PROUD

Proud

Since I am sufficiently removed from the country of Viet Nam I feel it is now appropriate to begin some heavy introspection. I began this process in the taxi to the Sai Gon airport, in fact, but it was a bit muddled and nonlinear due to the onrush of emotion and my constant flow of tears. Here goes something.

I lived as a minority and engaged with some of the 52 different ethnic minorities in Viet Nam. I taught my first language and learned a second. I occasionally wear the traditional dress and constantly crave fetal ducks, hard-boiled and still nestled in their eggs. I was a regular on the Ha Noi buses and got my bánh mì trúng from the same teenage daughter/grandfather team. I played simple games of baseball and soccer with my students and then went inside the school building and taught them English. I became a part of the lives of those locals around me as they became a part of mine. I was able to give as much as I took. I have had a Sai Gon city bus touch my foot as I sat on the back of a friend’s bicycle during heavy traffic. I have had a full meal of snake and have enjoyed snake wine, which tastes like a mix of iron and rice wine, on more than one occasion. I have stoically shuffled past the embalmed body of Viet Nam’s beloved former leader, Ho Chi Minh. I have cried out “Xin chao, dong chi!” to the uniformed and armed guards standing watch outside the American and French consulates. The Secretary General of Viet Nam’s Communist Party, Nong Duc Manh, nodded a silent thanks to me during a ceremony at my school. I can haggle in Vietnamese for anything, simply because it’s the principle of being white and being charged more for daily services and food. On the other hand, an old man has asked me if I was Vietnamese American.
I have fraternized with the “other side.” I have visited the rice paddies that became battlefields, crawled through the dank and scorpion-ridden tunnels of Cu Chi, more than 30 meters under the ground. Because of this, I have firsthand knowledge and experience when it comes to beating a world superpower at their own game.
I have avoided all types of birds in order to prevent bird flu and did not eat uncooked fruits and vegetables during a large Cholera outbreak in Ha Noi. I have the utmost respect for the courage and strength of the Vietnamese people as I have visited many of their war museums and discovered exactly how many times they defended themselves from foreign invasion on their own soil. I have carved oddly shaped, Vietnamese pumpkins with my supervisor, students, and their parents. I have ridden my own bike and have sat on the back of another person’s bike during tire-to-tire rush hour traffic in both Sai Gon and Ha Noi. While taking photographs around Hoan Kiem Lake, I was told of the parallels between the American War and the Iraq War by an older man who was sporting an old Communist pith helmet and huge aviators. I sang a Vietnamese children’s song with some small kids in Sapa. I was attacked by a leech while walking through the Hoa An Biodiversity Center in the Mekong Delta. DiDi and I enjoyed pedaling around on tandem bikes in more than one city. Since I consumed at least one kilogram of fruit per day, I had a standing deal with the older women who sold fruit right outside our dorm gate. I can immediately recognize the difference between the Vietnamese accent of the northerns and the southerners and I can joke about it. I have observed, absorbed, and marveled at the absolute grace, poise, beauty, and pride of the Vietnamese people. I have seen a famous Vietnamese singer, Thu Minh, perform in Ha Noi. I visited the marketplaces and made old, toothless women smile by confirming what they already knew-that their grandchild is beautiful. I helped to plan and throw a Halloween party for over 200 students and their families. I have watched people of all ages making rice paper, candy, bricks, and pottery in the Mekong Delta. I met DiDi, cuddled constantly, and made a new best friend. I visited pagodas, spoke with Buddhist monks as young as my teenaged brother, and cried as I experienced their religion in practice. I surfed, jumped from cliffs, dove off boats, and snorkeled in the clear waters of Sapa, Ha Long Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. I have stopped catcalling men in their tracks with my Vietnamese. (This never made the situation any better, though). Water buffaloes are better to ride than horses. In Mai Chau, an extremely small village in Northern Viet Nam, I got in on a game of marbles with some small children whose laughter filled the dirt roads around us. I saw the legendary and gigantic turtle in Hoan Kiem Lake. I ran into a Vietnamese person I knew on the bus one day. I know when the Vietnamese are talking about other Americans or Caucasians around us. I befriended a small street boy and constantly provided him with fruit and a bit of money with which he bought himself meals. An older man legitimately asked me to marry his eldest son as a result of my English and Vietnamese skills. I have surprised many motorbike taxi drivers by directing them to my dorm using Vietnamese. I have slept in a house on stilts in the middle of a river and was woken up by a passing boat and its’ foghorn. I was taught to make Vietnamese spring rolls by my friends and then showed them how to make an American meal of minestrone soup, grilled cheese, and macaroni and cheese. Squatting on the sidewalk while waiting for the bus was seen as low class but i did it almost daily anyways. I have been stopped in the hallway of my guest house by the cleaning lady, only to have per pantomime that my heart and cross has alerted her to the fact that we are sisters in Christ. I have praised God (Chua) in another language, having attended a Protestant church in Da Lat. I have spent house searched for shells in caves in Ha Long Bay. Pictionary and charades have been perfected during the first half of the semester and are now my games of choice. I was the goalie for a game of “kick the empty water bottle” which was held by some little boys at the Sai Gon horse racing track on one sunny Sunday afternoon. I have watched motorbike crashes that end with a space cleared on the street and a bucket hat brimming with blood. I have visited an orphanage in Nha Trang and surprised the children when I was able to speak to them in Vietnamese. I made it a point to joke around with the little boys who sit on the corners and pump up my bicycle tires. An elderly woman silently invited me to pray with her during the noonday festival at the Cao Dai Holy See. I visited a flag store and was greeted by four generations of one family, working and living under one roof together. I have seen the sun rise over the mountains that protrude from the water in Ha Long. I have seen the end of the day at rice paddies, the fading light framing the small children riding on water buffaloes and their mothers still stooping to farm rice, their conical hats shielding their face from the setting sun. I noticed that you can do quite well by saying less. I was taught to live simply and with pride.
I am proud to have spent three months in a new country. This country is, thankfully, nothing like the country of which I am a citizen. I learned a new language, fought my own battles, utilized this language to fight these battles, and became part of a new culture. This culture, which was at one time very new and foreign to me, has managed to nestle itself into my heart and, in light of the current holiday season, my heart grew three sizes these past few months. I fell in love with a nation: its language, its land, and most importantly, its people.


