Ok, so clearly that worked! Yay! The issue is that all the buttons on the website are written in Thai (if you know how to change that, please post a way to do it!) and for those of you who don't know, we don't speak, let alone read Thai!
Anyhow, we are sitting in a giant mall in Bangkok at an internet cafe. It is the rainy season here and it just started to pour on us, so we came running in for shelter. So far the trip has been wonderful. We arrived late on July 5th and were lucky enough to be picked up at the airport by a our new friend Andy's driver Som Kidd (THANK YOU SOOO MUCH HEIDI BERGMEYER!!).

The next morning we headed to the Grand Palace and Wat Pho. This was truly a wonderful way to start our introduction to Thailand. By the way, if any of you ever make it here and want to go to the Grand Palace do not be detered by the men who try to force you into a Tuk Tuk. They scared us enough that we walked an entire lap around the palace before pushing our way through. We were completely in awe of all the architecture and intricate detail of the palace and temple. It was incredible to sit in front of the Emerald Buddha in the company of monks. The highlight of the day, however, was the reclining buddha at Wat Pho. It really was an incredible sight and one we will not soon forget (we will post pictures later once we figure out this button thing). Later in the afternoon we even tried our first food from a cart and bargained with some of the vendors. It might not seem like much, but it was a victory for Brian and me.

We spent that night out with Andy and a large group of his friends, who took us to one of our last "non-thai food" meals. He and his friends kept saying that we were so brave to head "up country" to Isaan. That pretty much had the opposite affect than intended and Brian and I are more nervous now than we were before. But we knew this would be an adventure, so we are still excited! When we got back to our hotel we immediately started studying Thai, which was not so productive since at this point we had had a few drinks.

The next day we were lucky enough to have lunch with Dr. John Yang and his wife. They took us out to a small authentic Thai family restaurant that we would not have otherwise dared to dine in (the menu was written in Thai). The food was wonderful and it was very interesting hearing about how Dr. Yang had met Doc as well as Joe and Sean. They shared with us some traveling tips and then Mrs. Yang took us to the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, which we learned is very exclusive. It was gorgeous and had a 9 hole golf course right in the middle of the city. It was like no other golf course we had ever seen.

Now we are attempting to get a cell phone (REALLY tough when you don't speak Thai!)

We miss you all and thank you so much for all your well wishes! We will likely not post again until we are settled in with our host family in Sisaket. I know you will all be on the edge of your seat for our next update!

PS If you have not already seen it, please check out the wonderful story about the Boston Irish Wolfhounds and the Durant family in the Boston Globe (this is obviously Brigid typing if you couldn't tell already! I don't think Brian has the same affinity to exclamation points as I do!!)

xoxo Brigid and Brian