Relaxing Saturday

After leaving the internet café at 7:30 pm last night, I headed straight back to my dorm. I took a shower and read for a bit before going to get DiDi. Jill, DiDi, and I all really enjoy these huge, sweet grapefruit they sell here in Vietnam. I bought one yesterday and Jill cut it up while DiDi sat and ate it along with some grapes. I brought my book down to DiDi’s room and we ended up throwing a frisbee with Will in the courtyard in front of our dorm. After about half an hour, we went back upstairs and I read while DiDi showered. Jackie then came into the room and we watched “The Sound of Music.” Of course, I fell asleep only five minutes after the movie began. They woke me up at midnight when the movie ended and sent me back to my room. I read in bed for a bit before falling asleep again.

I woke up this morning at 8:00 and read in bed while listening to Pat Metheny. Jill was already up and gone and when she came back to the room we made plans for the rest of the day. She showered while I packed up some stuff for the day and we left the room at 9:00 am. We took the 31 bus to the lake and walked for a bit. We stopped at an ATM and my frequented postcard place before going to one of my favorite internet cafes and restaurants, Sago. We sat on the second floor balcony and ate banana pancakes covered in chocolate and syrup with our iced coffees. They were delicious and the taste of pancakes and syrup immediately sent me back to America in my mind. After about 45 minutes, we paid, left, and walked down the street to find a bench next to the lake and close to the post office. On the way, I stopped and bought some stuff for the packages I was going to send out later. Jill and I then sat on a nice bench right next to the water and I wrote out many postcards while she did some law school applications on her laptop. After talking to some people who inevitable approached us to sell things or practice their English and writing a great many notes and postcards, I headed across the street to the post office. I got a lot of stamps and sent two packages in an hour’s time. That includes the five minutes it took me to run back across the street because I realized that I had left one of the addresses in my bag that was still with Jill on the bench. After mailing stuff and feeling like I had finally accomplished something today, I found Jill and we walked to the northern tip of the lake where there’s a small red bridge to an island. On the way there we passed a young guy selling books and I told him in Vietnamese that I can't read. He immediately switched to English and asked me jokingly, "What do you want to buy then, my (insert word for male genitalia here)?" I motioned that it was too small, told him to go away, and walked away. Jill, that guy, and I had a good laugh but it was definitely weird. I had never been on the bridge or the island so we paid 3,000 dong each (about 20 cents) and walked over to the island. There are some cool tourist shops, a nice view of the lake, and a giant turtle that they have preserved for some odd reason. I mean the turtle’s big but why preserve it?

After a short 20 minutes spent on the island we walked back over the bridge and across the street. I quickly befriended one of the guys our age who was selling backpacks. Jill ended up buying two of them for her travels after our program and I was a decent translator and bargainer during the process. She even lost her bus pass for a few minutes before we were about to leave the roadside stand. It’s never a dull moment in this country. Jill and I walked to the opposite side of the lake and took some more pictures as we headed towards the bus stop. After catching the 31 bus, we arrived back at the dorm at 3:00 pm. I played computer games, listened to music, and sorted through some pictures before meeting Jill’s coworkers, Phuong and Lan, in front of our dorm at 5:00.

They rolled up in their xe mays and we then sat in wheel-to-wheel traffic for 45 minutes. We finally got to their cousin’s house at about 6:00 and they fed us this huge grapefruit stuff we love. They are so innocent and funny. It’s refreshing, really. They liked the fact that I can speak some Vietnamese but I worried that they wouldn’t get their English practice like they wanted. We helped them make the spring rolls, which entailed me making a couple, basically ruining them, and us laughing really hard while they attempted to fix them. While they cooked I helped to peel until they fed me more of that fruit. It’s so good and gets me every time! After about an hour, we were really acquainted, having fun, and waiting for the food to be ready. We then sat down to eat with their cousin’s whole family (brother, his friend, dad, uncle, grandmother, and other female high school-aged cousins). I ate so much mostly because they encouraged me to continue eating with them. After a while I told them that I was full and hid my bowl. They thought it was funny but I wasn’t really kidding. We then got more fruit and they even gave us one to take back with us. The nine teens left on their xe mays at about 9:00 pm and drove to nearby park. They taught us this one game where you dance around and then one person shouts who they want to grab and we have to protect that person. Jill and I were a bit confused so they switched to a Vietnamese version of freeze tag. That was awesome but really put into perspective how out of shape I am.

After about half an hour of running around the group decided to go and get something to drink. We passed a small group of people standing around and watching others dance to this salsa music and got off of the xe mays. We then realized that none of us really wanted to dance so we got back on and drove around the corner to these tables sitting by the side of the road. They ordered everyone these glasses of sugar cane juice and they were marvelous except for the fact that I felt like my teeth were going to rot right out of my mouth afterwards. They loved the fact that we had brought our cameras and took a bunch of silly pictures with us before we finished our cavity juice and they drove us back to the dorm. We just got back at 10:00 pm and I think I’ll call DiDi and see where the rest of the group is…

Comments would be amazing.