Thank you for reading/looking at the pictures, whatever time you invested to keep updated on my crazy adventures in Viet Nam. I'll be going back after I graduate from Hobart in 2009...

Finally Home!

On December 7th I bounced out of bed when my alarm sounded at 3:15. After packing a few things back into my bag, I went out and gave in my key and climbed into the shuttle. At 3:45 I was dropped off in front of the US/United terminal but some guy was yelling at people because it didn't open until 4:00 am. A bunch of sleepy travelers stood in the space just inside the automatic doors. People didn't come to work until 4:30, however, so I got a good spot in line, sat on my bag, and played Tetris until it was time to check in. Of course they charged me $50 for my orange bag because the international allowance is 70 pounds and domestic flights only allow 50 pound bags. After getting through security I grabbed a tasty chocolate scone and some orange juice and ate them while playing computer games at my gate. I boarded the first plane to Charlotte, NC at 6:15 am and nobody sat next to me which was really nice. I wrote my family a letter that would help them to recognize some odd Vietnamese behaviors (to them) and help ease my culture shock. I deboarded at 8:30 to find that I knew exactly where I was in the airport (scary) and then found my gate (even thought it had already changed once) and sat there until I boarded a plane to Jacksonville at 9:30. I slept through that entire ride, collected my bags, and met my dad outside the airport ay 11:30, which put me at a Panera lunch with both parents at 12:30.

Going Home: The 36-Hour Day

(This is technically the day I went home because I was still at Crazy Cocktail at midnight) I had a great iced coffee, talked to people in my group and then said my goodbyes and left on xe oms with Jill and DiDi at 12:45. Some guy on the street yelled "Hey you going to bed?" and I said back "Not with you!" which DiDi found hilarious. The next few hours entailed packing one bag, major cuddling with DiDi, and reviewing our time together via songs and pictures. She played the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and it was just so rough. Yesterday I decided that I would come back to Viet Nam for at least a month after graduation. I'll live with DiDi, teach English, and volunteer at an orphanage. It's so much easier to say goodbye if you know you're going to see each other again.

So at 3:30 we got out of bed (stopping the spooning was sucky) and I dragged my bags downstairs to the lobby. I was an absolute mess and saying goodbye to the rest of the group made me so upset. I went back up to the room and wrote DiDi one last note which she found and read before I left and then she decided to have Bryan take her to the airport to say goodbye. I was surprised that she came to the airport. This was a big deal for her because she has always said how she's had to leave a love at the airpot and, for that reason, doesn't go to say goodbye any more. Monica and I finally got into our taxi with all of our stuff and I cried during the entire half an hour ride to the airport. We checked in so quickly (Will, Mike, Monica, Cathy, Becca, and Tica with Graham and Natalie pretending that they didn't know us) and then we figured out that DiDi and Bryan had to wait outside. It was so emotional saying goodbye to them outside the front of the airport and after a while DiDi just wanted us to walk away and we did. I had made myself so upset that I had a gigantic headache and my stomach was empty and heaving. We got through security in our rice hats and then I ate my two free baguettes before conking out on the hard floor. They woke me up to get on the first flight from Sai Gon to Hong Kong and then I boarded the flight and fell asleep. I slept the entire flight, 7-9:00 am and then I hung out in the Hong Kong airport with everybody until our next flight to Los Angeles.

