small town

delilah and i went for a walk earlier. we came up on a dog yapping its head off in a truck parked across the street. the owners were on our side.

lady: "ohhhh it's just a yellow lab! helloooooo puppy."
(delilah executes her part of Frigging Adorable Dog perfectly, wagging her tail right up to the lady.)
lady: "awwww. you know, there are three dogs in that truck, two of'em are just sleepin'."
(grandma comes down the driveway.)
lady (talking to delilah): "oh, and here comes grandma to say hello!"
grandma: "oh, and so soft! we've never seen you before. where do you live?"
me: "over on westchester. i just moved back home with mom and dad so they're at work all day. delilah doesn't get to go on walks like this usually."
lady: "ahhh. did you go to school around here?"
me: "yeah, cal high. i graduated in 2005."
lady (laughing): "ohhh i was in 1984!"
me: "ah, then you must know nechia miller!"
lady: "oh, yeah! nechia pohl back then."
me: "yeah, we live next to her."
lady: "well, tell her you met michelle. see you guys around."

what a boring conversation, nicki. i have no idea why you told me about such a day-to-day interaction.

because this is what i've been missing. this small town stuff where everybody knows each other, where people recognize new dogs in the area and talk to strangers with such happiness. and this is why i'm so glad to be home.

i dunno how long i'll keep writing for...it's kind of weird because my audience (aka my family and only people in america) is now living with me/not more than a phone call away, so i don't really feel the need to update here. but then again, here i am, a week back home, and still i felt the need to write. i dunno, i also really like the way when i have a blog, i look at things differently, like everything could be a story.

so we'll see.

final stop: california

i made it. i'm home. dad asked on the drive home if i'd blog any more. looks like it.

oh and again, as always, i apologize a thousand times over for not blogging enough. by the time paris came i was so tired of being a tourist that i stopped writing things down and i didn't take any pictures for the first few days. both of these make for no internet updates. BUT i do owe you fbook pictures (switzerland AND france! capitalizing conjuctions!), so keep a look out for those in the next couple days.

immediate verdict upon returning home: this feels so bizarrely normal. like a year hasn't even gone by. here are some things that are different:

• mom got a new purse
• there's a new coffee maker in the fridge
• mom and dad re-did the living room and study (this is actually a pretty big deal in the arnold home. we usually keep crap around forever.)
• there's a new mug hanging on the wall

that's all i noticed so far. maybe i'll have more notes tomorrow.

NUTMEG IS STILL ALIVE! this isn't that surprising because despite her age (10 big ones!), she's relatively healthy and i've seen her on skype a whole bunch of times. i was always just a little worried about her dying before i made it home. she and delilah both remembered me, btw.

america doesn't seem that shocking yet cuz maddy and i re-westernized in europe already. but still, we'll see. tomorrow i'm looking forward to driving for the first time in over a year. maybe you should keep an eye out for me.

we meet again, paris

i'm so sorry i haven't written you in forever. i've been busy and whenever i get on the comp, it's for an hour or less, and i've been prioritizing with gmail/fbook/excuses excuses excuses. bottom line is, i'm sorry. 

i'm back in paris for the unbelievable second time in my life. a city that i never thought i'd live in once and now here i'm back here, for the second time, and it bizarrely feels like home. maddy and i are with aj for the week and it's awesome. come here if you can--he has a gorgeous apartment. when we're riding the metro, i feel like i've never left (except that i dont' know the map by heart anymore...maybe by monday). tomorrow i'm gonna see my host family. afterward, i'm going to mass at notre dame with aj and maddy, then we're going to queen. the day after, we're going to disneyland paris, which is all dressed up in christmas right now.

i love this city.

notes on western society

i've been living in a developing country for a year. after a while, i stopped noticing and just got used to things. now that i've been thrust back in to a western society--first in to austria, now in to switzerland--i've been noticing some differences between full development and developing, east and west, dirty and clean.

time.
in thailand, "on time" is whenever something happens. the train is scheduled to leave at 8 pm, so if it leaves by 8:30 pm, that's pretty good. there's only one bell to both end one class and begin the next, so if the kids show up about ten minutes after said bell, they're on time. if an event starts at 6 pm, you can go ahead and show up around 7 pm and it's all good. if we're on a tour and everyone wants to stop and take pictures, which makes the bus late to the next destination, then fine, let the bus be late. it's not a big deal. time is just a suggestion in thailand/se asia.

