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in the morning i walked down to harvard square (temperature was in the lower teens) to catch the 73 bus to belmont, where i borrowed my parents' car to go to the watertown mall to get my photos taken in one of those automated booths (for my international driver license) then i went to costco in everett to buy some supplies for the cafe while my parents are away. when i finally got home around 2pm, i heated up some breaded eggplants and drank a fruit elixir.

despite the ever decreasing temperature, julie braved the cold to come over during the evening to make some dinner. in 10 minutes she made some cheese ravioli in an italian bacon tomato paste vodka sauce. tonight's episode of SVU was particularly twisted, about twins, incest, sex change, gang members, tagging, slit throat, a broken rib, a deaf girl, parents with a dark secret, bit penis, and of course, child molestation. julie, seemingly coming down with a cold, left soon afterwards. the temperature now is 1 degree fahrenheit (-17 degrees celsius), so cold that white frost now coat the roads and on the news they recommend letting the faucets drip a little bit to prevent pipes from bursting. what else is new?

itinerary updates: from sukhothai (thailand) i will travel east via bus and train to the friendship pass that will take me to vientiane (laos). after spending a week north in luang prabang, a 2 day slow boat drift west ($15) brings me to the border towns of huay xia/chiang khong, where i'll once again be back in thailand. from there i go to chiang mai, and then from chiang mai i fly into burma via mandalay, traveling south until my final destination of yangon, then flying back to taipei. the routes i had before wouldn't have worked because there doesn't seem to be any direct flights from vientiane to mandalay.