Smart Cookie

Happy 2011
 how I brought in the New Year

Thursday night at my favorite place in Thailand.............

THE SIZZLER

All you can eat salad bar baby. Fresh Veggies, Fresh Fruit, Soup, Crackers, Jello, I mean we eat, and we eat. There were 6 of us. You would have thought none of us liked each other or knew each other. No one talked. We shoveled food. 

The Siz is located at the mall which has just about everything so we thought lets go to a movie after! Well look what we found first..............

La- Z-Boys.......so we skipped the movie. I went back to the APT I was borrowing for the weekend and watched some episodes of the mini series Pillars of the Earth. I recommend the book over the mini series...

Friday morning I went for a run around the Downtown ABAC campus track then got myself a banana and an iced coffee. Now when I order coffee here, I have to say no sugar. No milk. If I was smart I would stay in my room and prefect this in Thai but I keep forgetting to do this. So I say with a big smile on my face.... 

"sa-wat dee ka! No Sugar. No Milk. Black coffee. Iced.

 No sugar. No Milk. BLACK. khorb koon ka!"

They then shake their head at me because I don't want sugar. THEY LOVE SUGAR HERE!! I order fruit it it's served with a side of dipping sugar. I order veggies...yep, a side of sugar. 

After getting my iced coffee and fruit I headed to a little secret spot. Not so secret.....but we do have to sneak in.......

POOLSIDE! This is at a wonderful hotel down the road and it is where I get my tan on when I can't make it to an island.  So some of the ladies and I laid poolside to bronze of for the New Year.

Now at this time I really had no plans for what I was going to do this particular evening. Some people were paying big bucks to go to a club. Eh. Was not really feeling that...I went all out for Christmas brunch so I had to pump the breaks a little for NYE.

My friend Anna and I went to my 2nd favorite place in Thailand for dinner. The Fish Place. It is an outside restaurant, surrounded by street vendors.  We ordered a bottle of Sang Som, Som Tum (Spicy Papaya Salad) and a small White Fish. It is boiled and steamed in all these spices and is served on a heated dish shaped like the fish. It falls off the bone and melts in your mouth. Whoever makes it out to visit...we will be going there I promise. We also each get a side of sticky rice to cool off our mouth because the whole meal is pretty spicy....but soooo flippin good. 

I rang in the New Year with old friends and new friends at Brunswick. I seem to be spending many of the American Holidays at this Bar...Halloween...Thanksgiving....New Years....hmmmm its just a place where everybody knows your name!!!!!!!!  Which is nice to have a place like that out here :)

Saturday I woke up....feeling pretty good!  Called mom, dad, Amy, and Lukey to say HAPPY NEW YEAR FAMILY! It was nice to hear all of their voices. It sounded like they were so close...but oh, they are so far! Ha! Then I talked to some of my friends though my email and their phones. Now that was a tease.  Let me tell you. It was noon-thirty my time and 10:30 PM theirs. I really wanted ring in the new year again! Selfish, maybe....but it was so weird to think that they had not even had their count down yet.

The rest of the day I hung out, napped and watched some more Pillars of the Earth. (I will confess this weekend I watched the every episode.) I was such a good girl I saved my money and my liver all at once!!!  We had a BBQ late night. A burger on the grill...oh baby. Happy New Year to me!

(NOTICE THE GRILL. YES. We are sitting around it, and yes we are in an ally. So sanitary. Please stay away trolls.....) 

Sunday headed back to the pool to catch some rays, borrowed a new book (Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger author of Time Travelers Wife...which is one of my fave. books EVER.), cleaned up the borrowed APT/dormroom and headed back to the burbs. We watched Black Swan...holy crazy ballerina. 

Monday I did one of my mothers favorite activities. POWER WALKING. Danny and I power walked between 6-7 KM...sooo like 3/4 mile ish. We got nice and sweaty then hopped in a cab went to Tesco (pretty much a Walmart) I stocked up on a water heater, coffee, tea, almonds, popcorn, corn flakes, oatmeal and a coffee mug. 

So I titled this entry as smart cookie because....I saved some money this weekend, I got lots of rest and I am ready for a week of proctoring(making sure our sweet students don't cheat on their midterms) and grading. All in preparation for a vacation up north at the end of the week to Chiang Mai and Pai....whoa baby we got an adventure coming up HOT!!!!! whooop whooop. 

So therefore, I am a smart cookie. I am thinking homemade chocolate chip.