not in europe. we went on the sound of music tour in salzburg (I KNOW!) and when the tour guide said the bus would be leaving at one, the bus left precisely at one. right now, i know exactly what time i'll be boarding my train on the 5th from lucerne to interlaken, interlaken to zweissman, and zweissman to montreux, down to the minute. i also know exactly when i'll be boarding the train from geneva to marseille and marseille to paris on the 8th. THAT'S ONE WEEK AWAY. do you know how foreign a concept this is to me, a person who became way more thai than she realized?

waiting for lights at crosswalks.
do you know how much time i waste waiting for the stupid little standing guy to turn in to a walking guy? why don't we all just use our brains and eyes, look both ways, and decide for ourselves if it's time to cross? why do we all stand like morons at a corner where there are clearly NO cars in any direction? just go.

coldness.
how hard is it to smile?

fitting in.
people speak to me in the native tongue first. i have to be the one who corrects them. nobody has asked to take a picture with me in a week. nobody stares openly because i'm white. i love this.

cleanliness.
when you pay for the bathrooms here, sometimes the woman who maintains them wipes the toilet seat between users. i've used hand soap every day. in india, i ate dinner off a sandy mat on a beach that was pretty damn close to being a trash can.

nobody likes you when you're 23

i'm gonna take a little break from the 'holy crap this new place is so neat!' crap that my blog has become as of late because 1) let's be honest, it's getting repetitive and dull and 2) i have something else to say.

i feel SO OLD right now. capital letters old.

maddy and i are couchsurfing with this girl martina right now. she's 21 (born may 17, 1989, just a week and a half before you, kate). last night, i could feel the age difference. for the first time ever, really, i felt like an old person. she was talking a lot about how she liked to go out until 5 or 6 in the morning (which i never actually, nor did the idea ever actually appeal to me, but a few years ago the idea was at least a possibility for me). she mostly just hung out with her friends all the time. her walls are covered with pictures of her friends.

this isn't to say that mature people don't have pictures up on the wall (i'm putting college pictures on my walls as soon as i get an apt) or that old people don't go out...it's just...my priorities are different now, i spose. i don't feel like going out because it just means spending a lot of money on drinks, having a bunch of potentially awk conversations, going from place to place trying to find the ''best'' party, paying for a taxi ride home, blah blah blah.

i'd rather stay home on the internet, go to bed early, then wake up early tomorrow to walk around town. this either makes me an old grandma or a major nerd.

so martina said last night that tonight (friday night), she'd be going out with some friends and would we wanna join? oh, sure, why not. she seemed nice enough. we were sort of hesitant today because she likes to go out until the sunrise and we're happy with a 10 pm bed time, we're poor and have a lot more travel ahead of us and lots of drinks are sort of out of budget, and we really like getting sleep. but whatever, ok, we'll go.

but then this prague couple showed up. for some reason, martina decided she could host all four of us--me, maddy, and prague couple--in her tiny room. before prague couple even showed up, we were wary.

then they came. they were all over each other in the way that only young, incredibly horny couples can be. they immediately made themselves comfortable on martina's bed and alternated between making out, talking only to each other, and chatting with us. then mostly touching each other.

czech girl is going to india pretty soon with her family, so we talked about that for a while. we talked about how even though we only went to mumbai, india's an intense place you really have to prepare yourself for. it's hot, people beg you for money all the time, it's hard to figure out, scams are abound, not everyone's trustworthy, etc. nonetheless, she's trying to convince czech boy that they should visit india together next summer.

they've been together for a month and a half. he's 20, she's 19. she's preparing to take what are equivalent to the SATs. you know how they met? free hugs.

''what's free hugs?''
''ohhhh, you haven't heard of it?''

they googled it and showed us a video. it's just that thing where people hold up a sign that says ''free hugs'' and they hug strangers. i thought this was just a college thing cuz people at ucsb used to do this, and i saw youngish people in hanoi doing it, too.

''so you guys just hugged and then you started dating?''
czech boy: ''well, i was horny.''

later czech boy tried to convince us we need to go to places like slovakia to see ''real'' europe. to see little villages, not all this big, rich western stuff. like he didn't even hear us talk about how we've been in thailand for a year.

yeah we're not going out with them tonight. i'd much rather put on my pjs, drink a beer, and go to bed early.

bundling up

we're in vienna, austria now. it's freezing, as predicted. but it's absolutely gorgeous. i'm not sure why, but i didn't realize it'd be autumn here. stupid comment, i know. but i didn't think about how all the leaves would be changing and coloring the sidewalk, or how the bright sun and the crisp air would make that feeling that's just so uniquely fall. i haven't had autumn in a long time. 

yesterday i wore a scarf, huge jacket, and boots. last night i put on socks, pants, and a long-sleeved shirt to go to bed. 

i love the cold.

