Hello officially from Thailand!!!

Hello everyone! We have arrived safely after a long flight from minnesota. The hardest part was the fourteen hour flight from LA to Taiwan in which everyone ankles swelled to balloons. We are now in Chiang Mai Thailand which is north of Bangkok about an hour by jet. Yesterday was so exciting and fun. We got up early, and took an hour taxi cab ride into the mountians to an elephant training ground. There we rode elephants, watched a demonstration of elephants logging tea trees and fed the elephants with fresh bunches of bananas. After that we took an hour bamboo raft ride down the ping river wearing straw hats and led by men with huge poles pushing us along.
We then drove to an orchid farm outside or Chiang Mai to have lunch. The food here is wonderful! Easy for me because they have rice at every meal! We walked around the orchid grounds and took pictures...it was beautiful.
We have what we call Thai buddies that help us when we have free time and hang out with us. They are very helpful. They took us to the street vendors and ordered for us last night and helped us buy uniforms for school. The uniforms and most everything made in Thailand here is dirt cheap. I bought two uniform shirts and a skirt for under fifteen dollars.
Today we will go to the American side of the city and act like normal tourists for a day. The people here are incredibly friendly and it is most definately a country full of constant smiles. I love this country! We start classes on Tuesday and have orientation on Monday. We move in with host families on Saturday which should be interesting...I am nervous but very excited to meet them as well.
Thank you all for the wonderful posts! If you have any questions ask and I will try and answer them in my next post.
Sawadee kaa! Or hello and goodbye in Thai
Aubs