Back to the future

When I left Bangkok in April, it didn't occur to me that I would come back just a couple of months afterwards but the truth is that I did. So after yet another Lufthansa long-haul flight without individual touch screens, here I am again.

The purpose of my stay is to teach English as a foreign language so I'm expecting the experience to be somewhat different - to say the least. I'm not sure how long I'll stay - the Royal Thai Consulate in Porto had provided me with a visa, which would last me until November 25th; the Thai immigration services "shortened" my stay to October 30th, which is also the date of my outbound flight; and the school I will be teaching in tells me that they will try to get me a one-year working visa but, in the middle of all this, what will truly determine the lenght of my experience is how I will feel from Monday onwards.

So far, I can tell you that it's strange to be going to the places I have been to a couple of months ago and not feel as a tourist. The stakes are definitely higher now - I'm thinking of accommodation costs on a monthly basis, the location of the school is my point of reference in the city - not the Royal Palace! - and I've started judging services much more severly.

But what's even stranger is to look at the clothes hanging in the closet (a pair of black trousers, a blazer, a blouse I forgot I had) and realise that very soon I will be wearing them at a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius...