"Cut yourself some slack. Remember in 100 Years, all new people"

Today was a really fun day! In the morning we had a temple tour called "Mike's favorite wat tour". We were supposed to go to about 4 wats but because we apparently had already seen two of them we went to the other two. One was a huge chedi surrounded by little temples and ordination halls. The chedi is really old (about 700 years old) and they are just starting to renovate it. It is amazing because the renovations look really good and you can tell where the new things are but also how it used to be. Apparently they have no idea what this chedi looked like because it there are no writings about it or pictures from that time. It is called Wat Cheti Luang which means big Chedi. For those of you who don't know what a chedi is it is a place that at one point held the remains or bones of either part of Buddha or of a special monk.
The next temple we went to was a forest temple that had these caves that were made especially to try and get this Sri Lankan monk to try and live in Chiang Mai. This wat was even older than the first! It was really a cool place to walk around and there was a lot to see. All the trees had sayings on them for instance "Today is better than two tomorrows". I took a bunch of picures of these and hopefully I can do something with them. Apparently a lot of foreigners go there to take medidation retreats like the one we are going on this weekend.
Marit and I bought more elephant pants to wear for the retreat this weekend. They are so comfordable and we look so Thai wearing them...except no Thai's wear them in Chiang Mai because they are not too hip.
After the Wat tour the Buddhist university group went out for lunch at the front gate of the university. It was so delicious and a wonderful place to grab a bite to eat outside the university walls. Then we headed to a temple to visit one of our monk students that lives there. We realized that my house was not too far away from this temple so everyone walked with me to my house to visit with my family. On the way there I took them through a fantastic food market that is only visited by Thai's and us walking around there looked very odd, but it was fun! The whole group enjoyed it a lot. When we got to my house I introduced them to my family and then we went to Marit's house too to see them. The grandma here loved having all the people here and especially those students that are student leaders and know much more thai than marit or I.
I took the whole group to the flower market close to our house then and they also loved that. I can't wait until you get here Mom so you can see this market! You will LOVE it. It is like a five block radius filled with tropical flowers and beautiful trees and plants. I would have to say mostly wonderful!
We had dinner with Marit's family tonight as well and it was good to practice a little more Thai with people who speak no english at all. I wish that my family would do that more. I know they enjoy speaking english though too.
Tomorrow we have an art field trip at a pottery place and a laquerware place as well I think. It should be interesting though I hope it is part in the shade. In the afternoons we have been going to temples for art class and we get lectured at in the sun and I can tell you now that I am buring calories sweating out all the wonderful food I have been eating there.
This weekend is the medidation retreat and I am sure I will have a lot to say about that! Look forward to hearing about it soon! I hopefully will have time on sunday to post something. Until then...
Aubs