We boarded at 11:30 am on December 6th (Hong Kong time) and I was seated next to a 35 year old Vietnamese guy who'd been living in California for the past 20 years. It was nice to speak to him in Vietnamese and slowly wean myself from the culture and language. We commiserated about the lack of pho and chopsticks at lunch served on the plane. I had a Coke, some bread, and some crunchy rice with snow peas and marinated chicken. I then discovered this Christmas carol radio station on the plane and they had really good professional choirs singing hymns which were excellent. During this time I also attempted to fill out my customs declaration card while watching CSI, Ugly Betty, and Everybody Hates Chris. I also wasted a bunch of time watching this outlandish movie about some guy who wants to be a stunt guy. My Game Boy entertained me and then I slept for the rest of the flight. I woke up for a short time to eat some Ramen (with chopsticks!) and we arrived at LAX at 11:30 am Vietnamese time and 8:30 US Pacific Time. We technically arrived in LAX before we ever left Hong Kong. We had to wait 20 minutes before unboarding the plane because we had to wait for customs/immigration to open and "our government to come to work" as our pilot announced. We got our bags and then reveled in being the majority and all of the people speaking English.

In the airport, our group encountered culture shock. I accidentally cut the entire line at McDonald's with Becca (to get a Happy Meal, of course) and then realized that they have lines in America. We sheepishly moved to the back of a long line of generally obese Americans who were speaking English. I spotted an airline worker yelling at a Vietnamese man and his young son and noticed how protective I felt of the Vietnamese family. They won't accept our Vietnamese dong either- trust me, we tried. At least my McDonald's soda had non-uniform ice so there's a very small chance that they just chipped it off a giant block that was previously dragged down the street behind a motorbike. All of the Christmas music and decorations are a welcome change, however. Granted there were some Christmas trees, Santas, and techno carols in Sai Gon (not so much in Ha Noi), but it's just not the same there. People in the LAX airport are also wearing boots and heavy jackets. Ordering my food was accompanied by a "please" as well, which was odd because you only say please in Vietnamese when you really want something. Becca also took one look at the McDonald's menu and got physically ill.

I opened my computer, turned it on, and was more than surprised when it worked! Thank God! I uploaded some photos from a cd Jill made me on her computer. We boarded the last flight of the day at 11:30 am (LA time) and on the plane I sat next to Will and some smelly kid and accidentally slept through most of the five hour flight. I got off the plane at 7:00 (EST), grabbed my bags, and set them to be watched as I asked about shuttles and went to the bathroom. Becca asked her boyfriend to drive me to my hotel and he agreed but they got lost for half an hour before dropping me back off at the airport. I took the skytrain and then stood and waited for the shuttle to the Days Inn for half an hour. They finally showed up and I got to my hotel, checked in, and felt pretty lonely in the room until Mrs. C. called my hotel room. DiDi and Brittany then called me on Skype and I wrote a journal entry and read my book before falling asleep at 11:30 am.

Sai Gon: Day 4

My last day in Viet Nam began at 8:00 am when I awoke and went into Monica's room to join in an early birthday celebration. I then went around the corner and had breakfast (the usual) with DiDi at Windows cafe. She played the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and we cried a bit. At 10:00 I left, stopped at the room, and then met Jill at the French bakery. We talked for a bit (I saw Monica, Tica, and Cathy there too) and then I went off to choose some baked goods for the next day's long plane rides. I began talking to this young guy in Vietnamese about flying and eating the baked goods on the plane. He gave me my breads for free, which was sweeeeet. I guess it was the dep qua giam gia (Being pretty discount) ;)

I dropped the food back at the room, got Jackie, stopped at ABC Bakery, and then met DiDi and Brittany at the internet cafe for a short chat. Around 11:30 Jackie and I left and began our walk to Benh Thanh market to do some last shopping and I got Monica some weasel coffee for her birthday. Weasel coffee is special because the weasels pick out and eat the best coffee beans. When they poop it out, the Vietnamese make it into coffee! I love this country. Anyways, Jackie began to feel ill and we were both overheated at 1:30 so we took a taxi back to the guest house.

