homesickness

i haven't been too homesick here in thailand. its not like i've never been away from home before, i guess having experience helps some. not that i don't miss anything, but i can generally deal with the loss and longing or whatever it is that constitutes homesickness. i've never HAD to have something you can only really get in the states (or bangkok). but i've decided there are 2 broad categories of things i miss.

category 1: things i know i miss.
these are the things i have more or less missed since i left. tim, luna, family, you who are reading this, my good pillow, good bread. i miss these things, but i do my best not to think about it because there's no way luna's coming to visit, and generally i ignore the missing and do ok. but every now and then, something happens to make me really miss one of these things. i've missed luna more since little cats have started hanging around school. they are so little and cute, and i pet them until they are done being petted and go about their cat business. then i miss luna the rest of the day. and i spent this weekend with my good friend alex and his wife nithya. now i really miss all my old friends. i've gotten to be good friends with lisa and nathan, 2 americans who teach english here, but its not quite the same as friends i've known for a long time (alex for 11 years now, hard to believe)...

category 2: things i don't know i miss until i re-experience them.
then there are the things i never thought about missing until i had them again. at dinner with alex and nithya on saturday, we had a dish with raisins in it. i couldn't stop eating the raisins. they were so good! i think alex thought i was a little crazy, eating all the raisins, but i couldn't help myself. who knew i missed raisins!?!? who knew anyone missed raisins? but apparently i do, and i'll be glad to have a large container of them available when i get home. i know there are other items in this category, but i can't think of them right now...

so, what did i do with alex and nithya this weekend? not much. on saturday we checked out their temporary apartment, mostly to find out where it is because they'll have to commute from there to the US embassy every day. its a nice building and all, but kind of inconvenient relative to the embassy since they'll have to walk to the skytrain in their suits. then we went to one of the malls, where there was a member of the royal family doing something. i thought it was going to be the king because they had the yellow (mercedes) cars all lined up outside, and some thais told me that only the king goes in the yellow cars. but it turned out to be one of the princesses, i think. we thought maybe the queen (it was definitely a lady but from a distance its hard to tell 50ish from 70ish) but one of the thai teachers told me today that the queen basically never goes out these days. so much for the color coded cars. then we went to eat a place called eat me, where the raisin revelation happened. then i went home and they went to their hotel.

on sunday i showed up at the hotel, we watched the end of pretty in pink and 2 episodes of entourage on HBO, then went and walked around lumpini park (the central park of bangkok, i guess). there was a strange interaction with a lady who wanted our empty water bottles. then we went back to their hotel and hung out by the pool for awhile, it was quite relaxing and nice. the weather was beautiful, not too hot and a good breeze. then we had some pizza. thais eat their pizza with ketchup on top, and even though this was a swanky western hotel chain they served the pizza with a bowl of ketchup. i abstained. alex tried it and declared it delicious, but maybe he was just showing off how he's so accepting of this new culture he has to live in. nithya went to take a shower (she had actually gone in the pool) and alex and i just hung out and talked. a delightful evening. then i went home and they went to bed because alex had to go to work this morning. (apparently the people in his office usually work 7am-4pm. i don't think i'll be joining the bangkok embassy staff.)

and, TODAY WAS MY LAST MONDAY. only 4 more days to go. well, 2 full days and 2 half days because i have to go to the immigration office and the bank.