Monday, April 5

Today we moved into the Sathorn Mansion, our home for the next month.

Last week, Roman reached out to Evan, the guy who ran the Airbnb where we stayed in 2018, to see if he had any longer-term rentals available. It turned out he didn't have any free studios, but did have a whole house available to rent in Sathorn.

It's the same neighborhood we stayed in last time—it's on the Metro and pretty central, but much more quiet than Si Lom. Which is mostly a relief—it's so nice to step out of the metro station and not have to navigate through huge crowds. The downside, of course, is that there's not as much fun street food and inexpensive market stalls and eateries. I mean, there is still street food—just not the wild abundance of it you find in Silom.

The house is lovely though!

It's down a quiet, plant-lined alley.

There is a copy shop and a laundry service and other homes lining the alleyway; our house is the orange one (2, 36 Soi Si Bamphen, Thung Maha Mek, Sathon, Bangkok, 10120, in case you're curious).

It's a tall skinny house with three levels and it's all ours! The main room opens with two sliding doors directly onto the alley, which I love. It gives the living room an open feel, like there's no great barrier between us and the street and the plants and our neighbors. But it is still cool and quiet and private.

Roman's sawasdee

On the main floor, there is a couch and a dining table and a kitchen with minifridge, hot plate, tea kettle, and basic kitchenware.

On the second floor is the room that will probably be our bedroom. Is is spacious, with a large bed, another couch, a desk, and plenty of floor space.

There is also a small, simple bathroom (with a gecko hanging out under the window screen! Cute but hard to photograph).

The top floor is the kind of space I would have loved as a kid. Something about climbing up a narrow staircase to the top floor of a house feels like you're entering into a secret space. The attic bedroom is the hottest, and has two beds and another desk.

It also has the larger bathroom.

For the moment, I'm guessing we'll probably hang out on the ground floor the most, sleep on the second floor (slash hang out there when we need some separate space), and use the upper floor for clothing storage and bathroom storage.

But we will see. It is more space than we need, and feels a little silly, but it was what Evan had available, and I'm happy to be here. It's $450 for the month, which does not include electricity—which means we won't be blasting the AC on all three levels. There is no pool, which made me a little sad when we left Silom. But there is something about being in a house down a secret alleyway, instead of in a small new apartment cube, that feels very, I guess, grounding to me? And we've already met some of our neighbors!

I can't wait to buy hangers and hand towels and breakfast food and really start to make the place our home for the month.

But I couldn't spend too much time settling in, because I got an email today from one of the schools I applied to, asking me to come in for an interview at 10am tomorrow (Tuesday). And, oh yeah, I have to prepare a 30-minute teaching demonstration.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh my god.

So, we know what I spent the afternoon working on.

While I worked on my lesson plan (and it took a lot of work just to get to the point of starting a lesson plan!), Roman explored the neighborhood. In the evening, he took me out to see what he'd found...and only a few blocks away from us are whole alleys full of street food.

We got fried chicken and a sweet potato waffle because...chicken and waffles? Not a thing in Thailand, but still a delicious meal.

And then we returned home, and I tried to be just a little less wildly unprepared for the job interview tomorrow.