Whew! I'm finally in Thailand and all settled! It was really a crazy time getting here... we got back from Mexico on Wednesday night and I went to see Eclipse with Leanne which was wonderful :) Then I packed my stuff for this trip and left Thursday morning for my 18 hour flight... yikes! When I finally got to Bangkok around midnight I got my backpack and everything and then I went to get money out of an ATM and it wouldn't take either of my credit cards, so then I proceeded to freak out for the next hour or so and I was super hangry which didn't help matters since I hadn't eaten much of anything on the airplane.

Luckily though, Thailand is known for being one of the friendliest places ever and a bunch of random people pretty much saved me from being stuck in the airport with no access to the outside world! And my mom also saved my life by talking me through the minor breakdown I was having :) I guess you have to tell your bank if you're going out of the country, otherwise they block your cards to avoid fraud... whoops... the hotel I stayed in near the airport was pretty sweet, complete with a lizard on the ceiling and a few hours of French cartoons that I entertained myself with instead of sleeping since I'm super jetlagged.

This morning I got a ride from this nice Thai driver who loves Arnold Schwartzenagger (wow how do you spell that?) to Petchaburi which is where the wildlife center I'm volunteering at is! I really love it here, all the other volunteers are super nice and fun to hang out with, and it's a very diverse group, which is awesome. Tommy, one of the main guys at the center, gave Claire (my newfound Australian friend) and I a tour so that we could scope it out before starting work tomorrow, and the things the rescue center is doing are incredible... I'll be working just with the elephants, who are all really beat up from their past lives but doing much better after being here, but there's also a ton of other animals that have been saved - monkeys, bears, a tiger, and a bunch more. I'm particular looking forward to using the "poop canoe," which is for scooping the huge elephant poops out of the lake that we wash them in... yummy! Hahah the place is really cool though, all very open air with a bunch of places for lounging and little huts that us volunteers sleep in. I'll take some pictures to post once I get a little more settled in!