I went with Jill to the photocopy place just outside VLA and stood there while they printed off hundreds of pages of her online research. Some of it was about premarital sex in Viet Nam but they never knew. I also grabbed a couple of blank cds and then we walked back to the dorm before 3:00. Jackie, Brittany, and DiDi joined us and we grabbed a taxi to Sai Gon Square. It's an inside market of mostly clothes. I found a couple things and Jill and I left in a taxi to the post office at 4:00. I spent some time picking postcards for my room.

We then walked across the street to Diamond Plaza and walked back to the room by 5:30. I took a really quick that overlapped a bit with the beginning of DiDi's shower, threw on a dress, and Jill braided my hair. We all met in the lobby at 6:00 and got taxis to this hotel where our last group dinner was being held. The dinner was a buffet full of my favorite Vietnamese foods including trung vit lon (fetal duck eggs), fried rice, and a lot of fresh fruit. We all went around and said our ten favorite things about Viet Nam and our trip and then the five "most daunting" things about this past semester. We had our thank you’s and eveb our last "mot, hai, ba, yo!" which made me cry. It even rained a bit right as dinner ended, which is rare for December, and the semester came full circle. We peaced out at 9:00, got a taxi to Acoustic to hear Jerome, surprised Monica with a birthday cake, and then left in another taxi to Apocalypse Now at about 11:00. We danced for a bit but they were playing bad techno so we left and took a taxi to Crazy Cocktail, where the rest of our group was chilling on the roof of the bar.

Sai Gon: Day 3

This bright Tuesday morning I woke up at 8:00, threw on some clothes, and turned on my laptop to upload some pictures. Unfortunately this only resulted in a black screen and a couple of messages telling me that it couldn't find an operating system. I freaked out and went to get some iced coffee and an egg sandwich. I walked around the block before only getting a coffee and went back to the guest house to find my friend Bryan, who told me my computer was broken. Needless to say, DiDi entered my room to find me in tears and we cuddled for a while. She then managed to coax me into a taxi with her and Sarah, Jill, and Jackie. We dropped off Sarah at a hotel where her family was staying and went to the internet cafe across the street. It didn't have any internet so we took another taxi to the other Highlands Coffee and I had a BLT and worked on some assignments on DiDi's computer. It was a horrible day for my computer to die because I had a travel photography assignment and a final reflection due at 2:00. Since my computer was broken, I had to redo the photo assignment from pictures I'd already posted on Facebook. By 1:00 I left in a taxi with Jackie and Jill and we got to the VLS building on time for our last photography class.

The class consisted of handing in our cds with our travel photos and reflection papers. I could only turn in my photos of bad quality but the professor was thankfully sympathetic and understanding. I had called him as soon as I discovered my computer's untimely demise so that he was already in the know. We then all filled out a long and thorough evaluation of our weekend study trips, our VNLC class trips, and our weekly guest lecturers. I made sure to tell the professor exactly how I felt about everything. He then asked us about our favorite photography memory, etc.

We were dismissed by 2:30 and I waited outside the Lotteria restaurant on the corner for a bit. Then Sarah and Bryan and I walked towards the guest house. I went into this internet cafe called "Windows," ordered an excellent iced coffee, and wrote my blog entry on Jill's computer. I also took the time to write my final reflection paper 9I was graciously granted an extension) and found that it was actually a great tool for my introspection. I emailed it to the professor and 6:00, left the cafe, and went back to my room. Bryan and I then went to the rooftop restaurant and i got some quality my xao bo before hitting up the Citimart for the last time.

Bryan and I stopped by the guest house and then met Jill at a French bakery down the road. The three of us took a taxi to Acoustic and the live music was good. I left at 11:00 with Tony, DiDi, Brittany, Monica, and Jackie in a taxi. Our initial destination turned out to be devoid of people as well as the next two places we tried. Jackie, Monica and I taxied back to the guest house at 11:30 and I washed up and read in bed until about 12:30 am.

Ut-Oh

So my computer wouldn't turn on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then I was in the Los Angeles airport a couple of hours ago and it miraculously turned on! Don't worry, I'll post the last couple of blogs when I finally get home. I am currently in a hotel in NYC right outside the airport and I get home tomorrow (your time!) at 11:00 am.

I'll be posting soon after! :)

Real Life: Viet Nam Style

On Monday morning I woke up at 6:30 AM and dragged myself to the internet cafe down the road. I got to speak to Andy for an hour and a half and that was amazing since we hadn’t spoken in over two weeks. I was also joined by DiDi at the café, sent her pictures over Skype, and posted a blog entry. After getting a lot accomplished and having the usual breakfast of iced coffee and bread with egg, I went back to my room at 10:30 and we searched for the xe may key before I donned my helmet and headed out.