(p.s. i probably won't be this happy about the sub-zero temps in a couple weeks, so when i start to complain about it then, don't be a douche and remind me about how elated i was.)

going out west

it's our last night in egypt. we're back in cairo, planning to leave in half an hour to catch our 2:55 am flight. by tomorrow morning, we'll be in vienna, austria.

this is the first time i'll be in western society since i left america. it'll be the first time i can blend in with the locals in over a year. i won't be a spectacle. people won't just stare because i'm white.

hallelujah!

but it's gonna be effing FREEZING. you guys, the high is 46 degrees. farenheit. THAT'S SO COLD.

i love alexandria.

normally i like to be more creative with my subject lines, but i can't think of a single other thing.

we've only been here for about five hours but alexandria's already shaping up to be my favorite city in egypt. the weather is gorgeous--think about five degrees warmer than sb. it's on the beach, and every time i'm in a beach city i'm more and more convinced that i need to live near an ocean forever. it's adorably quaint, but big at the same time. where luxor was hot and dusty, alex is breezy and has that ocean-air feeling. where cairo was busy and rushed, alex seems less populated and relaxed.

i know, i know, that's a lot to gather from five hours, nicki. why don't you tell me how you feel in two days?

ok, fine, i will. after i've had at least two more glasses of the best mango juice ever, fresh mediterranean seafood, and coffee overlooking the sea.

also, we have a tv in our adorable room in our french-style hotel (elevator with doors you have to close yourself, one of those locks that goes up and down the whole door), and friends was on earlier. it's amazing how much i like friends.

egypt

i wrote down a whole bunch of things i wanted to blog about in my journal last night, but in typical nicki fashion i forgot it in the room. ah, well, i'll have to go from memory.

we left mumbai around 7 am on oct 15, the one-month countdown to america. after a four-hour layover in KUWAIT (sadly uneventful, save for the few guys who lit up cigarettes inside), we landed in cairo. we were staying with david, a guy maddy found on couchsurfing who said we were welcome to crash at his place. he sent a driver for us, so we were greeted by a sign with maddy's name.

david's house rules. he's got a porch, living room with three couches, cable tv, a pool room, kitchen, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms--and we stayed fo FREE. he's great--he knows he's got a sweet pad in a city where two western girls might not feel so comfortable staying on their own, so he offers up his hospitality. he's tasmanian, which is a hilarious coincidence because two of our guy friends from thailand were from tassie, too. we've met something like 10% of the population now.

god, i don't know what i'm doing going on about these unimportant details. anyway, i'm just gonna move on to the excellent things now.

--SAW THE PYRAMIDS! they were just as extraordinary as i thought they would be. nothing will replace that "holy crap i'm actually here" moment when we first walked in.
--there's pita bread everywhere. huge trays full of dozens on pitas wander the streets on top of heads, hips, and shoulders. we get whole wheat pita bread with almost every meal. in fact, we've been eating tons of bread. for breakfast on the train (i'll get to that in a minute), we were served four bread products. four! that's unnecessary. my carb intake is wayyyyy too deliciously high right now.
--all of the food is delicious. my dish de jour is koshari, which is pasta, spaghetti, rice, onions, lentils, tomatos, and some sort of delicious spices mixed together. it tastes like comfort food. OH and baked goods! one day we followed our best friend lonely planet to this bakery in downtown cairo. we haven't been impressed by desserts in the last year and expectations were low, but MAN did we underestimate. at least 100 different types of cookies, cakes, pastries, nuts, and other sweets stared at us when we walked in. we ate the most delicious three-layer chocolate cookie concoction of our lives.
--the cairo metro is wonderful. i'm very passionate about public transportation in other countries, and this city did not disappoint. sure, it could have a couple more lines, but it's cheap (about 20 cents to go anywhere), fast, and there's a ladies car. ladies car is the best--everybody coos over cute babies, we beg each other to take the seats, and we all go out of our way to be generally polite.
--we spent an afternoon wandering islamic cairo, through the shops and the guys shouting "HERE! have a look!" there's so much good shopping here.
--cairenes are some of the friendliest people--with the huge exception of taxi drivers/people selling things. we got out of a cab after the pyramids (the guy was weird and wanted to charge us way too much) and were trying to hand the guy the fare we thought was enough. he was hassling us, and a stranger from afar saw the interaction. stranger came up and said, "excuse me, girls, is everything ok?" we explained what was happening, he talked to the cab driver in arabic, and said, "ok, that's it, have a good day, girls."

that's all just cairo stuff. we decided we'd travel down to luxor by train. it was really expensive ($60 one way! in thailand it's less than $20!), but whatever, we're only here once, so let's just do it.

