My Usual, Please!

There has been a common thread that has definitely tied together my previous 12 hours, and that is simply "I'll have my usual, please!" I am finally finding my favorite places to shop for food, to have my food made, to go out at night, etc. I even have my favorite people who either idle their mopeds in the same place every morning on my way to classes or who make my breakfast most mornings. The eggs in a roll lady knows that I don't like the spicy sauce, and my favorite restaurant on a roof four stories above the street is owned by a bunch of families with lots of small children. I get my "ca fe su' da (iced coffee with milk) from the same woman every morning and it always costs me ba'y tram nhin (7,000 dong, which is roughly 50 cents). I even smile and say hello to the wary and heavily-armed guards that patrol the French Consulate. We're finally part of the locals' routine, just like they're a part of ours.

This morning, I had one of my two usual breakfasts. Today I picked noodles, pieces of veggie spring rolls, and fish sauce. I took that and my coffee to the building with our classes and ate in the air conditioning. Thank God for that, since it's been close to 100 degrees every day. You feel like you're swimming through the air because it's also 85% humidity. Vietnamese language class was extra fun today because for the first two hours of class we reviewed all we had learned this week. This is actually a lot of words, numbers, and useful phrases. After our short break, I set out with my class of six other sinh vien (stuents) and we went to the ZOOOOOOO! I was so extremely excited, as many of you may have guessed. We were given a grid with about seven (ba'y) questions and we had to each have a conversation with at least five Vietnamese people and get that information. We asked for names, jobs, place of work, phone numbers, hobbies, etc. The people we interviewed at the zoo understood my pretty well and it went well. Then out group met up and discussed how it went before we set out to see the animals! YAY! The animals in the United States, even in captivity, are much luckier than these animals. They're not mistreated, but they certainly don't have alot of open space. My favorites were the elephants, since they could reach out and touch us with their trunks. And they did just that! It was awesome and I got a bunch of cool pictures as well. We even saw them swimming, like in that old episode of Sesame Street where they played the song "Splish Splash I was takin' a bath" and showed the zoo employees washing the elephants.

We finished our self-guided tour of the tiny zoo at 12:15 and I went with two other chicks to get lunch. One of the girls, Sarah, was talking about the Jewish summer camp she worked at this summer and some of the silly songs they sang. She proceeded to sing "Pharoah, Pharoah" and was more than surprised when I chimed in happily. Hey, we both have the Old Testament. Two can play this game, right? Just kidding. We also looked up at this one really tall building looming over us and it's a Prudential building! I laughed so hard I almost had to sit down. Saigon is just like Boston, since we have the Pru too! I took a picture with the building and a Vietnamese flag nearby. Don't you worry, I've posted it too! There's also a picture there of a monkey attempting to use a rubber band to break out of his tiny monkey prison and retrieve a nearby carrot. It's appropriately entitled, "Jail Break."

I need to focus. For lunch, I ordered pork with rice. Halfway through the meal, I stopped talking for a hot second and discovered that the stench of my pork was exactly the horrendous one from Smelly Market. My appetite immediately took a nose dive and I drank alot of tra da (barely sweetened Vietnamese iced tea) instead.

On our walk back to the compound, we discovered our friend Oliver sitting at his usual spot on the side of the road near his favorite street vendor. We bought more ca fe suh da, sat on the tiny stools with him, and discussed possible activities for our open afternoon. Extremely ominous storm clouds moved in after ten minutes, so I finished my coffee and set back for the compound instead.

Back in my room, I went online but everyone back in the states was sleeping instead of talking. Playing games in the rain is almost as fun as sleeping, so I went outside into the monsoon-style rain and played a popular Vietnamese game that's like hacky-sack except they use an object akin to a badminton birdie.

I came back inside, dried off, and met with our younger director, ZeeZee, who told me about my internship in Hanoi! She said I'll be teaching English as well as some soccer and other games to sixth and seventh graders! I will teach them camp games like Splat and that makes me really excited.

I went back to my room and did my homework for my photography class (drawing and labeling my camera and it's buttons) and wrote in my journal for my "Vietnamese Life and Culture" class. After finishing a bunch of work, I deecided to reward myself and hang out with Jackie, Leah, and Jill. After persuading another person in our group, Brittani, that I knew a great place to eat, five of us set out for my favorite family-run rooftop eating spot. I had my usual, which is noodles, pork, shrimp, and peanuts. It's delicious and costs about $1.50 (including the Pepsi). They stopped on the way back to the hostel and bought alcohol and I got an ice cream instead. How wonderfully typical. :) I'm currently sorting through today's pictures, which again number close to 300, while I decide whether or not to go out to Acoustic again.

Keep on keeping on. I mean commenting. Keep on commenting. I bet some of you have been wondering why I request comments all the time. Well you're in luck, because tonight I have dedicated the next ten seconds to typing out my reasoning. I LOVE GETTING MAIL. Sending mail to Vietnam, however, is kind of expensive, I would assume. You think 42 cents or whatever for a stamp is bad, huh? I also don't know my address here at the hostel and still don't have our address in Hanoi which is where I will be living from the 22nd of September onwards.

Well to make a lengthy explanation more enjoyable, a.k.a. less lengthy, commenting on my blog takes less time and is cheaper than mail. I also wake up and check it every morning in hope that you all will have remembered to read about my life while I was sleeping like the little strawberry-blonde angel I am. I'm in a really silly mood right now. Just comment. Please.