Football Aussie Style

One thing I've missed while living in Thailand is American football. I prefer the college game (go Hawks!), but even being able to catch an NFL game this fall would be nice. It's just not worth $120 per month for an American cable package, and going across town to the American bar at 6 am to catch a game just doesn't fit my style. So I've learned to enjoy a new game. It's called football. No not soccer... Australian football.

Tonight Mary and I spent the night at home watching a game, having some beer, and eating ribs delivered by motor scooter from the All American Rib Company. I still don't fully understand Aussie Rules Football, but I do know the following video clip was an awesome play! A brief description since almost everyone reading this has probably never heard of this game before:

1) if you kick the ball through the posts (like a field goal in American football) you get 6 points.

2) if you catch a ball that was kicked by more than 15 meters away you get a "free kick". Thus a free kick close to the goal posts is a good thing.

Also the game is played without pads and pretty much does not stop. That said, check out this catch.

The Growing Pains of Adulthood

My mom said to me recently that on the blog I sounded homesick and lonely. That's true at times, but I think that is true for any one living away from where they grew up. Being an adult trying to make friends is easier said than done. One very low point for me was a few months back when I went to my first chickynet event. Chickynet is kinda like facebook- a social networking site- but only for women in Thailand.

The event I attended was a ladies night happy hour at a local hotel. Free drinks (including wine) + meeting some new people= awesome! Right? I thought so too, until my train ride home by myself at 10pm where I just thought of all the friends I missed in the US. My lip started to quiver, deep breathes couldn't help, and the tears started to roll down like a big wheel on a hill. Greg was confused when I arrived back from a night out with a tear stained face and fresh tears raining down and told I had a good night. I just missed my friends. You know who you are...


My fantastic husband Greg, "Don't cry! We live in Thailand. The country with beautiful beaches!"

This past Thursday I attended another event and told Greg I was going to be OK! The table of 12 women came from all over the world and were in Bangkok for a variety of reasons. Teachers, business women, ladies who lunch (here with no perman, artists. Some have been in Bangkok for 1 month, some over 2 years. I even met a woman from Helsinki that has given me great tips for our trip there next week. Over mediocre Mexican Food and 2 hours of free margaritas I realized many things (wouldn't you?!).


1) Bangkok is full of pretty cool women . (You can read another blog entry from Erica about that night too. Well written and very true)

2) I like meeting these people and I should make an effort to see them outside organized events (I got a phone number of Teresa who lives in our neighborhood)


3) There were people I wish could have been there too from Bangkok (that means I have friends in BKK!)



4) Life is Good: Don't Cry!



Hello! My name is Mary and I loveThailand, especially the beaches! (I just don't love it ALL the time)



Flowers

I like that we live somewhere that I can buy these flowers from a street vendor on my way home from school. 2 stems with 2 huge blooms each for a total of about USD $3.10. Beautiful!

From our Travels

Over the past few months we have purchased some new artwork to cover our white walls. We look forward to picking up additional items as we continue to travel...

We bought an oil-painting of a tri-shaw when we went to Hua Hin, Thailand. It now fills the space above the bed in our extra bedroom. If you remember, we saw many tri-shaws in the city of Penang, Malaysia and thought this painting fit well in our guest room. I was inspired by its purple accents, so there are now purple Thai-silk accent pillows bed as well. The new pillow cases in turn inspired the new towels in the bathroom for our guests to use.  When you come see us, you can see these for yourself!

The painting and pillow cases help make the room more complete.



A different style than in our painting, but a working tri-shaw in Penang.



These towels look maroon here, but they really are more of a fuchsia.  They are ready for David and Emily! 

If you've skyped with us lately, you may have already seen the Elephant wood carving now above our couch. Greg showed his best negotiating skills over the course of two days to get a good price for this item down in Koh Chang, Thailand. We felt it was appropriate to buy something with an elephant on the island of Koh Chang because Chang means elephant. It helps fill the large white space behind the couch and it will be a nice Thai-inspired piece to have with us for the rest of our lives.

An up close view of this impossible to dust piece of art!

Above our couch.

Now, what to bring home from Scandinavia?

Dear USA, We Miss You. Love, Mary and Greg

Many of Greg's co-workers have or are still using their annual home leave to go back to the United States. (part of the expat contract with Greg's company is each year the employee and their family get to fly back to Minneapolis for a visit) We are taking the money that it would of cost to go to Minneapolis in late July to fly to Helsinki, Finland to meet up with Emily (Greg's sister) and her husband David.  More on that in a later post.

