Laila's Wedding.

On Sunday at 5 p.m., my host cousin Laila got married. The ceremony took place at the Islamic Center of Thailand, which was pretty much a really fancy mosque. The wedding theme colours were white and pink, because apparently the bride's favourite colour is pink... and apparently also EVERYONE knew that, sooooooooo half of the guests were dressed in pink. Including my entire host family. Even my host dad had a pink shirt on under his jacket. My little brother was the only one not in accordance with this whole pink theme... he wore a really cute little white tuxedo with a red bow tie :)

We arrived at the Mosque at about 4 30, and spent half an hour taking picures with the bride and other family members. And running around after my host brother who was determined to lay down and lick the entire floor :S When it was time for the ceremony, we all went into the Mosque and sat on the floor, with the women sitting on one side and the men on the other. Then there was alot of praying in Arabic which was apparently to wish good luck on the marriage or something (obviously I don't speak Arabic so I didn't understand it). It was probably about the most beautiful Mosque I've ever seen (but I didn't want to take pictures, I thought that might be considered bad manners or something), and I'm still absolutely in love with the sound of prayers in Arabic (mainly because they are more sang than spoken). The whole ceremony didn't actually take too long though, and soon enough we all went to sit at the pink table clothed tables to eat.. Since there were obviously more guests than tables/chairs to sit on, so my host family all just kind of gathered around one table, and took turns sitting down to eat, while the others just huddled around and ate kanom (desserts) and what not. And when I say "my host family", I really really mean it... the whole entire extended family was there (which trust me is like a million people.... my host dad has 5 brothers and sisters, and they all have like 5 children of their own... then there was my host mom's side of the family....) At some point my host mom started to get bored as well, so we around and took some more pictures... We didn't get home until about 10 p.m., and the rest of my extended host family stayed for a while at our house eating some kanom.. however, I was still full from dinner so I just showered and went to bed.

Yesterday (Monday) after school, P'Tee (the guy who took Patch and I to Supanburi a couple of weeks ago) took Patch and I to some guys house (?) where there was a recording studio set up. They recorded Patch speaking the commentary for the resort in Supanburi's show.. first in Thai, then in English. I was there to just keep her company, and to help make sure she was pronouncing things correctly. Words she had trouble with included sword, gorgeous, used, and sacred... and I'm guessing that most Thai people would have similar difficulties. However, I think she did an amazing job :) although she was a bit worried that foreigners won't be able to understand her accent. I told her that I understand it fine, but then again I've been listening to it for the last seven months... and I've actually started to pick up some of her speech patterns when speaking English, I've noticed, and well as the whole speaking half Thai half English thing (I know I know it's bad for me to be speaking English at all... but trust me, when you can speak two different languages, it becomes kind of fun to combine them, and you can come up with all kinds of things you would never be able to using only one language....) When we finished the recording thing, P'Tee took us out for a seafood dinner, and then brought us home. When I got home my host family was nowhere to be found (although luckily I've recently acquired a key to the house, so I was able to get inside fine)... I have no idea where they were, and by the time I went to sleep around 11, they still weren't home. However, they were here when I woke up this morning... and they are here now (after school).

p.s. I tried to upload the video of me Thai dancing, but webshots informed me I can't upload it because it is too big :S and I'm not quite sure where else I can upload it.... Possibly on youtube? I dunno, I'll keep you guys updated... I did manage to upload new pictures though... and they can be found at: http://community.webshots.com/user/kristenthailand