Good Morning

Jet lag continues to haunt Suni, and as a consequence, all of us.  Radd and I are sleeping well, but I think Jessica and Suni are showing similarities to Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
Suni woke up at about 4:45 and started listening to a book on tape.  Breakfast is at 7:00.  What do you do in a small hotel room with 4 people for over 2 hours when one will not let you sleep?  The answer: silently stew.

Things began to pick up after breakfast though. We decided to go for a walk going in a different direction from the hotel at about 7:45 AM.   Within about 20 yards from the hotel, we noticed a tiny used car lot.  When I say tiny, I mean it had 4 cars, though what caught our eye was a classic Volkswagen Beetle in almost perfect condition.  Too bad it was out of our price range.  Anyway, we stopped in to look at a 1998 Mazda pickup that looked affordable.  The woman who came out to meet us was named Pi (pronounced "pie").  She said that she had "a friend" who had a much larger car lot and was sure she could help us find something that would work for us.  As we talked, we mentioned that we were also looking for a house.  She brightened up immediately and said she had the perfect house for us only 10 minutes drive away, and began showing us photos on her iPhone.  The house looked large and well taken care of and fit in our budget.  We are looking for a house under 18,000 baht.  Guess how much she wants for the house...18.000 baht.  Jess, ever the wheeler and dealer, started bargaining without hesitation. "Would you take 15,000?"  Apparently, the house is owned by a Chinese couple who do not live in Chiang Rai so she has to ask if they will accept less.  Well, now we have an appointment with Pi for 12:30 this afternoon.  She's going to pick us up at the hotel, drive us to the house and then drive us to the car lot.  All this occurred before 8:00 AM.

So after we say goodbye to Pi, about 20 yards further up the road, what do we see but a couple schools with English programs.  This gives me (the unemployed English teacher) hope.  These schools did not appear in my earlier Google searches, but now I have more leads to follow up on on Monday. And it's still early!!!!!!!  Can't wait to see what happens next.  I'll let you know when it does though....