Before I get into that though… I should take care of Robin update type of things… as I don’t think I’ve done that at all on this thing. I’m doing pretty well and more or less seem to have found my nitch here. I’ve joined a gym. I’m taking khmer lessons. And I’m borrowing a bike… which is the most absolutely terrifying thing I think I’ve done yet… but I can’t keep paying moto drivers to get places… they like to rip off westerners… especially girls. I’ve realized that biking in the morning isn’t just something to jumpstart my metabolism… it jumpstarts a full on adrenalin rush. Walking isn’t an option here. Sidewalks are used as parking lots for motos and hawker stalls. There isn’t anything as far as McDonalds or 7-11’s are concerned… but we do have “Lucky Market”. Which has fabulous things such as skippy peanut butter, Philadelphia cream cheese, post blueberry morning cereal, and Crispex. Meaning I’m the only westerner who doesn’t eat all three of my meals out every day.
My apartment is fricken awesome. As usual, I’m living on the third floor… this time of what I can only describe as a mansion. Its French style, with huge rooms and ceilings. I have a decent kitchen… no oven, just two burners that have for settings… huge flame, and oh sweet jebus its going to burn the house down flames. And then there’s a little grey refrigerator that I’m taller than. One thing I haven’t gotten used to is the idea of taking my shoes off every time I come in… I mean… I have all marble floors, (which I’ve almost killed myself on more than once when wet), so any dirt comes up easy. But I’m learning… expect me to enforce shoelessness when I return. The next room you come to is kinda a bathroom… I mean it has a sink… and a shower… or rather a European shower head… and a drain in the middle of the floor… and there’s a washer (no dryer… but its not really necessary here)… and… now here’s the kicker… a squat pot!!! Moving on from here we get to my living room… which is even bigger than my Pittsburgh one… we could so have a 4 person wii tournament in here. There are 6 light switches… for about a bazillion different lights in my ceiling. The next room is my bedroom… It’s the only room in the house with air conditioning…. Which I don’t really use except for sleeping… and then there’s the private (as in you have to go through my bedroom to get to it) bathroom… which could be comparable to the size of dan’s bathroom. It has an actual bathtub…and a regular toilet… and a ridiculously beautiful door. I also have a spare bedroom (should anyone decide they have a compulsive need to come out to Cambodia). Then there’s my balcony/terrace… it has two couches and a couple of chairs, and a hammock… basically its ridiculous. And its all for… get ready for this… $230 a month…. Yeah… be jealous…
Oh, and then to top it all off… I have a maid. She even does dishes (not laundry though… which is good, I hate people touching my laundry)… only thing is she keeps doing weird things…. Actually she’s been making my life kinda frustrating. There’s small things like… she moves all the furniture to one side… and then doesn’t move it back (oh yeah, its fully furnished b/c I’m subletting from my internship coordinator’s friend) or she likes to put all my stuff in with all the owners stuff, (necklaces, hair ties, watches and other little things) but I could deal with that. But then she keeps throwing away my contact cases… which you only bring so many of those along with you… I’m now borrowing a case from my friend Rocky. And she broke my shower head… which really is bad… I don’t know if I can fix it… so I’ve basically been showering using a hose… and then she took the shoe rack and all the shoes and put them outside on the terrace… of course it rained… killing not just some of my shoes… but also the shoes of the girl that lives there. I’m never there when she comes, and she doesn’t speak any English… so I’m getting my khmer teacher to write me a note addressing everything.
You might be asking why I even need a maid… well that’s b/c its really really really dirty here. For instance here are some pictures of the sunset…
Some are taken without flash… and they look nice… but then I took some with the flash… from outside… same spot… the flash actually reflected off of the dust dirt, grime and pollution… How ridiculously crazy is that?
I don’t exactly live in the most happening place in town… but the place is really just too good and cheap to leave. But I do live down the street from Toul Sleng (you’ll read a lot more about it in my next post). Basically a lot of people died there, and no one hangs around my area at night b/c they think its haunted. I haven’t actually had any issues concerning hauntedness or ghosts… But there is something of an odor that’s throughout phnom penh that I would classify as the smell of death… its hard to explain… but if you ever smelled it you would know what I’m talking about.
My work is interesting… not much that I’ll post about, but it is interesting… My office is kinda dark, not a lot of people speak English… but my boss is American and seems pretty chill. And I work across the street from Wat Langka… which is pretty incredible looking… It kinda takes your breath away every time you climb the steps… oh yeah, I’ve got used to building kinda being outside…. Like the steps are outside, or you’ll be walking through the hall and suddenly there’s no wall or ceiling on one side… it takes some getting used to… but works.
They use a civil law system here which is a bit of a pain in the butt… things like they don’t use precedent kind of blows my mind… and you have to be careful if you are a defense lawyer filing a motion against a judge or prosecutor b/c they may bring criminal charges against you for defamation…
So I think that’s a decent update for now…
Cheers,
-robs
I'll throw up pics a little later
1 comment:
So I just found out that Redlands has some of the worst air quality in the country. What was I thinking? Your pics made me think of our smog...
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