This is it.

Well everyone. Charlotte and I are currently sitting in the lounge of the Abu Dhabi airport getting our moneys worth of internet, food and tea. I caved and am currently listening to christmas music off of youtube, although we both agree that I don't think there is any place that could feel LESS like christmas. We are both sooooo pumped to come home. I think I can speak for both of us when I say we've had the time of our lives, but we are Canadian girls after all and christmas just wouldn't be christmas without snow, family, and candy cane ice cream. We have 20 hours to kill in the abu dhabi airport (the perks of traveling budget....) so I will probably post several more photos within the next couple hours. For now, I'll tell you about our last couple weeks in Thailand.

First of all...both Charlotte and I failed to realize that November is Monsoon season on the east coast of Thailand....

thankfully we lucked out HARD CORE on the first island we went to. Our week on Koh Tao was unreal! We stayed beachfront, overdosed on fresh pineapple daily, and played in the ocean everyday. Koh Tao is mainly a scuba diving island, which is why we went there in the first place. I did a little intro course and was soooo gung ho to get down there. For anyone who knows me and my dorky love for all things Nemo you can picture the excitment. So we hopped on the boat with a bunch of other divers (taking various courses), geared up, and jumped in. As I started to go down my ears didn't equalize properly and starting feeling like how they feel when you fly with a sinus infection. Ouch. I wanted to dive so badly, but I really didn't like the prospect of a burst ear drum. I was super bummed I couldn't get down...but got to meet some hot dive instructors on the boat while charlotte was down hanging out with nemo. After a visit to the Thai doctor I found out I had an inflamed eardrum and was told I had to sit out for a couple days. We skipped two days of diving, and then after deciding just to pop a whole bunch of decongestant meds...I gave it another try and made it! It was unreal, and I am in love haha. Screw physio...I am going to be a professional ichthyologist.

After our week on Koh Tao we took the ferry over to Koh Phangan to meet up with Maria and Hecks who'd been in Laos for the week. Their journey seemed pretty eventful too. Hecks was covered in bruises from her drunken sports games, and Maria was full of her typical hilarious stories. Katie had booked us into this sweet spot away from the full moon party so that we would not be right in the middle of the madness. The weather could not have been any different from Koh Tao. It was cloudy, rainy and humid and totally not conducive to beach weather. We spent the day of the full moon party stocking our rooms with water and various hangover snacks, that we purchased by renting a scooter (yes Dad, a moped!) and scootering into town. After a near death experience, I was banned from the wheel and Charlotte did an excellent job of steering us to safety. Okay, it wasn't near death...it was just very evident I could not steer.

The full moon party itself was....insane. There is no other word. We met up with Kelli O'Rielly (an acadia girl) who had a place right on the beach. We were able to have a couple drinks at her place before venturing down...and let me tell you...when I first stepped on the beach it was like I was experience culture shock or something. First of all, there were stands spanning the ENTIRE beach that sold "buckets" of alcohol...there were people dancing, sitting, singing, crying, sleeping, swimming, peeing...hahah....everrryywherrree. The group of us litterally danced through the crowd holding hands so we wouldn't lose each other. Nine hours later...at 7am...we made it back.

Never. Again. I am too old to party like that. Give me my keiths and my fiddle player and I'm set. Well...thats about all I've got for now. The pics above are all from Koh Tao, except the last one, which is a pic of the shirts we made for the full moon party. The famous saying in Thailand is "Same Same, but Different".... so we made shirts that said "Same Same, But Canadian"

Witty eh?

Ho Ho Ho from the Middle East (i'm getting strange looks for blasting ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOUUUUUU)

J&C