Anyways, with so many people going to the US and missing the annual celebration of 4th of July we are missing USA a lot right now. We are already planning our trip back to Minneapolis, Iowa, Chicago, and Michigan for 2 weeks in December and here are some things we are looking forward too! 

Anywhere we go we would like to go here and see these people:

To pick up some clothing and other items that we cannot find our size here in  Thailand!

Tomato Basil Bread please or Cinnamon Crunch Bagel or Chicken-N-Wild Rice Soup or.... you get the idea!

I would imagine we may go here more than once. We've heard they have a new Thai inspired flavor. 

Yum! Do they deliver at 3am? That's when we'll wake up thinking it's 3pm and be hungry for something!

This is mostly for Greg!

        Greg likes both Chipotle and Panchero's for their burritos! Either would satisfy his cravings!

In Minnesota:

Sorry this is a lame picture, but all of our friends! You know who you are and we will keep you posted on when we could see each other!

In Iowa:

Family! Our nephew Harrison is now much older than this, but you get the idea! Also not pictured is my dad and  Julie's  newborn Daniel.  Also not pictured all of our friends....

Hy-Vee Chinese!

Zoey's Pizza! I'll take a Taco please!

I think I would pay to just smell the garlic bread from Zio Johno's!

Greg is excited to use his Mug Club card again. I think we will even be around on a Tuesday in Iowa  for their special night. We could even go to the one in Minneapolis. 10 points for anyone who can tell us what city is Granite City!.... Yes, we used to live 60 miles down the street from it  (literally): St. Cloud, Minnesota!

In Michigan:

All of the Michigan Family! Not pictured is my  family from Michigan (the Theoderoffs , Faye and Linda) and Greg's extended family! We are looking forward to some yummy cooking from Cathy and Doug as well!

We are excited to see Toby and to see some snow! Hopefully it won't effect our travel plans, but once we get to MI it can snow all it wants!

We've been here once before and Greg wouldn't mind going again to have some good beer before heading back to Bangkok!

So, yes we will probably gain 10 pounds while we are back in the US over Christmas, but we are looking forward to seeing you (hopefully) and enjoying some of the things we've missed. Anything we missed?

Thank You!

Thank you for the care package mom! We especially like the hug... I mean card :-)

Phuket, Thailand

Our beautiful beach in Phuket

It may seem to some of you that all we do over here in Thailand is take these wonderful mini-vacations to some of the world's most beautiful places.... Well, the simple truth of the matter is that while we do visit some of the world's most beautiful beaches and exotic cities we do other things too. For example Greg regularly works 12+ hour days, we're attempting to learn the local language, and when I go out to get a few things I sweat so much I think I lost 5 pounds. If you're in the US reading this right now, you can maybe relate to the sweating thing, but we've been sweating since arriving 11 months ago. Actually, Happy 11th month anniversary in Thailand to us, today!

Wow, we've been here 11 months already! It took us 11 months to get finally get to Phuket, Thailand, one of Thailand's best known islands (pronounced Poo-ket). Yes, the same island recently visited by the current season of the United States reality show The Bachelorette. My mom told me all about it... Well, we didn't need to find love in Phuket, we brought ours with! We left Bangkok late last Thursday and returned home yesterday afternoon. We stayed on Kata Noi Beach at Katathani Resort. 

It was lovely. We ate good food, swam in 3 of the 6 pools or swam in the Andaman Sea/Indian Ocean while reading our books/magazines in between, got a foot massage on the beach,  had a few hours in a busier area, and called it a vacation. No, we didn't ride elephants or even snorkel, but we did relax and rejuvenate from our busy lives.  Here's some photos...

The waves were quite strong! 

Greg!

We propped up the camera to get a shot of the both of us on the beach.

Sign by the elevator. 

When we arrived around mid-night on Thursday we found out our room was upgraded from a superior to a junior suite. This was our view!

Dinner at a small seafood place across the street from our  resort.

I won a free beer during the frog races. 5 frogs were kept in a basket, you had to guess which order they would get outside the circle, on the 13th round I got it!

At the beach bar happy hour. We went every night. Picture taken by John from New Zealand who we sat with a few times.  We hope he uses Greg's business card to email us because we just may want to take them up on their offer to visit them! 

Previous night at the beach bar. 

I was 2-0 for games of Boccee ball. 

We took the shuttle van into Patong Beach on our last night and had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. 

Good bye beautiful beach! Hopefully we will see you again sometime!