Day 6 1/6/13 First Day of Class

This morning we woke up at 4:40 am to stream the niners game. What a game! It's pretty crazy how technology allows us to do things like watch sports from home half way around the world. We are spoiled in many ways. After watching our epic victory we packed out things and checked out of our hotel at 9:30 am. In front of our hotel a taxi driver waved us over to his car. We showed him the address of the school, but it meant nothing to him. He didn't speak English. He took out a map and had us point out the location of the school.His map didn't have many street names on it which made things a bit difficult..After about 10 minutes of him being patient with us we were able to find a hotel on the map that we knew was near the school. We negotiated taxi prices before getting in and agreed upon 100 baht. We weren't quite sure if the taxi driver knew where he was going or if we would be able to find the school, but we got in optimistically and knew it would all work out.After a surprisingly short drive, the taxi pulled over and let us out. We thanked him and began walking down the street with high hopes that we were in the right area. Two blocks down from where we were dropped off we saw a sign for the Text and Talk Academy. We looked at each other with an expression of relief. When we walked inside we were greeted by our teacher Moz, a middle aged chain smoking British man.The class was small, with only two other middle aged men.There was Nick, a British man who had no experience of teaching but had been to Thailand many times and had a desire to live here. And then there was Jeff, a whack job from the United States who is stranger than strange. At the table we casually introduced ourselves and made small talk while we filled out paperwork and flipped through our course material.We then received a homework assignment. We were to prepare a twenty minute lesson or activity to present to the class tomorrow on anything we wanted. After we were given our assignment we were dismissed early. From here Ryan and I went with one of the administrators from the class to look at apartments. She drove us to one apartment building that had one basic room available. The room had two twin beds pushed together, a small mini fridge, and a dresser for clothes. She informed us that it would be difficult to look for rooms because it was high season and many places would be full because of the holidays. We weren't very enthusiastic about the first place and asked her to take us to our next option. The second one she brought us to was a half a block from the hotel we stayed at; a neighborhood in which we were familiar. The building was smaller than the last and looked in better condition. The room that was available was the same size but this one had a full size bed and the furniture was newer. We decided on the second option. After and easy 15 minute process of photocopying our passports and paying rent plus a months deposit we were all moved in to our apartment. The place wasn't anything spectacular but for $140 american dollars a month in rent we couldn't complain. We decided we would stay here for a month or two. In march when its no longer high season we would move into a larger, nicer apartment.We unpacked our things and got settled in. After moving in we made our way to the night market for our favorite, pork noodle soup and coconuts.We kept our market trip short and came back to the apartment after dinner. Back at the hotel we watched breaking bad on our laptop for a few hours before bed time. At the end of the day it really sunk in that we are actually living in another country and not just visiting. I felt extremely blessed that everything about the trip so far had worked out better than expected. The hotel, the school, our apartment, acclimating to our environment, everything was working out for us, and for that I couldn't be happier.