Arrival

Jan 1st 2012
We arrived at the Harpswell dormitory Teuk Thla dormatory at 1:30 pm after staying at the Goldiana Hotel at the heart of Phnom Penh, in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Our total travel time was 33hrs with the longest flight being from Chicago to Seoul Korean a little under 14hrs.
We celebrated New Years a couple of times not really knowing when we crossed over the International date line. When we arrived at the Goldiana we were finally aware of the correct time and date and both celebrated by watching fireworks from our window. Then promptly passing out.
We have already experianced some of the daily happenings and tasted a bit of the local foods. Both Kathleen and I agree that we will really enjoy the culinary aspect of our jouney. In a city of 2million people, a notably and understandably young nation, we find ourselves at awe with a unsurmountanble number of "motos" little mopeds that seem to be the primary source of transportation. We took a "tuk tuk" come and pick us up from the hotel
Upon arriving at the dormintory we were greeted by the guard and manager Varoney. Our room is very large and is to be shared with another resident leader. Getting settled I promptly break Kathleens desk. We had a good laugh and started to attempt to fix it to no availe. It currently remains upside down and in pieces on the floor.
We have 45 girls living in this dormatory and they study and school at 16 differant universities. The english capabilities vary and we have laughed with so many of them over name pronouncation. They have as much difficulty with ours as we do with thiers. We laugh a lot over the cooking of tonights dinner, they are all very concerned if we like is preppared. But we really do, and they are so happy about that.
Learning the girls names is ne thing and learning the language is another.
"Sompiah" a greeting, with hands together and a bow is the tradional hello, the lower the bow the higher the respect it is the traditional 'hello'.