We're ba-aack!

In Thailand that is. Once we're done in Southeast Asia, it'll be 8 times that we've gone back and forth from the Bangkok airport. It's amazing the number of times we keep coming and going from their country, and they keep letting us back in! If you ever need tips on the comfy benches or best places to eat in the airport, just let me know- I've got loads of advice.

So we're back on the road after a truly wonderful three week break back in the States. During that time, we enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving in Atlanta, shared with many friends the unfortunate defeat of Tech by that other school from Georgia (and the subsequent hopefully good news that Tech is getting a new head coach), celebrated the marriage of Steve's brother Rob and his fiance Yee in Steve's home town of Stuart, Florida, and in general just had a great time catching up with people, relaxing, and getting some quality time at home. A special sidenote- many thanks to both our mom's for taking such great care of us, it felt like we were freshmen coming home from college for the first time, complete with laundry service, the works :-)

After leaving Atlanta on Saturday, we had a brief stopover to see Danny and Julie White in San Francisco. Highlights included the requisite trip to in-n-out burger- it's a strong competitor but I would still rank it second behind Chick-fil-a; going hiking in Muir Woods (the redwood forest where they filmed the Ewok scenes from Starwars)... and only finding out later that mountain lions are "a bit of a nuisance" there; and the biggest highlight probably when we went to a Christmas tree farm where we hand-selected the perfect tree and Danny demonstrated his inner lumberjack by cutting it down in a few swift moves then taking it back and decorating it- the true American Christmas experience.

After about 30 hours of travel and crossing 15 hours worth of time zones/the international dateline, we're now in Bangkok. We survived our midnight - 8am shift on the Bangkok airport benches this morning (we don't really deserve sympathy for that, it was simply so we didn't have to waste an extra night's worth of hotel points to get to sleep in a place for 5 hours.) See note above referencing the comfiest benches in the airport- we've tested out many of them.

Our plan now is to get over jet lag in the next couple of days, then meet up with the newlyweds Rob and Yee and then head north to Chiang Mai this weekend. While there hopefully we'll get to pick up some excellent Thai cooking skills, elephant riding skills (or just get to ride on an elephant), and see more of Thailand than what we've seen in our brief time in Bangkok and its airport!