Pretty Sure We're an "Official" Posse by Now

I am almost embarrassed to tell you what we did today. Or rather, what we didn't do. We had decided yesterday that today was going to be a "chill day" and, wow, was it ever. I know it seems silly to have to have a "day off" while on vacation, but when you're traveling for an extended period of time, sometimes you really do just have to take some time to sit and read, to not be trying to cram anything in, to catch up on e-mail and bills and such and just to soak up the glorious luxury of being able to spend a whole day on a rooftop terrace. Which is exactly what we did.

After our late night last night, we all made it downstairs to our meeting point in the common hanging out/eating area for a, eh hem, rather late breakfast (okay, let's call it a breakfast-slash-lunch). We hung about there with Duncan, Dani's fellow Brit and a very funny guy, for a rather long, leisurely time, no one wanting to expend even the effort it would take to get up to move to our next chilling out spot. We finally dragged ourselves away from the lounge... and relocated ourselves to the rooftop terrace the hostel has. Really lovely views of the mountains and, more importantly, rows of lounge chairs and hammocks. And that was pretty much our afternoon.
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We had "plans" to meet up with another girl at 5:00 to go to the weekly Chiang Mai Walking Street (a huuuuge Sunday night street market) but, frankly, come 5 o'clock, we just weren't quite ready to tear ourselves away. She came and joined us instead. Our lazy masses were growing. You know you're officially lazy when you don't even have the wherewithal to drag yourself out of a lounge chair to walk a few doors down to get a pedicure (which we had been talking about doing all day). Now THAT is lazy, my friends.

We did, however, finally make it to the night market. Amazing how miraculously a group of girls' energy can be restored when there is street after street after street of outdoor Thai markets waiting to be explored. I would also be embarrassed to tell you just how much time we did spend exploring them. (But check out what was randomly for sale for a mere 5Baht in the middle of the accessories stand)
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Back to the hostel where some of "the regulars" were hanging out and with whom we joined up again immediately. Here is what I really dig about hostel life: the people. It's kind of hard to explain but there's an odd little community that exists among people staying in a hostel at the same time. Everyone is in the same boat, everyone is doing the same thing and there just seems to be an understanding that it's always even more fun to do whatever it is with other people. There really is something to sharing an experience like this at a certain moment in time with other people. I've met lots of cool people at lots of hostels but at this one we've found a particularly cool, particularly hilarious group that has a particular ease in hanging out together. It's gone from inviting each other to do things together to there just sort of being a general understanding that we're going to all do things together. You go to breakfast, they're there, you come back in the evening, they're there. You sit, you talk, you laugh (and laugh a lot). Occasionally, we even do stuff. It's kind of like "Cheers" as now when you walk in, you invariably see people you know and just sit down together and continue a seemingly never-ending conversation. Although it ebbs and flows with people's travels, the current principal posse members are Dani, Duncan, Paul, Kiwi, Charlotte, me and Sarah. It's an awesome posse.