We’re moving out in the next couple days. Some will stay, some will go, but one thing that we all agree on is that Thai Mom and Dad have been amazing. On day one at this house, before we even paid or said we would move in, Dad gave me the keys and said, “You’re family now. You are like our children.” Mom raised her eyebrows and nodded with that smile that seems to never fade.

I knew that leaving this house would be tough. It’s not even the house, it’s them. It’s our neighbor, it’s the mechanics down the street that we smile at every morning we head out on our motorbikes – also the same guys that wrangled me in with Bogdan, one of our cameramen, for some whiskey tonight on our way to the market. It’s the endless smiles and Mom serving us homemade food on our patio and staying around to speak to us, even though we still speak hardly any Thai. Mom and Dad knew it would be tough, too. So Mom – speaking to me almost entirely in Thai – let me know that she planned a picnic for us. She said she would plan everything and knock on our doors to wake us up for a 9am departure. So Michael, Bogdan, and I went for it.

I didnt have the heart to tell Mom or Dad that I had already been to a floating lakehouse, but this one didnt include a private motorboat tug of the entire lakehouse out into the water from the shore, nor did it include Mom’s amazing food, or all the love. Walking across the wooden planks from the shore to the lakehouse, we were a family, all carrying food in bags and tupperware, with a Thai Mom making sure we were protected from the sun, a Thai Dad humbly making his way behind her, in front of a German, tailed by two Americans, one raise in Mexico and the other born in Ukraine. (Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt aint got shit on us.)

Before leaving Dad told us that he and his family hadn’t been there for about 20 years. This wasn’t something they did for just anyone. (Fun side note: Mom took all the cushions from their sofa and some blankets and totally turned the bed of their truck into a crash pad for us for the 2 hours drive there under the Thai blue sky, through rice fields, markets, huge temples and reclining Buddha’s, and breath-taking mountains. Something tells me she doesn’t dismantle her furniture for just anyone, either.) But as she and Dad have made clear, we are her Sons.

You can choose whichever language you desire to say it, but that’s love.

So my friend Hannah here in Chiang Mai really knows how to rally a group! She orchestrated 15 of us to go to this lake at Mae Ngad Dam in Srilanna National Park. Just an hour-and-a-half motorbike ride away from the city we were passing through rice fields, food and beverage in our bags, and leisure on our minds. Needless to say with 15 people on the superhighway our motorbike crew was rollin’ deep!

The longer I’m here the more I feel like I’m creating a community of friends that I can just be myself with. At the same time, I’m learning that “myself” is transient, just like this life of travel. I keep changing, I keep evolving, but the one thing that is constant is my simple love for the natural elements. So what the fuck is a floating lakehouse? Don’t think about it. Just float.

The Genzano tutors unwind at the lake.

After a day of miming English words to children, ACLE tutors rely on de-stressing in Italy’s natural havens.  Last week Courtney, Lynne and I were together in Genzano — about 40 minutes from Rome — and  the beautiful Lake Nemi was a short walk away from the school.  In our visits after camp our curly grey-haired director Claudia reminded us that you can swim in an bra and underwear at any age while fellow tutor Josh sent us all (except Patrick, who was frantically searching for his lost 57 euro hat) on a rescue hunt after he decided to swim across the 2km lake without mentioning his intention to anyone.  Claudia led the search in her white undergarments until we found the him striding along the road, shirtless and shoeless in true Profit-style.