THE TRAIN WAS MAGICAL AND WONDERFUL. we had our own cabin that came with towels, A/C, a table, a mirror, hangers, huge blankets, an outlet, and did i mention we had this all to ourselves!? we quickly made the space our home and started up the music and painted our nails. we even got dinner and breakfast on this magical train.

now we're in luxor. yesterday we saw luxor temple and night, and it was easily one of the most gorgeous things i've seen in my life. the heiroglyphics made my 6th grade brain thrilled. when we came in to town yesterday morning, it was ghostly; when we wandered around after the temple, it was like it came to life. this morning we went to the valley of the kings and walked inside three tombs, in awe at how in tact they still are after a zillion years. tomorrow we're waking up at 4 am to take a hot air balloon ride over luxor at sunrise, and then in the evening we're gonna sail on the nile for sunset.

i love this country.

mumbai's tendencies

today's our last day in the city, day number six. our flight leaves at 6:40 am tomorrow morning, meaning we'll be hopping in a taxi at 3:30 am.

buh bye, restful night's sleep. eh, i can't really muster up the anger, though; when we finish this leg of flying, we'll be in cairo among literally too much history for my brain to hold. OH BUT FIRST we have a layover in kuwait. lol.

anyway, i've noticed some things around here in the last six-ish days.

the indian head bobble
it's not a nod...it's not a shake...it's a side-to-side tipping of the head. they do it all the time.
"hey, can we get this taxi to colaba? on the meter?" response: head bobble..."okay." we get in the back of the taxi and he starts the meter
"four hundred rupees! that's way too expensive. can you do 200?" response: head bobble..."okay." and i buy said thing for 200 rupees.
"we're from america." response: head bobble..."good country."
i can't figure out what the head bobble means. i thought at first that it meant no, but it seems like maybe it means a moment of uncertainty followed by a yes. 

"what's your good name?"
people are always asking for our names and where we're from. i've had a couple indians sidle up next to me just to ask where i'm from, then walk away once they know. whenever people ask for our names, they always repeat them and go, "nicki. good name." or they'll ask for our "good name" right off the bat.
and by the way, when we respond we're from america, a handful of people have gone, "obama! good, good. bush, no good!"

beauty
indian women have taken street clothes to the next level. they have sarees of every color and they never look foolish in these neon bright colors or mismatched patterns; they can rock it like it's nobody's business. they have jewelery hanging off every limb, including the most ornate (and what must be painful) nose piercings ever. they're making me want to buy a saree and get my nose re-pierced. (i might give in to both of these things, but the latter will have to wait until america.)

i'm famous in india
you'd think we were, anyway. we've been in pictures with at least 50 indian people; this is not hyperbolic in any way. when we sat at the hanging gardens for an hour or so the other day, families would come up to us and just rotate through, snapping picture after picture. when we were at elephanta island, as soon as one group stopped us to take a picture with them, it was free rein for every other group to step in and take pictures with us, too. yesterday at haji ali, as we were sitting and quietly reading our books on some rocks off to the side, minding our own business, a family tapped our shoulders and asked us to be in their family portrait. you'd think we were a mumbai attraction.


i wasn't ready to leave don det, laos, and i wasn't ready to leave hanoi, but i think i'm ready to leave mumbai. i'm done being a spectacle here, i'm done with the pollution of the city, and i think i've seen enough for now. i've loved it and i think it's a wonderful city filled with characters (mostly charming and friendly, but you can't win'em all, eh?), but i'm ready to move on.

egypt, here i come.

MUMBAI.

i'll give it to you straight: i was scared of india. i've been talking to a lot of people about traveling and people talk about how exhausting india is. it's not a place you go and easily fall in love with, like thailand. india's full of rough people and it's hard to get around and the men constantly leer and you'll definitely get ripped off.

so why am i going here again? *sigh* but we'd bought the place tickets, gotten the visas, so we were going.

and now that i'm here...i think everyone was exaggerating. this city's been wonderful to us so far. sure, we've met some unscrupulous seller guys and sad, puppy-dog-eyed children have tugged on our arms and begged for money, but overall, this isn't the harsh country i thought it would be.

granted, we've only been in mumbai/bombay/i can't decide what to call it. it's a big international city and people act differently in cities like this; generally, everything should be up to international/western standards. so i'm doing india-lite version.

but really, we've met mostly wonderful people. there was kamul, who we met on the street and who wandered around town with us for a while, helped us get sim cards, and invited us to a party later (which we declined and he understood). our cab driver from the airport was really sweet, pointing out all the sights of the city and making sure we got into our hotel. there've been countless other interactions--you know, those brief moments you have with strangers, whether they're in a hotel/restaurant/park/whatever--that haven't been harsh or rude at all.