DiDi had asked me to go with her and look at apartments and of course I was up for it. The first “apartment” (they are all really rooms with a communal bathroom) had nobody home and DiDi and I were looking at that day’s newspaper’s classifieds trying to find the open apartments. It was frustrating and eventually DiDi pulled over on this side road and paid 100,000 dong in order to hire this guy who acts as kind of a temporary realtor. We followed this one guy on his xe may and he showed DiDi and I two apartments. One was too small and one was too expensive. He then told DiDi that she was being too picky and we followed him back to this side road where this realty’s home base was. The second guy lost us after our xe may stalled in the middle of this intersection and DiDi had to jump start it at this nearby gas station. The third guy took us to a couple apartments that were already rented and then DiDi was pissed and met with their boss, an older guy who was sitting at a little plastic table on the side of the road. I went and got us some sodas as a prt of my never ending quest to be supportive and keep morale up so as to find DiDi an apartment. After she spoke to their boss we were assigned to a fourth guide and he was able to find a room that’s pretty small with no internet but the renting family is very nice, the rent is extremely cheap, and the street is well lit and safe. She put down a portion of one month’s rent and then we went to find some lunch. We had rice with squid, beef, onion, and some greens which we inhaled in about 15 minutes because by then it was 2:00 pm and we were famished.

We got back to the guest house and rested. I was in Sarah and Monica’s room when DiDi busted in and reported that the rooms in the other guest house (where the other half of our group was already living) were ready. A mistake had been made and we had to move right then and not the day after as previously planned. All 10 of us packed up our stuff, got it onto taxis and rode a few blocks away to the new guest house in less than an hour. This was good because it left almost no room for complaining. I helped DiDi orchestrate the taxis, hand out keys, and move people into their rooms. Then DiDi showed up our room, 410, and was having a full-blown panic attack because of the fast move to the new guest house and the fact that she had a job interview in less than half an hour. I skipped the shower, coaxed her into some slower breathing, donned a dress, and jumped into a taxi with her. We then picked up Phat’s xe may and got a bit lost before finding the food/hotel company at which she was going to interview. I sat in the middle of the office and read my book from 4:20-5:00. She then took through rush hour traffic to the ATM and back to my guest house, where I finally got to shower.

I then hung out and read in the room and waited for DiDi to come back to the room and get dinner with us. Jill and Monica went to the rooftop restaurant early but by 7:45 I headed to dinner too. I met Jill and Monica on the way there, however, since they decided not to eat at the place because of the intense heat there. We struck out on one more restaurant before finally settling on this one I’d been to once before in September. The fried rice I got was burnt and I found a giant piece of eggshell in it. We finished (well I tried my best) and walked back to the guest house. I found DiDi packing up her stuff in Tony’s room because the guest house doesn’t allow three people to stay in one room. We had a good cry and then Co Trinh took me to Crazy Cocktail on her xe may and we met a bunch of her friends and my friends. We spent from about 9:30-midnight talking and chilling out on the roof and I had a great iced coffee as well. We tried to go dancing at “Go 2” down the road but they wouldn’t allow DiDi to go upstairs to the dance floor, since they have some policy about Vietnamese women and no prostitutes upstairs. She was understandably a wreck after that and she also felt bad about the fact that we refused to enter the bar after this incident. We just didn’t want to support a place that views all Vietnamese women as prostitutes. All of us walked down the road a bit and I almost punched Dale in the face because he was so tanked and he was using his horrible Vietnamese. At 1:00 I took a taxi back to my room with Jackie and then read in bed before falling asleep at 1:30 am.

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.

Travel Day!

This fine Saturday began early, at 5:30 am. I woke up to Jill's alarm clock (set a few mintues before mine), hopped out of bed, and coaxed Jill out too. Throwing on a swaetshirt and grabbing my camera, I walked a few paces to the beach and met Tica, Monica, Brittany, and Mike. I took pictures as we walked down the beach and the sun rose over the water, since it was the Pacific Ocean. I even saw these three Vietnamese guys fishing and dragging their nets out of the water by running and dragging it together. I talked to the older guy for a bit and then continued my walk to this outcropping of rocks. I set to work finding shells and after a while everyone left except for Mike, who went to climb this big hill in the distance. Instead of climbing the hill I stuck around and searched for cowry shells in this shell graveyard that I found and then I sat on this grassy knoll above the ocean and rising tide. Mike and I headed back to our hotel at 8:00 am.

