Out and About (To Say the Least)

I woke up this morning at 6:30 am and went down to the second floor with my laptop. Of course it had almost no battery and by the time Andy got online I had to borrow Jill’s laptop for about half an hour. Having charged my own laptop in the meantime, I retrieved it and of course it wouldn’t get back onto the shoddy wireless internet. By the time I was able to sign back on, Andy had to go. Overall, it was an upsetting Friday morning because of all the computer problems and lack of speaking for our weekly chat.

I came back upstairs at 8:00 to an empty room, put on some music, and showered and shaved. It made me feel a lot better and I was able to work on some picture stuff before Jackie came to get me for lunch. We ran into Cathy on the way out and all three of us went to our usual place right outside our dorm. It was amazingly tasty, especially since I love the roasted peanuts with rice. It tastes better than it sounds, I promise. Cathy went to find the other girls who are coming on our trip tomorrow because we had arranged to go do some errands to get ready for tomorrow. All of them were either sleeping or missing in action so we left a bunch of notes and left on the 31 bus.

We got off of the bus at the post office and I sent a postcard and a package while Jackie and Cathy chilled at the lake across the street. We walked to the ATM and then to get silk sleeping bags for tomorrow’s adventure (mine is gold and very pimp). On the way around the lake, we saw Monica and Sarah who were trying to decide whether to go with us to the jungle tomorrow. Jackie, Cathy, and I then stopped and ate at this touristy café on the lake. It was more about the view than the food, but my iced coffee and croissant were excellent. I refused to speak English to the waiters because we’re not tourists. The camera sometimes confuses the locals here, since that’s usually a giant red flag that labels me a tourist. When I address them in Vietnamese, however, they are usually more than surprised.

After chilling, eating, and talking for a while, we paid and left. We walked around the other side of Huan Kiem Lake and took pictures on the way to get Cathy a water bottle at this store Jackie and I found the first week in Hanoi. Cathy was really tired and then went home on the bus. Jackie and I decided to walk back to the dorm, however, so she could find a dress for tonight. I think a lot of us are going to the opening of this art gallery at which two of my friends, Sarah and Monica, hold their internships. We walked around and I invested in yet another Vietnamese flag as well as tiny speakers for my MP3 player. I also found a cheap 1 GB memory card for my camera, which enables me to stop worrying about running out of space on long weekend trips. I was also able to take a lot of pictures of interesting things and people in alleyways, since I am pretty sure that will be my final project for my photography class. After going into a few stores and striking out, we finally entered this miniscule boutique and Jackie found a cool dress and shoes to match. She’s really excited about it and I was just surprised she found a matching outfit at the tiniest store we entered. We walked the rest of the way home and arrived back at the dorm at 2:45, which made the long walk a grand total of two and a half hours. Leah and Jackie came up to visit me in my room and then I uploaded and sorted through my pictures from today’s adventures.

From 4-5:00 pm I attempted to make plans for tonight. I also helped to get the travel papers filled out for Meggie, Brittany, Cathy and I in order to drop them off at Professor Benjamin’s apartment tonight. I then went through more pictures on my computer and put on a dress in order to go out to all these places tonight.

A bunch of us met at 6:00 and got a taxi. We directed the driver to our professor’s apartment building, dropped off the forms, and went to the rooftop restaurant next to the lake. Brittany, Meggie, Cathy, and I got to the restaurant early and then all the other girls arrived by bus about 20 minutes later. I got a BLT sandwich and then some coconut ice cream. We paid and left at about 7:30 and then I caught a taxi with Jackie, Jill, and Cathy. We made it across the city to the art gallery’s opening but it was closing. We took another taxi back to our dorm in order to change out of our nice clothes and then got xe-oms to Dragonfly. It was Dragonfly’s three year anniversary and they were giving away free beer. It made the others really happy and we danced for a long time. It was seriously 90 degrees (Fahrenheit) in there, though. Our group left there on xe-oms at 11:30 and went back across the city to the Sheraton Hotel. They have a bar called “Nutz” (intentional misspelling) and it has lots of dancing. I found it to be filled with very creepy men that wouldn’t go away and we left after only an hour. We took a taxi back to the dorm and arrived at about 1:00 am. I have been sitting in the hallway finishing this blog entry for the past ten minutes.

Tomorrow morning, I depart for my weekend trip to the national park and the jungle. I’ll post two blogs on Sunday!