the yellow line is supposed to go down the middle of your car, right?

The other day I met with a girl who had just moved to Bangkok. She had that drowning, overwhelmed, deer in the headlights gaze you get when everything around you is different and you can't quite find your feet. I walked around with that look for four months in Switzerland and several months in Bangkok (I would have worn it a lot longer if it hadn't been for Dan and Amy). It still comes back sometimes but it's no longer a permanent fixture.

Bangkok is different. It's not like the US. It's a world class city, in a developing country, on the other side of the world. If it was like the states, it would be boring--and a bit sad.

I had forgotten how different Bangkok really is until Janae came to visit and kept mentioning how everything seemed so foreign, she couldn't believe it was normal to me. After driving with Rocky and then driving with me she said, "Driving here must be really hard." Meaning: Rocky is a really good at driving. He makes it look easy. You do not make it look easy. You are not a great driver.

This is true.  I have poor depth perception, which is especially bad on the narrow sois (streets), barely wide enough to be called two way streets, with high cement walls on either side. Driving is made increasingly difficult when one car (me) insists on driving down the middle of the road, their car straddling the yellow line. Because when said driver (me), first started driving,  Rocky white knuckled the door handle and only breathed when I was parked, saying, "You drive like you're trying to knock off the mirror, try driving closer to the middle." Jokes on him because now I drive right down the middle. Actually, jokes on everyone driving in the opposite direction of me.

It should now be of zero surprise that I have the auspicious ability to make the normal passive, Thai driver honk. When that happens, which is oftener than I would like to admit, I count both my attached mirrors and pat myself on the back.

So yes, I guess Bangkok is becoming normal to me. Or more normal than it was two and a half years ago, when we walked off the direct flight from Zurich and the humidity hit us like a brick wall.

It's normal that the fastest way to get anywhere is to climb on the back of a stranger's motorcycle and trust them to understand your bad Thai and get your there safely, that though Rocky's office is only 3 miles away it will take him between 30 minutes to an hour to get home, and that it was completely legal for us to put a baby pool in the back of a truck and fill it full of water and children and drive around downtown spraying people with water guns (more on that later).

I guess it is becoming normal and for right now, it's a good normal.