Getting Back Into It

Well hello again to the blog world. I've been gone for a really long time from my blog and you'll have to forgive me for I have had so many things going on. It's been a really hectic couple years since I've last written anything on here.

I moved from Sydney to Brisbane. I've been working and going to school all at the same time, let alone got married and a baby underway. I know crazy right, I was the one asking "why I should get married?" and "what's so cute about babies?". Well I'll soon get to experience it on my own.

Life in Brisbane is such a blur. It's not the same experience as it was when I was living in Sydney. It's a different kind of atmosphere. Sydney has the culture, the attractions and the vast majority of people. Brisbane on the other hand has culture but its more of a laid back kinda atmosphere. Attractions here are far and wide, you have to travel to the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast to basically see anything that is remotely amusing. But I have to give it to living here in Brisbane though, the weather is great year round. It's warm even in the winter, and during the summer you get a massive tan (I've gone black and had this tan for over a year now).

I've found my husband here. Family I never knew I had is here. It's been a whirl wind of a year, I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything. Brisbane has been good to me in ways that I never knew and yet in a way it has been cruel to me as well. When I'm in Brisbane I think of the days of being in Sydney...basically my single life. Sydney was the last stop in my single life and boy what a fun ride that was. I partied til the wee hours, I didn't have to think of anyone but myself, I had fun meeting new people and exploring the city...most of all I was carefree.

My experience in Queensland had me go up the Queensland coast and seen some amazing things. I experienced all this with my husband, the person who took me out to see these amazing places. There has been a year and a half of me discovering Queensland and along the way I kind of discovered myself.

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Back To Laos Pt. 2

Walking out of the Wattay airport was a little surprising. The airport has been renovated and updated since the last time I been there. One thing that does not change is the "stares" my sister and I got. As we're driving to Ban Kheun (outside of Vientiane) through Vientiane I notice that Vientiane has a lot more shops, more cars, more traffic and oh yes I noticed they have traffic lights (they didn't have that the last time). One thing I noticed which stayed the same was the way people drove there. It's like the lanes are invisible and people just go everywhere, motorcycles weaving through traffic like it's no big deal and cutting it so close to the bigger cars. It's about a half hour drive from Vientiane to Ban Kheun and we're exhausted but excited to see the rest of the family. Since the last time we were there people have gotten married, had kids and passed.

The house isn't as I remembered it, well maybe because it's a brand new house from when Grandma was still alive. Ok so when we walked into the house we saw all these people sitting there waiting for us to arrive, but one problem here folks...we didn't recognize anyone there. They all come surround us but not expecting us to be able to understand or speak any Laotian at all so they were doing hand signals and talking very slowly to us. Well to their surprise we're able to understand and speak very fluently. The one person we were excited about seeing was our Grandfather, who was in the bathroom when we got there and took forever (it's alright though). When he finally comes out of the bathroom he was yelling at everyone because there were too many people in his house and he finally realized that we had gotten there and he begins to cry. It got me choked up as well seeing him cry and hug us. Come on now you would get choked up too.

Ok so things are going well at this point with catching up with family members and seeing new ones as well. We're telling stories and people are asking us questions about ourselves and our family but there's only one thing that can spoil this little family reunion. What's that one thing? Well it's neighboring people that we've never met or have not seen in forever asking for money. Don't get me wrong we're not greedy people, we donate to charity (money & time for that fact), we sympathize with people who are less fortunate than us and we're giving people. The only thing is that it was our first day there, no sleep for about 3 days due to school, work & time change, and we were hungry. They could've let us eaten something first or taken a nap before bombarding us with their problems and asking for money. Anyone would be kinda cranky right about this point too, so we kinda blew some people off and acted like we didn't hear them. We're not MILLIONAIRES people!!!!

The village has changed a tremendous amount. Where there were little huts, now houses sit. It's like going back in time actually. The only thing that was a drastic change is the new road leading up to the Dan Savanh Casino. It seems like everyone there works at the casino in the mountains. There were brand new shops and it seems like every shop we stopped by someone knew one of our parents or were related to us one way or another. Jeez do we have that many people in our family that we spawned so many?

Waking up in the mornings is probably the most peaceful I've ever known. It's the kind of quiet calm that you know the day will go well. The air seems so much better than the air in the US, maybe because it's not as polluted. I walk to this little snack shop in the village every morning to get a Cafe Oleng, for those who don't know its equivalent to an ice coffee. It's probably the best ice coffee I've tasted...makes my mouth water just thinking about it. After having morning coffee you sit on the porch and watch the children get ready to go to school and take in the nice weather before the heat comes beaming down and people stop by to greet you as they're off. Mornings in Laos are the best memories.