this isn't to say that the city is all calm and full of wonderful people, though. it's a bizarre, loud, DIRTY place. oh man, you guys, you should've seen my feet yesterday. we went to the washer place (where thousands of guys are literally just washing clothes in these concrete basins) and walked around, so my feet got wet and gross in there, then we went to chowpatty beach on the arabian sea (aka a trash can), and my feet got grosser there, so that by the time we got home to shower at the end of the day, my sandaled feet looked like they were wearing shoes.

people are selling the weirdest stuff here. peacock feathers seem to be popular with the vendors, as do incredibly oversized balloons. seriously, they're the size of a my-size barbie. yeah, i totally and completely wanna walk around this crowded city with a giant balloon.

ok maybe those things aren't THAT weird. with that intro (and in such a foreign place) you were prob expecting something like elephant heads or snake venom.

there are almost zero white people around here. i thought that since we were coming to such a huge place, we'd be mobbing around with white people all the time. instead, we've been pointing out white folks like they're some sort of novel attraction because we hardly ever see them.

there are, however, a zillion men. i've never seen so many men (and so few women) in my life. today maddy and i walked to this green space in the middle of the city, next to the university and high court, where a ton of people were playing cricket. it was maybe two, three football fields long, filled with hundreds of men playing cricket. we're pretty sure that we were the only women in the whole area, save for this one other white girl with her SO. i've never been so completely surrounded by so much testosterone.

last night we were offered the chance to go to some sort of grand event for presumably a bollywood thing. we would've gone except it was outside the city so we were supposed to go spend the night in this random place. no thank you.

now we're staying at the salvation army's red shield house. I KNOW. i feel so traveler-y. it's dirty and sort of run down, but maddy and i are loving it. we have our own room, our own bathroom, and free breakfast and lunch included in the room price. we eat in a canteen. it's just like school.

this afternoon we're gonna go up to the hanging gardens and jain temple. we're gonna take an old school cab. i swear they haven't updated their fleet since ford invented the car.

oh, and yesterday we took a ride on the train, too. the public transport in the city. when we first walked in to the station it was insane and we were like OH HELL NO THIS IS CRAZY AND SO MANY PEOPLE AND IN AN UNREADABLE LANGUAGE. but then we sat for a while, observed the ways of the people, and got more confident about it. we took a cab anyway (we were exactly sure where we were going), but on the way back hopped on the train. we were in a ladies-only car. it was awesome.

headed back upstairs to read and escape the sweaty afternoon heat. afternoon time is nap time.

p.s. kuala lumpur, malaysia, was pretty uneventful and not really worth mentioning.

i WAS gonna upload pictures...

then fbook wasn't working.

THEN I FIXED IT. muahaha. take that, communism.

then i realize this janky computer doesn't have photo uploading software. while i could dl some on here (yeah, i can just dl software on a public comp, nbd), i'm tired and i have a super comfy bed upstairs and cable tv and i think there's an antm marathon on, so i'm taking all of this as i sign i should just give up.

but wait, i wanna tell you about sapa first. it was phenomenal. i took the overnight train from hanoi along with two other couples...one real sweet couple from england and this semi-weird, unmarried, old-but-acts-sorta-immature couple from australia. the woman was competitive and cheap, which means she ALWAYS asks how much you got stuff for and brags shamelessly when she got it for cheaper. not a fan. anyway, the train pulled in to lao cai in northern vietnam around 5 am.

everyone said (and by "everyone" i mean guidebooks and stuff) it'd be cold. it was so not cold. same temp as hanoi--warm, a little humid, nothing cool about it. liars.

but then we got in a van and drove an hour pretty much straight into a mountain range, and it got cold. YESSS this is what i was hoping for.

quick note about northern vietnam travel...from hanoi, there are two really popular short trips: sapa and halong bay. because i only had a week here and i wanted to explore hanoi for sure, i figured i only had time for one of these. sapa's mountainous and full of terraced rice fields, trees, and native villages; halong bay has big ol' limestone rocks jutting out of the ocean and boats you can sleep on. i've seen enough pretty stuff in the ocean, so i opted for the mountains.

as soon as i got out of the van and looked around at tiny sapa all buried away in the mountains, i knew i made the right choice. that day, at 9:30 am, i started out on a hike with a german girl and a local guide, lam, who was 18 and from a tribe a ways down the mountain.

