Since when has this become normal?

As I was driving my motorbike over to my friend Kelly’s house, I passed an elephant walking towards me in the shoulder of the road. I starting thinking to myself, “When has this become normal?” (Also while I was driving I realized that it is not a good idea to think of anything but driving a motorbike, while you are driving a motorbike in this city – but that has become normal too). I used to be shocked when I saw an elephant walking along the highway, but now it becomes not just noticing the elephant but looking at him and being amazing at his size, his worried-yellow eyes, his spotted pink, leather skin – things I never knew about elephants before. Then I started to think about all of the things that have become normal here, things I don’t write about any more because they become trite and ordinary in this life…

- elephants on the road

- families of 5 on a motorbike -- babies on motorbikes in general

- buying your groceries at 7-11

- No cell phone bills, just buying money amounts at 7-11 and filling up your phone when it runs out

- $7 pedicures, $5 hour massages, $5 haircuts

- Driving a motorbike around town

- Cutting to the front of traffic because that's what motorbikes do -- I will be a terrible drive now in the US.

- Sprayers next to toilets, and having to ask the question, “Do they have western toilets here with toilet paper?”

- Weighing 135 pounds means I am an XL and fat person here – My landlord told me so

- being thrilled when you find an export shop, and shopping like crazy because they remind you that in America you are a medium or small (and finding jcrew t-shirts for $1.50)

- Eating out every meal, because you don’t have a kitchen – and it cost the same amount if I bought groceries

- Electric bills for $4, Rent that is $180

- Not looking at the weather because it will be the same for 3 months straight at a time

- Traveling to exotic beaches every break – on a teachers salary

- buying food from street stands

- having a maid

- mosquitoes biting you while you sleep

- geckos that run around your room

- plywood painted black -- that is your chalk board

- sweating at 7 am

- bootleg movies for $2

-paying $5 for peanut butter

I guess that is what happens after you live in a place for 8 months… but the sky is blue and it is beautiful outside today, I guess I really do live in Thailand.