So I finally got around to write about this... First thing I wanna say is that my classes started last week, so for that reason I didn't have time to write on my website here. But this week, I have some more free time in the afternoon, so I'm just gonna write about my winter break vacation! I will try to write about it as much as I can. Hopefully some of you will find this somewhat interesting. Now sit back, and enjoy...
As some of you might already know from my previous post that I went to Michigan to visit my host family and friends for the winter break. It was a 10-day trip, we mostly just hanging around the area, didn't do anything much. (Except a lot of driving and skiing/snowboarding) So I flew in to Grand Rapids on the 17th of December, about one and a half year since I flew out here back to Thailand after I finished my exchange program during 2010-2011. The trip was about 6 hours long, I had to make a connecting flight in Cincinnati. It was about 9pm when I arrived. To be honest, it was a strange feeling coming back here again. Now I'll just assume that most of you probably don't know my story when I was here as a exchange student. So just to clear things out, I had an awesome time here. It was one of the best years of my life.
As I walked out of the gates down to the waiting area. I already knew that my host family was gonna be here to pick me up. So I was kinda looking for them, and I honestly didn’t even know how to react, it’s been too long but still, I was really excited. In the summer of 2011, when I was here the last time, they dropped me off at this exact place. And one thing I think you should know, and I’ve never written about this before, is that I bursted into tears saying goodbye to my host parents here. It was tough to say goodbye. We all know that feeling. On that day I knew that we will meet again, it’s just the matter of where and when. So here I was, back at the place where I said goodbye, where I saw them for the last time. Then I saw them waiting for me on the bench. I let out a huge smile, walked right to them and gave them both a big hug. After a little greetings, we walked down to the baggage claim area and off to their place, which is about an hour north of Grand Rapids.
After a long ride with a lot of chit-chatting, we finally arrived at the same house that I was staying at for almost a year. It all looked pretty much the same, I felt lucky that I had a chance to come back here again at last.
Next day, my host dad, Brad, took me out deer hunting. But before I could be inside the woods to look for deer, I needed to wash off all my human scent with special soap and sprayed every pieces of clothing I was going to wear with this hunting spray.
There was this place we called ‘the cabin,’ it was the place where he usually hunts and it was in the middle of the wood. Perfect place for deer hunting. We then went inside the woods and out to the open field where he told me that he always sits and wait for deer to show up here.
The cabin
Since I was there with him that day, we need to sit and wait inside that little cabin (seen in the photo above). Brad had his muzzleloader loaded and ready to shoot at any second the deer show up. It was about 3pm when we went inside and started waiting for deer, and that was all we did; sit and wait. We needed to be extra quiet and still. We couldn’t make any noises because that might scare the deer away. We would never know when they will show up, they are too quiet. We just had to sit there, looking out the window and hope that deer would show up soon. But we can play with our phones though, as long as they didn’t make any sound. Surprisingly, AT&T had 4G coverage in the middle of the woods...
It was about 5:30 pm when it got dark and we couldn’t see anything anymore, so we packed our things and went back home. I was a little bit disappointed though. I even brought my DSLR with me, hoping that I would get a chance to take a picture of a living deer in the woods. But we didn’t have any luck. Continue to part 2...