I went back to my bungalow, got dressed, and headed to breakfast at the hotel's pavillion. Sitting with the professor, Donna, Viet, and DiDi, I ate my usual iced coffee and bread with egg. AT 8:45 I stopped eating and reading and went to pack and talk with Jill in the room. We left the hotel at 10:30, stopped once for lunch at 12:45 where they had monkeys and I shook their hands, and I had a Pepsi (!) with fried rice and chicken. We got back on the bus and I continued listen to all of my James Taylor songs and to read my book until our bus grazed a taxi and then arrived at my new guest house which is in the same complex as VLS (Vietnamese Language Studies, where my language courses began way back when). The old one I stayed in Sai Gon that I stayed in during September has been declared unstable and unsafe because a nearby building collapsed and sirupted the underground water table or something. Sad beans. I got to my room in the new guest house and Jill and I attempted to put away some of our larger bags, since DiDi lives with us too and the room's not that large. I then spent from 5-6:30 at the open-air internet cafe a few houses down in our alley. I was able to post four blog entries and answer mad emails, which made me feel awesome.

At 6:30 I walked with Mike and Jill to this good restaurant (but serves weird meat) we frequented in September. It took half an hour to walk there and we arrived to find an empty lot where it used to be. That's Viet Nam for you-it changes so fast. Hardly anything will be the same when I come back in a couple years. So we called our friends and met Bryan, Leah, Jackie, and Sarah at some random bank and then walked to this awesome brewery/restaurant I had been to before. i had a Coke an an awesome plate of my xao bo and by 8:30 we had paid and left.

Bryan and I walked to the old guest house and grabbed some bikes to use for a couple days. We saw Rylan, who heads up the CET program in which we are now currently enrolled, and spoke to him for a bit before walking my bike to get its horribly flat tires filled with air. Bryan and I spotted Viet, our Sai Gon tour guide, and then spoke to him and his little son for a bit before I rode back to my guest house. Jill and I left on a xe om to this rooftop bar in the backpacker's district of the city. There I had a Coke and spoke to Co Trinh (one of my favorite Vietnamese teachers), DiDi, Jill, Sarah, and Charlie Moffat (Hoabrt alum) and then Sarah, Jill, and I had an awesome conversation about Mormons and other organized religion. Everyone else headed down the street to go dancing and I took a xe om back to my room at 12:15 am. I washed up, wrote in my journal, and read until I fell asleep around 1:00.

Mui Ne: Day 2

Friday began at 7:30 am when I packed a small bag for the day and got my free breakfast of iced coffee and bread with eggs from our hotel. By 9:30 we were all on the bus and were driven to these huge sand dunes where small children holding flat plastic sleds literally swarmed our bus. I just watched as they tried to coax me off the bus and rent their sleds to zoon down the sand dunes. I then watched in horror as an older man holding a stick ran after the kids, scattering them and even hitting one girl on her thigh. This went on for a while and when the rest of our group had left to climb the dunes, I got off the bus and spoke to a beautiful little girl while DiDi petted this heinously overweight dog who was sitting at the restaurant. It turns out that the dog was constantly drinking Dutch Ladies, which are these juice boxes full of the richest chocolate milk you can imagine. It’s like drinking pudding.

So the rest of the group slid down the mountain and I cowered in the relative safety of this nearby restaurant. We got back on the bus after about half an hour and were at this sister resort, Ocean Star, by 10:00. I got to their beach, put on some heavy duty sunscreen, and decided to go rent a surfboard. Tony, Sarah, Leah, Becca, Mike, Bryan, Will, Graham, and I walked down the beach for about an hour to get to Jibe’s rental place and bar. I rented a long board for four hours and split it with Sarah, so it only ended up being $7 for each of us. We then walked across the street to this restaurant called Smoky’s and I had a cheap lunch of my xao bo and Coke.

At 12:30 pm I was in the water with Sarah, our long board, and our friends. The kite surfers and their colorful kites were just beyond us and the point at which the waves were breaking. Surfing is difficult, I quickly realized. I rode it in a few times, mostly on my stomach but a couple times on my knees. The waves were big and so frequent that I barely had any time to get myself situated on the board before being totally rocked by the awesome power that is the ocean. I got tossed to the sand quite a few times and after about an hour and a half and a nice long gash on my ankle from the board’s long fin, I went back to shore. I cleaned my wound, grabbed a Coke, and played some pool with Will and Sarah.

After a while I went back into the water and surfed for another hour before the surfboard hit me square in the face. By then I was quickly reaching a higher level of frustration and decided to call it quits. Sarah and I took xe oms back to Ocean Star and I read in the “hot” tub (just warm pool water) for a bit before getting a head and back massage at the resort for half an hour.

It was my first massage and it was pretty relaxing. She first pointed to my bathing suit top and then to the hook on the wall but I was cool with that. The massage was basically an exfoliation too (there you go, Mom!) because I was pretty sandy after my full day of surfing. When it was over I could hardly stand because I was so relaxed all over. It was $6 well spent for sure.