btw, they advertise this as "trekking"...that's a misnomer. maybe it makes people happier if they call things like this a trek, but really, this was just a long walk in nature. the trail was well worn, there were always other people around, and we passed multiple cafes along the way.

actually, that kinda bugged me. on one hand, it was neat to walk through a few of the villages and see this simple way of life they lead, with these big fancy costumes that yes, they actually wear, and the way that rice permeates everything they do, and the simple homes they keep, and blah blah. but there were plenty of cafes serving us tourists cold beer, snacks, coke, anything we wanted so we'd be able to satisfy our high standard of living...meh. i just kind of feel bad when neat but personal, local ways of life become so geared toward tourists.

anyway, aside from that, i had a really awesome time on our walk. german girl margret and i had some great conversations, and lam started to really open up after a while (we hiked until 3 pm, after all...gives you some time for bonding). by the end she was bouncing up and down and inviting us to dinner at her house.

i went on one more walk through another village the next day, but it was maybe two miles, and we went so slow i think a baby could've beat us. the emphasis on that hike was def the tourism and shopping and crap.

i spent the rest of my time drinking too much strong vietnamese coffee, trying all of hte vietnamese beers, and generally reveling in the glory of cold weather. more than anything, this trip just made me excited for CHRISTMAS!

next stop: kuala lumpur, malaysia for one night (oct 7), where i'll once again meet up with my main bitch miss maddy armstrong. from there, on oct 8, we're off to MUMBAIIIII! expect a week of insanity.

enough of this city stuff

hanoi, you're a bustling beauty right now. you're filled with insanity and more people than you should hold. i'm loving it, but i need a break.

going up to sapa until the 6th. see you soon, you little ball of energy.

VIETNAMMMMMMM IN YOUR FACE!

excuse me for a minute but...HOLY SHIT. hanoi is nuts.

vietnam didn't welcome me with open arms. when i went to apply for my visa, i had to pay $25--specifically in USD. i only had $16 USD (maybe i brought this for show and tell? i dunno, that was 11 months ago version of nicki), but i figured lots of people would have this problem so the airport prob had an exchange place right next to the visa window.

NOT. two people ahead of me were short on cash, too. when they asked the visa guys what to do, they sort of shrugged like, "welp, guess you're SOL. no vietnam for you." lucky for them, two canadians with extra cash were standing nearby. when my name was called, i went up to the window and asked if i could use thai baht. sure, they said, for 1000 baht. that's a $5 rip off, but i didn't have a choice.

already, vietnam? really? you couldn't make this easy, could you?

i got my bag--one of the last three on the thingy--and proceeded to the exit. first, to get some vietnamese dong. this is money. it's a hilarious name for currency and it will never NOT be hilarious. anyway, i got over four million dong and told the exchange guy they had crazy money. he laughed. i walked away and this guy walked up to me offering me a taxi. yeah, i'm going to the old quarter, where friggin everyone goes, you can take me there? i dunno...but he was really nice, and because i've been living in thailand for a year i'm used to nice people being genuinely nice. so i said ok, let's go.

he and his pal took me upstairs. i waited outside a door by what looked like the exit ramp from the airport. the main guy went outside to get his friend. all of a sudden his pal grabbed my bag and was like "LET'S GO!" and rushed outside. main guy hopped in a taxi and a guard type figure started blowing his whistle and pointing angrily at us. main guy got out and the taxi drove off.

BAD SITUATION, NICKI. stupid. of course this is a scam. i told the guys i forgot, i wanted to get a sim card, i'm gonna go downstairs and get one. "they're twice the price here..." i heard them say as i dashed off. idiot nicki. this is NOT the southeast asia you know.

so i go downstairs to ask the information girl about  a taxi. she says i should prob call my hotel first to make a reservation cuz there's this big celebration going on and there might not be room. i'd read it's hanoi's 1000th birthday or something, but i didn't think it'd be a big deal allllll year long.

NOT. super nice information girl and i spent an hour trying to find a hotel with an open room. she must've called at least 10 different places for me. sweet, sweet girl. finally we found one that was semi-affordable (free breakfast/internet/tv though!) and in a good location and had a room.

by this time it was almost 6 pm. i'd arrived two hours ago. as i got into the cab with the driver who spoke basically zero english (and i absolutely zero vietnamese), i was starting to think hanoi was a mistake. this city is too fucking crazy, especially by myself, and it's already been hard and expensive and maybe i should just look for the next cheap flight out of here. i was stupid for coming here alone.

but then i got to the hotel. and it's a sweet room with cable tv. so i sat down for a minute, wrote in my diary, literally screamed a bit to let out some frustration and shock, and calmed down.

