Communism Is Time Consuming

I woke up this morning at 6:15 and Jill announced that there was a river running through our room. Our air conditioning leaked inside our room instead of outside and ran past the foot of my bed as well as Jill's. I sat up and said "Happy 21st Birthday, Jill! There's a river running through our room!" I named it the One Dragon River because it only has one mouth and that's what they name things here in Vietnam. I got up and got ready for classes, which included talking to Katrina and James on the internet. Jill was stressing out about our weekly Vietnamese language test that we had to take today, but I was confident and I don't stress about tests.

At 7:15, Jill and I left to find our usual breakfast of iced coffee with milk and eggs in a bun. We ate while we walked to our classroom building and arrived in time for her to stress out more and quiz each other on vocabulary and phrases in Vietnamese. The test went very well for me, and I was happy. After our usual four long hours of language class, we were set free until tomorrow!

I walked down the street about a block before finding a good place to eat with Jackie. We sat down, ordered in Vietnamese, and we were understood! That's always nice. I had an awesome lunch of pork, beef, and some slightly spicy soup with noodles. We paid, left, and got back to the room at 1:00 pm. I did some Vietnamese homework and then prepared some stuff to be mailed to the states. At about 3:00, Jill, Becca and I set out for the post office. It's right around the corner, so I walked and toted all the stuff I had to mail. I first mailed about ten postcards and then the trouble occurred. I moved to the international parcel mail desk and it was mayhem. First of all, there are no lines in Vietnam. The people who live in this country just don't recognize the fact that you've been standing there for however long. You just find an opening and go for it, which is the mentality when crossing the street here as well. Anyways, I found an open spot and thankfully was helped by a man who spoke English. I know a bit of Vietnamese, but not enough for him to be able to tell me what to do, etc. This is where the time consuming nature of communism comes into play. I asked for a sizeable box to fit all my stuff and, sure enough, they put it into a box for me. Then the woman behind the counter looked at it and decided to put it all into another box. This happened at least one more time before she seemed satisfied with the size of the box and then she began to attack it with tape until it resembled Fort Knox. I was then told to fill out three separate paper listing the contents of the box and their individual worth, as well as the “to” and “from” addresses for the package. After standing in the blistering hot post office for 45 minutes, I paid them a ridiculous amount of money for air mail (roughly two weeks) and left to go to the bank across the street. By this time, Becca and Jill decided they really needed to go shopping for some new clothes for Jill to wear at her birthday dinner tonight. I was confused as to why she needed a totally new outfit and when I asked her about wearing something she already owned she seemed slightly angry. I guess I will never understand some chicks. So I guess today was the first time I'd had to go anywhere by myself in this country. I made it 16 whole days without being alone outside the guest house compound. :)

I walked back from the bank and found that our air conditioning was still leaking, despite being told that it was fixed while we were at language class this morning. I went down to the lobby and informed my friend Phac so he could tell the workers in Vietnamese exactly what was wrong. They looked shocked and came up to fix it immediately. I did more Vietnamese homework while they fiddled around with the air conditioning both inside our room and outside on our balcony. They fixed it, cleaned up the river, and left me. At that point, Jackie and Leah came to find me and we walked a few blocks to get a birthday cake for Jill. We got a nice chocolate-covered one and then Leah took it home while Jackie went dress shopping in this store and I sat and wallowed in the air conditioning and photography opportunities. I came back to my room, showered, and readied myself for tonight's festivities. I decided to wear my green flower print dress (chosen with the help of Dale, Oliver, Bryan, and ZeeZee) and got ready in about ten minutes. Almost our entire group (19 people) met in the lobby and we all walked about for about 20 minutes before reaching our fancy restaurant, Black Cat. I ordered Boston clam chowder, while three guys in the group ordered 1.5 pound cheeseburgers. They struggled to eat all of that meat, which was a bit disgusting towards the end. Most of Oliver's came back up back at the guest house anyways. We had fun and left to walk back to our rooms. Somehow, the group decided to take a different way and I missed the memo. I ended up walking back with the couple in our group. I hadn't been the third wheel in quite a while, and it made me feel especially lonely and homesick/Andy sick (new phrase, I know). I was glad when we reached the guest house after 20 slightly painful minutes.

We surprised Jill with her birthday cake, sang, and doled out the delicious dessert. It was amazing, especially since I don't have nearly as much chocolate here in Vietnam as I do in the states. I then went to meet Bryan, ZeeZee, and Tony down the hall from the birthday festivities, which had turned into heavy drinking. We took a taxi to our favorite jazz bar, Sax 'n Art. Bryan had been practicing with the other members of the band this afternoon, so he was slated to play with them tonight. We spent from 9-11 pm listening to awesome live jazz music. I took lots of pictures in the great orange/red lighting on the stage and of course had my favorite watermelon juice to drink. We listened to Bryan play the saxophone on stage and he's really good. I took lots of pictures that he'll definitely want from me tomorrow afternoon. :)

I walked back to the guest house with Bryan and we talked about feminism and how it tends to consist of loud women complaining about things they can't fix. I have been writing this blog, finally talking to Andy, listening to James Taylor, and sorting through my pictures for the day. Today wasn't half as exciting as the Mekong Delta trip this weekend, but they can't all be, right?