Whoa, Classes!

Last night, Brian and I took the bike and came to Acoustic until about 11 pm. I went back to the guest house and promptly hit the hay. Waking at 6:30 am, I checked my email and my blog comments. My mom has asked me to add a disclaimer concerning the effective technique for leaving comments on my blog. Here it is: unfortunately, one must sign in to Google in order for your comment to show up. In other words, follow what it tells you. You're good at following directions, right? :)

I got ready for class and then bought some iced coffee with condensed milk and my usual egg sandwich. Vietnamese class was a bit difficult today, as they threw in a bunch of new adjectives and rules about qualifiers to use the adjectives in the language. I'll get used to it soon and then everything will be ok again. I went out with a few people to get lunch at a small outside place right outside the building with our classrooms. I attempted to order in Vietnamese and that was fun. I got salmon and rice and it was pretty good.

After a short walk around the streets and another iced coffee with condensed milk (which is refreshing, cheap, relatively sweet, and overall a lot better than it sounds), I went to photography class. We had two famous Vietnamese men who photographed for the VietCong side of the "American War" come and talk to our class. Their names are Le Minh Truong and Doan Cong Tinh, and you should look them up online at http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/041900vietnam-photos.html . It was actually fascinating, as one of the men just retired from traveling and photography, and the other guy has refused to photograph after the war. They both mentioned the fact that the photographers for the American side tended to take pictures that showed the loneliness and unhappiness of the soldiers, while they tended to take pictures of the daily life, work, good times, and camaraderie of the opposite side. Their pictures were amazing and they were able to tell us, through our translator (my friend ZeeZee) some of the stories behind their famous photographs.

We were let out of class a bit late, and Jill and I set out to find flash cards. That involved some Vietnamese and some gesturing, but we finally found them at a school supply store. We walked back to the guest house and got Brian, our bikes, and our laptops and notebooks. After a funny dinner at a nearby Texas steak house where I had a taco salad, we got lost again and biked around Ho Chi Minh City for an hour. We finally found Acoustic, which always seems to be our nightly destination, and have been talking online and looking at each other's trip pictures. He's a really good photographer, so I am just glad he thinks any of my stuff's good. :)

It's just about time for the live music to start here at Acoustic, so I'd better get off the computer. Plus, today was pretty boring compared to the weekend field trips and the visit to the zoo. Oh well, time for you to practice leaving me comments! :)