Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at about midnight on Saturday night, after departing from Charlotte Friday morning, flying through New York City & South Korea, almost losing my carry on bag (how does that even happen?!), almost being bumped off one of my flights even though I had a confirmed seat, analyzing & critiquing the entire SkyMall catalogue with a Urologist intern for 2 hours, and realizing at some point that I forgot to bring my chocolate with me... But I'm now on the other side of th world! :) Voila!!! Or as Rococo (my GPS) would so kindly say: "You have reached your final destination." The visa & immigration process was amazingly easy in the Phnom Penh airport. And to my surprise, this is now the FIRST country I've traveled to in a longgggggggg time where I haven't lost my luggage :) So by the time Noman picked me up at the airport, I was feeling great! We rode in our little tuk tuk (a motobike with a covered carriage attached to the back) for about 20 or 30 minutes to Street 136, where I'm staying within walking distance to everything wonderful, including the river. I'm still amazed at how lovely the transportation is here because while it's certainly chaotic, it's not atlightning speed like the transportation insanity Paris and I experienced in Peru! Our tuk tuk just plugged right along & made me just smile realizing that all is good with the world. On Sunday, Noman & I met up with 3 of his classmates for a traditional Khmer photo session, which I really don't want to write anything about until we pick up the pictures later on this afternoon because you'll just have to see these photos to understand exactly what I'm talking about! And I'll leave it at that for now ;) Then we went to the mall and took 5 sets of escalators up to the top where we had the most wonderful vegetable pizza & garlic bread (uh... yeah... totally not the traditional food here), although my stomach is still slightly messed up from travelling. At about 6pm I felt like I was going to fall over, I was so tired and jetlagged (12 hr. difference here) as it was about 6:00 in the morning in good old Stanley. Needless to say, as soon as I got back to the hotel at 8:30, I crashed! I was hoping to defy all jetlag & become a super human who isn't affected by time change, but apparently that didn't pan out the way I was intending ;) Monday morning, 9am, would you believe that I had an INTERVIEW with a very reputable language company here in Phnom Penh. The director came and met me at my hotel and we went a few blocks over to a very poshy cafe by the river where we had tea and chatted about their programs. I'm sitting there in my lovely business attire, including... yes, believe it or not... HEELS! and I'm thinking to myself, 'How in the world did I manage to get a job offer after only being here for 1 day?!' Wow! Viva Cambodia!' And to my surprise (it all happened so fast!) by 2pm I was sitting with my first client, a South Korean restaurant owner (zero level English), for a 1 hour private English tutoring session which was SO MUCH FUN! :) Loved it!!! The most entertaining aspect of this whole thing is that after I arrived back to my hotel later that afternoon, I couldn't help but be convinced that the hotel owner & staff must've thought I was some kind of spy or secret government agent as the scene kind of went something a little like this: 9am - I come downstairs & wait in the lobby of the hotel, wearing my black business skirt, nice red dress shirt, and black heels. A nice, shiny 4-runner-ish vehicle pulls up. The driver, wearing a full suit, expensive looking watch and sunglasses appears, and we exit the hotel. 10:30am - I appear back at my hotel in my whole get-up, go upstairs & change into my tshirt, jeans, and sandals and exit after about 5 minutes. 1:30pm - I walk back through the lobby of my hotel in my "regular" clothes, walk upstairs, change into my spy agent attire, and return downstairs to wait for my spy agent partner in suit & shades to drive up in his car. 3:30pm - Spy agent partner in shiny vehicle delivers me back to the hotel. I go upstairs, change back into my "unassuming civilian t-shirt outfit" and exit the hotel again... And just a little side note to reiterate my point here... the lobby & entrance of the hotel is small and opens directly up onto the street with no door, so when my car was pulling in & out of the hotel, it was all in very clear sight ;) So yes, yes, you can now refer to me as Sarita the Spy! Beyond all that excitement, I've been enjoying lots of different types of delicious noodle & rice dishes here, and spent Tuesday just relaxing, trying to get a little organized, and went and watched an unbelievably sad, gut-wrenching documentary at the NGO where Noman works last night about homeless Romanian youth. Never a dull moment. And now, it's Wednesday morning here and I was wide awake by 6:30am so figured I would keep myself occupied by writing this first blog entry :) I hope it's been somewhat coherent! Ha! Later on today I'm apparently scheduled to participate in some kind of NGO photo shoot where I'll be video-taped while riding through the city on a tuk tuk. Lol... No, really! That's really what I'm doing in a few hours! So like I said, viva Cambodia!