So I'm in Thailand! I got here on Friday the 10th at about 5 pm. My host family met my in Ubon which is a city about a mile away from Kanthatalak which is where I live. My host family is very nice and have been so understanding about how tired I am due to the time change. Yesterday was the Thai mother's day so we drove to SiSaKet to visit my host father's family. They were all very sweet. And his two nieces followed me around everywhere. One of them was 9 and the other 10. The 10 year old had learned english at school and talked to me and even taught me some Thai. The 9 year old was very shy and even though she had learned English also she didn't want to talk to me but she did show all her favorite things at the mall we went to. We went to lunch and then to Swensen's for ice cream with the whole family then the adults sat and talked while the kids walked around. Apparently Swensen's is from the US but I'd never seen it at home. After desert we said our goodbyes and drove back to Ubonto have dinner with my host mom's family. We ate at  a very fancy restaurant/lounge called Fee Ling. we ate outside right on a little lake and since Ubon has many temples you could see the tops of them in the distance it was  very pretty when they were all lit up. Yesterday was not only mothers day but the Queen's birthday so there were fireworks to celebrate that. They set them off right over the lake and it was very cool looking. 

Everything is so different here! I've learned to not pay attention to how they're driving because they drive very, very differently from how we drive in the US and it works for them, but let's just say most of the time you're not in a lane but driving on the middle of  painted lines. They are always eating here. When you say hello to someone the first thing they ask you, like small talk, is what have you eaten today. They haven't had me eat to much because the Thai food here is nothing like the Thai food back at home, What I've had is delicious though. There are also lots of dogs running around uh the streets and when I told them we kept dogs in our houses as part of our family they thought I was crazy. Here even if a dog is owned by your family it doesn't come inside and you don't pet it or touch it because it's dirty.  The area where I live is greatly influenced by Laos and its culture, which is very cool. In a few weeks my host mom is going to take me to visit her daughter who lives in Bangkok 
and I'm very excited for that! I really like Thailand when I first got here it was very hard and i wasn't sure about the country. It still is very hard and I miss home a lot but it's getting better and I know when I start school and make some friends that will get even better.