The Feel

It hasn't quite been a week yet but it already feels like I've been here for a month. I've been plenty busy lately being a tourist and getting to know the city, people, and culture. I've got my own desk set up at the MCC office and have been comforted to know that I don't 'really' need to start work for like a week or so, which is nice because I'm not quite ready to settle in. The SALT group has had plenty of time to get to know one another through stories and time spent together and I basically feel like I gained three new sisters. We've had the opportunity to visit more restaurants. I've had a good variety of Cambodian, Thai, Chinese, Indonesian and Indian food which is keeping me quite happy so far, we've also had a chance to indulge in some tasty street vendor snacks.

In other news, we've started language class with our awesome and hilarious professor name Sochiet. Every morning for an hour the four of us practice our Khmer and prepare ourselves for some useful conversation - which is much needed. I've been proud to see we've managed to get around the city on our own, without being able to say more than a handful of mispronounced cambodian words. Just last night we watched our Tuk Tuk driver drive 25 minutes in the wrong direction because we didn't really know how to tell him to turn around and we didn't really know exactly where to go either, but we made it back eventually.

The tourist part of the adventure has been quite enjoyable for me. We took it upon ourselves to visit the National Museum and Royal Palace with the free time we've been given. I'm completely in love with the buildings and courtyards of these places, they are absolutely gorgeous (especially the roof tops). The Royal Palace has been my favorite visit thus far, it started pouring rain right when we got inside the main building and it was quite lovely watching the rain fall throughout the Palace. They had artists working on paintings and a group of people playing music in the courtyard who ended up inviting me to play with them - this made my day. I'm looking forward to doing more tourists visits and eventually going to Angkor Wat.

That sums up what's been going on lately, I'll be moving in with my host family soon which I'm very anxious about. Looking forward to it. Here are some photos!

National Museum

Royal Palace

Awesome Roof at Royal Palace

Day 1

Today officialy starts the adventure. After the long trip over the Pacific, we pretty much skipped Friday and landed early August 21st in Phnom Penh, Cambodia - the final destination. The trip overall went really smooth, no delayed or canceled flights and the 14 hour flight from LAX to Hong Kong was quite comfortable and the private headrest tv screens gave me plenty of entertainment. The process of actually getting into the country could not have been more easy, good thing I choose Cambodia over Bangladesh (that was my other potential placement). The 3 SALTers who were supposed to go to Bangladesh ended up going else where because they couldn't get their visas, here they practically handed them to us and told us to have a good time.

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Before I go on I should probably highlight that I'm here with three other SALTers: Liz Andes, Nicole Geiger, and LynAnne Wiest.

After arriving at the MCC office, which is where we will all be staying for a week or so, we met most of the MCC crew and got a much needed shower. We then jumped into some Tuk Tuks and hit up a local Chinese restaurant (awesome dumplings) it was tasty times ten. Afterwards, one of the many MCC couples took us out to visit the central market along with some good site-seeing spots--most names I don't recall even slightly. At one of the temples we saw an elephant and a whole bunch of monkeys. To my enjoyment these monkeys were completely used to humans and would walk right beside you, I will probably try to claim one as a pet. There was this little old lady sitting next to the temple with a bag full of fruit just handing them out to the monkeys, she told us she does it everyday--I wish I had her job, I seriously could have watched those primates eat bananas for hours, but we had more to do.

We got some super tasty drinks at a really relaxed coffee place which helped keep us from falling flat on our faces from the jet lag. I got an iced coffee w/ sweetened concentrated milk. Later we walked down a few nearby streets and got a quick tour of some good restaurants/stores as well as an early dinner at an authentic Cambodian restaurant. Let me say this, I wasn't really expecting a whole lot from Cambodian cuisine, but this stuff was awesome. Even though I know that we're getting a bit spoiled since it's our first day, I'm really excited to have the opportunity to eat these foods more consistently.

So now dinner's done and I'm back at the MCC office in my temporary bedroom trying to resist sleep until I can justify a reasonable bedtime (8:00) I'm hoping to get my body into a healthy sleep cycle early. All I can say at this point is that my first day has been incredible. The fellow MCCers I've met so far are very friendly and the city is ballin', I'm looking forward to getting a bit more familiar with it. From what I can make out of the culture and the people here is that they are very relaxed and polite. Phnom Penh has some tourists here so they don't go too crazy when they see a Tuk Tuk full of white people.

As for the next few days I'm excited to learn more about the city, meet more people, ride a moto, eat more of this awesome food, and start learning the language. I'll try to get some photos up soon so you can get a better picture of what I'm up to.

Take care,

Michael

Orientation closed.

Well this is my last night in Akron PA. I leave for Philly airport at 1:30 and will fly over the Pacific to Hong Kong before landing in Phnom Penh. Fly out the 19th and land the 21st, yikes - jet lag will not be kind to me. Looking forward to getting in Cambodia at last, let's get it on!

Getting Ready

Hello everyone,

This will be my blog for my adventure over in Cambodia this upcoming year. It's coming up real soon, I head out to orientation the 12th of August and will be there for a week. Then I go to Cambodia on the 19th or something like that. I hear the trip will take something like 25 hours, neato.

If any of you have Skype you should add me, my username is coneman02

Anyways, hope you enjoy the blog.