Don't Touch Me! I Thought You Were a Moped!

Xin chao! Day 3 here in Vietnam has been successful I guess. I tend to have an hour where I feel ok and then another hour where I don't. It's unpredictable as well. Oh well. I woke up and went outside our hostel compund across the street to pay the equivalent of 30 cents (5,000 dong) for a huge amount of noodles and cut up vegetarian spring rolls with fish sauce. I was also offered some iced rice milk and thought "what the hell; why not." It was the absolute sweetest thing I'd ever tasted. Then I walked with a few friends to our classroom, which is about a ten minute walk, and ate our breakfast there. Then we had Vietnamese language class for four hours. It seems like a long time because you're struggling with tones, accents, and a million different vowel sounds. I'm doing surprisingly well, though. I try to use what I know as much as I can when I'm on the street, though. Sometimes I'll say hi (Xin chao) and they'll say "Hello. How are you today?" Of course, they want to practice their english and I want to practice my Vietnamese. We then stopped at a stationery store quickly for some of my friends. Struggled with our Vietnamese while we were at it. They just laugh and speak slowly. Thank God. We walked around for a bit and then found a weird panini street store. They also gave me an iced coffee, but it was black. It reminded me of Andy alot. Some people in our group of four needed to get passport photos for bus passes so we went and got those taken. More bad Vietnamese pronounciation ensued. At least they all seem to have a sense of humor. Dr. Vo Van Sen game us a lecture from 1:30-4(that name is missing a bunch of tone marks and special symbols over the vowels, let me remind all of you who just read this man's name and assumed that the Vietnamese language is something that can indeed be grasped). His English was good, but his accent was really heavy and I had to focus pretty hard on his lecture on the "American War" (I agree!) and it's affect on Ho Chi Minh/Saigon. I then went back to my room and sat on the computer for a while. Mr. C. sent me a sweet email and I barely recovered. Some others from the group went and got cell phones. They're expensive and I stick with them so I don't need to call them really. We went out to eat a Pizza Hut. It's certainly not Vietnamese, but I needed it for its comforting nature. I had an ice cream too. :) I followed them as they got alcohol and then we came back to the hostel. I've been organizing my pictures and posting them on facebook. Ok off to do my Vietnamese homework, shower, and go to bed. I miss you all ALOT. Keep emailing and commenting so I feel like you remember me. :)