I then walked with most of our group (14 of 19 people) to Jibe’s and we spent from about 6-7:30 pm there. I played pool and had an iced coffee with milk while everybody had two-for-one happy hour drinks. We then walked to Montezuma’s Mexican restaurant and I had a Coke, a margarita (I got it confused with a daiquiri) and a chicken enchilada. I got on a xe om with Jill and our group went to Wax Club after dinner at about 9:00 pm. There I had another iced coffee, many free peanuts, and a pretty close game of pool against this British guy (which I lost by only one ball). I got a taxi back to the hotel at 11:00 pm, cuddled with DiDi, and was asleep by midnight.

Mui Ne: Day 1

Mui Ne: Day 1

On Thursday morning I awoke at 6:15 in order to pack my bag and grab some bread with egg and an iced coffee before boarding the bus at 7:30. I read my awesome book and listened to my music for most of the trip. We stopped twice—once at 9:45 for a short bathroom/snack stop and then once again at 11:00 to eat the lunches they packed us. They came complete with a bottle of water, banana, hard-boiled egg, piece of angel food cake, and a hamburger. We were back on the bus by 12:00 and I slept until we reached our hotel , Bien Dong, at 1:30 pm. DiDi, Jill, and I moved into room 422, which was on one side of a small, thatched-roof bungalow which was a couple hundred feet from the ocean. The downside was that our hotel was very far from downtown and anything else. Everybody else complained but I was happy to be near the beach and to be relaxing, reading my book.

Only 15 minutes after being let off the bus, I was in my bathing suit and on the beach. I took my camera and walked far down one way, back to where everybody else was swimming and building a Buddha out of sand, and then walked all the way to the other side. I got some really cool shells and pictures. The beach was really dirty and full of trash, however, which really made me wish I could just go back to the states and skip the “study trip.”

I returned to my bungalow at 3:45 pm and wrote a journal entry and then read my book while lying next to DiDi on our tiled front porch. I then took a shower and a short nap before going to dinner st our hotel’s main pavilion. I sat with the professor, Donna, Bryan, DiDi, Viet, Graham, and Natalie, and we had fish soup, greens and beef, rice, tomatoes, cucumbers, and Vietnamese iced tea. We then played sardines and tried to find Cathy and Tony but it was pretty creepy around there at night. We all got ready to go out and then met in the pavilion at 9:00 and got a taxi all the way into town, which was about a 15-20 minute ride. I hung out at this beach-side bar called Wax Club (like surfing wax) and had a Coke, an iced coffee, and lots of free peanuts. I played pool with Mike (and we lost miserably) and then had an awesome moonlit dance party on the beach with Monica and DiDi. I also met this older Vietnamese guy, Trang, who lived in California for many years and now runs a winds/kitesurfing lesson and rental place there on the beach. He was accompanied by his little friend Preston who was from St. Petersburg, FL and they offered to teach me how to windsurf but I didn’t have $200 to drop for the next day’s rental and lessons. at 11:30 Tang sat down with Meggie and me and corrected our Vietnamese until I left for a 30 minute xe om ride back to our hotel with Jackie. I washed up and was asleep by 1:00 am.

Nha Trang: Day 2

Wednesday morning began at 7:30 am when I checked my email, threw on my bathing suit and a shirt and headed for breakfast. I ate bread, eggs, and an iced coffee with milk with Jill and Bryan at the same place we had dinner the previous night. I then returned to my hotel room, packed a small bag for the day, and met the rest of the group on the bus at 9:00 am. I was so excited I was shaking because we were taking out a boat and going snorkeling.

We took a ten minute bus ride to the dock, boarded our boat, and I read for the hour trip until we anchored in this cove. I immediately grabbed by snorkel stuff and dove into the clear water. Snorkeling was amazing and I got the hang of it so quickly. I saw parrot fish, trumpter fish, eels swam around me, and the coral was beautiful. At some point I donned my sandals and swam ashore with Jill and Graham. I found cool shells and coral and climbed on some rocks. Apparently a tour guide from a nearby boat screamed to me “Hey funky monkey! Get off those rocks!” How does he know me so well?

I then swam back to the boat and we had an awesome lunch of fish, rice, bread, beef and snow peas, shrimp, my xao, Cokes, and some pineapple for dessert. I then lay down on the front of the boat and alternately read and napped in the sun. At 2:45 I was woken up and told we were visiting a fish farm. This ended up being some nets and docks in the middle of this port and our boat departed after about 15 minutes. It was only a 15 minute boat ride back to the dock and I read and then got onto our bus for ten minutes. This put me back at the hotel at 3:15 and I checked my email and wrote a journal entry.