this is what traveling is. it's hard. it's being stuck in a situation you can't find an easy way out of. it's being wildly uncomfortable. it's not knowing what to do.

it's figuring it all out anyway.

i decided i couldn't take the wussy way out and stay in my hotel room all night. after all, i had to eat. so i went out of my room and turned left. i didn't see anything and the traffic was crazy and i was terrified of getting lost, so i turned around. whatever, i'll go hungry.

no, nicki, don't so that. i went the other way instead and came across this HUGE shopping street, peds only. hundreds and hundreds of shops, thousands of people. there were kids, babies, teenagers, grandparents, locals, tourists, sellers, buyers, EVERYONE. i smiled a gigantic grin. yes, this is insane, but you're not gonna die. i walked down the street about half a mile and i don't think i stopped smiling the whole time. i got a kebab (OH MY GOD it was good) and some ice cream. as i was walking back toward my hotel, fireworks started going off. everyone started screaming and running toward them.

instead of going straight back, i followed the crowd. there are literally thousands of people out right now, watching fireworks, shopping, eating, doing god knows what for this celebration. i stood at an intersection filled with cars, motorbikes, and tons of people (everyone was right--traffic in this city is something else) and just laughed at it all. a few people caught me and laughed with/at me.

hanoi, you're a tough one, but i think i'm gonna love you.

the lao lao experience

i decided i'm only gonna drink local alcohol from now until this trip's over. i've been drinking beerlao all week, which has been delicious and wonderful (and the only dark beer i've had since oct 2009), but i'd had yet to try lao lao. it's this bootleg rice whiskey made only in laos and everybody talks about how crazy it is.

so of course i had to try it. btw, no, i don't let traveling alone stop me from drinking. i think ordering one drink as a solo person lets off this "i'm such a strong and confident individual" vibe. slash maybe i'm just telling myself that because i like drinking and i don't want people to call me an alcoholic.

i sat down for a late lunch today and flipped to the drinks menu. there were four drinks called "lao cocktails," none of them with flavors but instead given colors. when the waitress came over, i asked her if the drinks had lao lao in them.

"yeah, you don't like lao lao?"
"no, no, i do! i want it."
"oh, ok!"

i ordered the green one. two minutes later she brought me this kelly green drink with a lime squeezed in it. i took a sip and HOLY CRAP THAT'S STRONG. the first couple sips went down hard but i got used to it. my rice noodle soup came and i enjoyed my meal slowly. i could feel the lao lao right away, and it hit way harder than alcohol usually does. when i stood up, i REALLY felt it.

oh my god, i thought. i'm really, bizarrely intoxicated. i paid the woman and walked down the street, reveling in this new sort of feeling. i was hyper-aware of my body and i felt a little like i was floating or something. IT WAS INSANE, YOU GUYS. i've been drunk once or twice before so i know what it normally feels like but this was somehow different. man. i went back and took a shower then got some coffee to shake the feeling. now i'm all sober, no headache or anything. man.

i probably shouldn't write stuff like this on the internet. ohhhh well, my dreams of becoming president were dashed when fbook came out with photo sharing.

tomorrow i'm flying to hanoi (!!!), and i'll be there until the 7th. fbook is blocked there (communism!); no word on if blogger/twitter/gmail are, too. i may or may not be out of internet reach. please try to do your best without me.

a hammock and a promise to a book

i bought "the sorrow of war" before i left thailand. it's a northern vietnamese's personal story on the war in vietnam. it's incredibly heartbreaking and humanizing and shows the bloody, gruesome, these-things-tear-your-soul-apart side of war. it was banned in vietnam when it first came out. i promised the book i would finish it before i got to 'nam (friday, oct. 1).

i'm on don det right now. i was only gonna stay here for two nights, but i have a hammock on my balcony over (literally over) the mekong river and that promise i made to my still-unfinished book...so i'm staying for three. i love trips in southeast asia.

this is one of the most phenomenal places i've ever been. i wanna bring all over you here and show you the hot chocolate-colored waters, the rice paddies so green leprechauns would be jealous, the irrawaddy dolphins, the quiet, unassuming buffalo, the adorable piglets, the adorable chicks, the adorable ducklings, the adorable combo of curious ducks and chickens. the sunsets and sunrises here are unreal. for the last two days i've been biking across don det and don khon, another island just a few kilometers down the way and across a bridge.

someday, when i'm rich, i'm taking you all on a trip here. all you need are a few tshirts, a couple pairs of shorts, and a few promises to some books.

four different kinds of transportation

if you're my friend on fbook (and you have the privilege of seeing my statuses...muahaha) then this'll look familiar: a car, a van, a BTS ride, a taxi, a bus, four hours of waiting, another bus, and a tuk tuk ride later, I'M IN LAOS, BABY!

