American Holiday in the Bode

So....the past two weeks have been a ton of fun. December 24th marked the end of our "lockdown" where we were finally allowed to leave our provinces...this means that now we have the freedom to travel around the country as long as it doesn't interfere with our teaching schedules. So, as you can imagine, on December 25th a whole slew of K3 volunteers flooded Phnom Pehn. It was so great. I hadn't seem most of my fellow k3 volunteers for a whole 3 months, and everyone was in a great mood since it was Christmas. And- not to mention that LEROY! (for those of you who don't know Leroy...aka Laura...she is a dear friend from home who is teaching TEFL in Ho Chi Min.) came in for the holiday weekend with some of her friends. I spent the weekend catching on girl talk, shopping (stocking up on peanut butter, oatmeal, and DVDs.)eating good food, and going out with friends. It was so surreal being in Phnom Pehn with Leroy... it was like having a little piece of home for Christmas. At one point we were walking by the Riverfront from our hotel to the Peace Corps office...and we just looked at eachother and said "WOW! we are in CAMBODIA, TOGETHER!!" it was really special. I couldn't have had a better Cambodian Christmas.

The next week I made the long treck down to the beach province, Kampot, for New Years. It took me about 8 hours total by bus to get there (including an hour stop for lunch in Phomn Pehn) but it was completely worth it. Kampot has a ton of expats...and where there are expats...there is expat food (do you notice a theme to my blog entries?? yes, I am getting tired of rice three times a day) so we grubbed on ribs and bbq and french fries. On New Years eve we went to a loungy bar called "Bohdi Villas" and had the whole crew there. At midnight everyone jumped in the river...but we really felt our ages when at 12:10am we called it a night...(when you go to bed at 8pm everynight in you village midnight is just too late) pretty lame of us, right?

On New Years day a smaller group of us headed to Rabbit Island (see pictures). Rabbit Island is a teeny tiny island that resembles the one of Lost (my current obsession). There is nothing but a few straw huts and a couple of restaurants. It's a bit rustic but nothing we can't handle. I really appreciated the island because the businesses were all Khmer run, plus there were a ton of Khmer tourists as well. So for two nights we just relaxed on the beach wearing shorts (!!! yes!! shorts! i haven't shown my knees in this country before this trip) and eating seafood (with no rice!) and just floating in intertubes and appreciating the beautiful scenery. it really was heavenly!

Well I hope that everyone at home enjoyed their holiday season...I've been missing everyone so so so much and promise to update more often from now on. I am purchasing an internet phone this week so I will be able to be in better correspondence with my loved ones back home. =)