip to Big C, the other Walmart type grocery, because our Thai tutor told us that there was a sale on isakriim (ice cream). We were pretty excited about an ice cream sale so we made a special trip.
So that was our fourth of July. We were definitely thankful for our nation's freedom and our freedom to travel wherever we wanted. It was Misty's (another housemate) first American fourth of July. She was amazed at how much food there was. Funny note: Towards the end of the night a man came around trying to get us to take free seaweed chips (they had tons leftover) we thought they should have realized that it was an American party and Americans aren't as fond of seaweed products as some other people in Thailand.