Back to Sai Gon!

I woke up at 8:00 on Sunday morning to Oliver screaming something in horrible Vietnamese right outside our door. Jill got up to tell him to go away and I got out of bed, threw on clothing, and went with DiDi to the internet cafe a couple of houses down. I answered emails, downloaded Skype, posted a blog, and ate a breakfast of egg, bread, and iced coffee. Around 10:30 I ventured around the corner and grabbed blank CDs for my photo project as well as Jackie's. We had shoddy internet at the cafe and it still wasn't there when we returned so I packed up and left for my room at 11:30. DiDi and Jackie and I headed down the street to grab lunch at this roadside place and I had fried rice and a Pepsi. We went down the street and grabbed Thu Minh's newest cd (we saw her perform live on our last night in Ha Noi) and then DiDi went to the old guesthouse and Jackie and I met up with Brittany, Becca, Meggie, and Leah in front of our old iced coffee place.

We all walked to Ben Thanh market together (the smelly market isn't that smelly any more since I've been living in Viet Nam for a couple months now) and Jackie and I shopped until 3:00, when we met Leah outside the market and walked to another cd store to grab some more of Thu Minh's stuff. We got back to the guest house at 3:45 and I uploaded all the new songs to my computer and MP3 player.

5:30 brought DiDi's plea to ride on Phat's xe may with her and help her locate some apartments in the next district over. We found about four of them and all of them didn't have the renters home when we went. We stopped and had a few fetal duck eggs, found one more apartment, and then headed back to the guest house at 7:00 pm. I shaved, showered, and called Jill to find that her and Cathy, Monica, and Bryan were eating at the rooftop restaurant down the street. I met them there and found that it's closed on Sundays so we ate at this other restaurant which I used to frequent after Vietnamese class in September. I had a Coke and some pho bo (Vietnamese beef soup) and then we walked to the other guest house (where we'll unfortunately be moving soon) and hung out and watched some Discovery Channel while Tica changed her outfit about 45 times. Then we took a taxi to Acoustic and it was jam packed but Meggie came out and bit Jill's head off (unnecessarily, I might add) and so I walked away and waited for DiDi to arrive at the beginning of the alleyway. I needed to be away from the group for a bit for sure.

DiDi arrived and we hung out in the alleyway with people for a half an hour and made other plans. Then Jill and I got a xe om back to the guest house at 10:30 and wrote a journal entry before accidentally catching a one-eyed xe om driver (I told him my destination and price before he turned to face me) to Crazy Cocktail. I arrived at that rooftop bar and had a Coke and talked to Phat, Brittany, DiDi, and Jackie until midnight, when we walked down the street to this club called "Go 2." I danced there with Mike, Leah, Jackie, Brittany, Bryan, Monica, Cathy, DiDi, and Becca until 2:00 when some of us took a taxi back to our guest house. I washed up and read in bed until almost 3:00 before falling asleep.