How you feeling? Hot, Hot, Hot.

So, as you may be able guess since I am writing this, I have arrived in Cambodia safe and sound. It involved 25 hours of travel time (22 of those hours on airplanes), and numerous near-missed connections, but I made it. For those of you who don't know, I am doing a 7 week program in Cambodia to learn about Cambodian history, culture, language, and post-Khmer Rouge development.

My trip is starting with 10 days in Siem Reap, in the northern part of the country, which is also where the famous Angkor Wat temples are. After that, we move to Phnom Pehn for the last 5 weeks. The first 3 will be a homestay and the last 2 we'll all be back together in a guesthouse.

Anyway, I don't have much time, since I have to leave in about 20 minutes for my first class, but I am loving Cambodia. It's hotter than hell on Triscuit here, but it's worth the sweat. In fact, I think it's worse than Nigeria. It's probably about 10 degrees cooler, but it's also about 100% humidity, so it feels worse, and your sweat just pools on your body (that was clearly information you needed...) In the last three days, we've explored the town pretty well, going to both the tourist-y Old Market and some of the less-visited markets and streets. A lot of what we've done is orientation stuff which is probably not too interesting for you (since it wasn't for me either...), but we've had some really good Khmer meals, and met some awesome Cambodian students. Perhaps the highlight so far was going to the "Dr. Fish massage" last night at the night market, which basically involves sticking your bare feet into a little pool full of small fish who then come and eat off all the dead skin on your tootsies, leaving them fresh and clean. It was hands-down the weirdest thing I think I have ever done. The best way I can describe it that it sort of feels like that "pins and needles" feeling when your foot is falling asleep. But not in bad way, just in a sort of tickle-y way. There was a lot of laughter involved, and the one we went to gave you a free beer with massage, which was nice, and, to be honest, kind of necessary for experience.

Today's my first day of class, so I'll let you know how that goes, and the current plan for tonight is to go to a Mexican restaurant (in Cambodia) and watch their big screen World Cup game (I believe it is the North Korea game we're going to), so that should be an interesting experience....

Let me know how all of you are doing!!