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Back To Laos Pt. 1

I went back to Laos for the first time in 12 years. Yes I know a long time right? Well factor in school plus working 2 jobs and you literally don't have any time what so ever. I decided that I was going to take a month off work to go on vacation with my sister. We decided that we would go to visit our grandparents and family. I was kinda scared of going at first because well I haven't been there in a very long time, I've heard stories of Laotians robbing each other, and I was just basically scared of seeing the family that I haven't seen in forever.

My sister and I decided to go in May after our finals. Well lets just say we didn't have time from the end of our finals to getting on the plane. We tend to leave our packing til the very last minute and I tend to overpack because I think I need everything (so sue me girls tend to do that). When we got on the plane it was kinda of a relief to be leaving all the stress of work and school behind. It was such a long trip from Chicago all the way to Japan for our first layover. Tokyo's airport is such a huge airport, I thought we were going to get lost. This is when we encountered our problem of the whole trip. We asked a worker there where our gate was and he was asking about a visa. We said that we would get our visa for Laos when we got there, as you can do because they do "on-arrival visas". Apparently this dude didn't understand what I was saying because he kept saying that we needed a visa to enter the country. Of course we know this and we try to explain to him again but slower this time. I guess he got frustrated by us either because he didn't understand what I was saying or it was my sister standing next to me rolling her eyes. This dude walks away and gets his supervisor to come talk to us. (Mind you at this time everyone in the terminal is staring at us and talking amongst themselves as to what was going on.) So this guy's supervisor comes up to us and says the same thing, that we needed a visa. I told this lady "look I already told that guy that we can do on-arrival visas when we get to Laos, go and ask either one of these people in the terminal that's going to Laos also that we can do it that way". She proceeds to tell me that Laos won't let us enter without a visa and that we won't be able to board the plane until we take pictures for our visas. At this point I'm tired because I haven't slept in about 24 hrs and getting irritated by these people. I kinda snapped at her and told her that I'm not leaving the airport to take pictures for a visa that I can get when I get there and plus my flight was leaving in about 1 hr. She then tells me that my sister and I can't board the plane until we go with her to get our pictures taken. OMG what do these people not understand about doing it when we get to Laos?!?! My sister told me to give in and so I did (this is hard for me to give in due to what I do for a living) and we went to take our pictures, but before we went I told the lady "if you make us miss our flight then I'm not going to be a happy camper, I will get louder in the airport and I will have you suspended". I know a little dramatic right but remember I haven't slept in about a whole day and I think I lost a day in between too.

We finally get on our plane to Thailand just in the nick of time. Let me tell you we were not very happy at all by the time we reached the plane. We had a 6 hr plane ride from Tokyo to Thailand and had to wait in Thailand til 7 the next morning for our connecting flight into Laos. Why is that? I never got why there are so limited planes going to Laos and why we had to wait like 8 hrs. for the next flight. We were delirious by the time we got to Thailand cause at this point we were going on like 30 hrs. no sleep. I have not done this no sleep thing since doing my Undergrad studies and I'm older now and need my sleep. We walked around the big new airport for a bit and got a bite to eat. I swear it was like all eyes were on us for some reason. Were we looking ragged? Well of course if you've been on like a 30 hr. trip so far. Is it cause we're foreigners? Well of course but there's plenty of them in Thailand. Who knows why they were all staring and at this point in time we didn't really care. After we had a bite to eat we were walking out of the restaurant and I heard a familiar song. I go to my sister "hey it's Joni...", she cuts me off before I can finish my sentence and starts to look around like crazy cause she thought it was actually him there. I proceed to tell her "no his song is on the radio". We had like a couple more hours to go til our flight out so we played a little card game called Sequence that we brought along with us and boy did we attract a crowd of people just watching us play games (it doesn't help that we were kinda loud at the same time too). After 8 hrs. of waiting in Thailand we finally get to board our plane...Yay!!!!

The flight from Thailand to Laos was the shortest flight I've ever took. The flight was so short that you couldn't really take a nap when on the plane cause by the time you fell asleep you were there already. That's why I don't understand why there isn't that many flights going to and from Thailand and Laos. When we got to Laos it was such a shock, the humidity hits you right when you get off the plane. We made our way through customs and the customs agents tries to speak English to us because they hear us speaking English to this Scottish guy helping him out a bit. My sister and I just look at each other and was just kinda confused as to what he wanted to say to us. This is what he said to us "Ver you go to flom?" He asked this a couple of times and finally I just asked him in Laotian what he was trying to ask us, he was completely taken aback that we were able to speak Laotian fluently especially for people raised in the United States. Everyone wanted to help us out in the airport, but us not being so accustomed to having people pick up our things were kind of hesitant. We're actually those people that do everything for themselves so we were not used to it. I swear once we walked through those doors out into the airport lobby our aunts that were there didn't even recognize us!!!! We didn't expect them to recognize us anyways but we walked passed them until I heard my name kinda in a question and I'm the kinda person that's like loud and just yells out when I hear my name. We finally get to meet our aunts and uncle after all this time and after all the hassle of getting there. It feels like old times.

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