cars, metros, buses, and tuk tuks, oh my! i left suphan yesterday around 5:30 pm and after all of the switching transportation and border crossing shenanigans, i got to pakse around noon. checked into my room--plain but perfect--took a shower, and pretty much immediately went to lunch. chicken laap, sticky rice, and beer laos. i was sitting in this corner restaurant in this quiet little town and i couldn't figure out how life could get much better.

then i did: i could be doing this on an island in si phan don. so i'm going there tomorrow :-D it's just two and a half hours away, plus a ferry ride. nbd. but then i'll be tehre for three, potentially four days of waking up early (i like the mornings, ok?), drinking coffee, riding bikes through rice paddies, taking naps on hammocks, eating bread/rice/CARBS I LOVE CARBS, and drinking beer laos. the beer isn't even particularly delicious, but it's just something about it that makes it so great...maybe it's cuz there are advertisements everywhere, maybe it's cuz i'm in a communist country right now and this is the beer of the land...uh oh. maybe i shouldn't be mentioning that in a post from a laos computer. 55. oops.

this week

i'm thrilled to get to laos to have five days by myself in nature, rolling through coffee-bean-filled plateaus, seeing gorgeous waterfalls, peeping on some rare fresh water dolphins, reading "the sorrow of war," waking up early in the morning and just strolling around.

i'm way more upset than i expected to be to leave these kids. the unexpected gifts, the sincere sentiments from them, the personal song, the "when will you come back?"s are too much for little me.

i can't wait to get to hanoi. after that quiet nature time i'm gonna be pumped up to get in an INSANE city. shopping shopping shopping. (btw, shopping alone is one of my favorite hobbies.)

i can't believe i'll (probably) never see these kids again, and absolutely never again as a whole class...unless i come back feb 2012 to see them graduate. :)


explaining to my students why i'm leaving thailand has been difficult.

student: "ohh teacha, i miss you!" (side note: verb tenses are hard.)
me: "i'm gonna miss you too! i love you all. thailand's a beautiful place."
student: "when you come back to thailand?"
me: "umm...i dunno...not for a long time."
student: "aww! what do you do in america?"
me: "i don't have a job."

so you love us...you love thailand...you have a job here...why are you leaving again?

(note: because i miss my family and friends desperately. fear not, i'll see you all soon <3)

saying goodbye sucks

i have 5/5 for the last time tomorrow. my classes are like my children and i know i'm not supposed to pick favorites but...

5/5 is hands down my favorite. when i taught them last semester, i never had a co-teacher. they respected me and listened to me and treated me like i had something to say anyway, without being forced to. they've been really open and honest with me, and in return, i've been so with them. i've had some of my favorite conversations in the past year with these kids. they make me feel like i'm good at this not because i'm a foreigner, but because i'm nicki arnold.

oh god, that was easily one of the cheesiest things i've ever said. excuse me for being bizarrely emotional this week. it's a weird time in life.

post-class edit: i cried.

a bts waterfall

i went to bangkok yesterday for no important reason, really. it's my last weekend in thailand and i wanted to do some shopping to make sure i got everything. (evidently i didn't cuz i managed to buy some stuff.) lauren, christie, and i went to the chatuchak weekend market, which is essentially all of the stuff that has ever been for sale in thailand in ONE AMAZINGLY HUGE MARKET.

it was overcast and the skies were yelling at us with huge thunderous shakes. it was threatening rain. as we were leaving--they to their friend's apt, me to the bts--the clouds finally let the trap door open and baaaaaaammmmmmm monsoon season came on in full force. fat drops of rain fell and i looked like i took a shower in my clothes. you could kind of see through  my pants, which is wildly scandalous but what can ya do? i (and about a hundred other people) made it to the shelter of the bts. loads and loads of water fell off the trains. everyone was all giggly in the way that only sudden, intense rainfall can make a group of people.

i sat down next to the sweetest american couple on the train. they had midwest accents and we talked for about six stops. i love random conversations with strangers. this is one of the top 10 things i'm looking forward to in america/any country where i speak the same language as people.

my hair's a hot mess (it's all thin and i haven't had it cut since sarah trimmed it on koh chang in april) so i got it cut. the lady was really sweet, spoke excellent english, and didn't turn my hair into an asian hair style. she blow dried it and everything. i felt pretty and fancy for the first time in months.

i wandered the city for a while to soak in the insanity one last time and came home to join maddy, ally, ally's thai bf dton and, later, his brother dtam for some drinking and hilarious talking. yesterday ruled.