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