At 4:00 pm I met Jackie and Jill in hotel lobby and we took a taxi to this hot spring/mud bath place. I just wanted to sit in mud and throw it at people. We met Sarah and Brittany there, changed into bathing suits, and locked up the rest of our stuff. We got into the mud bath, communal shower, mineral water pool, and then finished in a warm swimming pool where we met Tica, Cathy, and Monica. We then dried off, changed, a got taxis back to the hotel. We got back at 6:15 am and I was completely relaxed. Jill and I walked around to find some flowers for Tuyet and then went back to the room to change.

At 6:45 Jill and I took xe oms to Tuyet’s tailor shop and talked to her and her 14 year-old daughter, Lyly, until 7:30. Tuyet and her sister were so nice and gave us xe may rides to The Sailing Club and Jill and I did some shopping down the street before finding our group at this Italian restaurant. I inhaled some amazing penne vodka with bacon and a Coke before paying and leaving in a taxi with some girls from our group. We got back to the hotel at 9:00 and Sarah and Brittany and I watched episodes of “Friends” on my bed. I fell asleep for the last two episodes and then woke up as they watched their last one. We talked for a bit and then they went out, but I was too exhausted and relaxed to move anywhere. I washed up and read in bed before falling asleep at 11:00.

I was woken up early in the morning by Jill’s cell phone and some hubbub about purses being stolen. It turns out that poor, sweet Monica had her little bag stolen ripped off of her body by a guy on a xe may as she was walking down the street. She immediately called her parents to cancel her credit cards and was thankful that she had hardly any money in the bag. I was just thankful she wasn’t injured, as the bag was around her shoulder and hung securely by her side. I went back to bed until DiDi, in rare form, came back drunk and starting rambling about how I hated her because I didn’t want to cuddle with her. I had a hard time moving her arm off my pillow but finally succeeded in doing so and went back to bed until the morning.

Nha Trang: Day 1

On Tuesday morning I woke up at 7:00, lay in bed for a while, and then got up and packed my bag. DiDi, Jill, and I went to breakfast in the hotel and I ate scrambled eggs, bread, and hot coffee with milk. I ate quickly in order to get back to the room and upload the previous day’s pictures and finish a journal entry.

By 8:30 we were all checked out of the hotel, on our bus, and on our way to Nha Trang. Becca forgot Tica’s cell phone in their bathroom and we parked our bus just outside the city limits and waited for a boy on a motorbike to bring it to us. We got it after 15 minutes and continued our travel on windy roads that we not meant for buses for an hour or so before stopping by the side of the road. We got out and Viet explained the coffee bean plants we were looking at. Another hour in the bus brought us to this snack/bathroom stop at a scenic overlook and I got out, took pictures, and then got back on the bus.

I listened to my new music until the bus stopped at a restaurant for lunch. They had a real crocodile living in front of the place and that was cool. I partook of the set menu of rice and egg, soup, French fries, pork, Coke, and then longons (this type of fruit) for dessert. We were back on the road before 1:00 pm and I listened to Advent chant until we pulled into the parking lot of the Cham ruins in Ninh Thuan. The Cham are a Vietnamese ethnic minority of which there are 200,000 people left in Viet Nam. They have darker skin and are closely related to the Aboriginal people of the south Pacific. We hiked up a few stairs to see this temple the Cham built in the 14th Century. They were very involved in trade and commerce by boat/sea and had been introduced to and then began to follow Hinduism. I got some great pictures and, come to think of it, this was my first visit to a Hindu temple! We were back on the road by 2:30 pm and I read my book and listened to more music.

We arrived at our hotel, the World Hotel The Gioi, in Nha Trang at 4:30 and DiDi, Jill, and I moved into room 105. We dropped off our stuff in the room, called a taxi to the hotel, and then I ran across the street with Jill to grab some candy. Returning to the hotel with our candy gifts, we were joined by Brittany, Cathy, Tica, and Monica. The six of us took a taxi to meet this woman, Thuyet, at her tailor shop. Jill’s family friends in Maine have adopted three Vietnamese children and we went to meet the woman who is their friend and she got into another taxi with us in order to visit the Nha Trang orphanage.

I had worked on keeping my expectations for the orphanage very low and expected an Oliver Twist-like situation. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when it was not so. The orphans live in “families” of about ten kids and one mother and it was all pretty clean. They played with their toys, sang songs for us, and asked me to take their picture. They loved the candy we brought too. I felt particularly drawn to the special needs kids and spent a lot of time interacting with this one little girl in a crib. I felt she needed some good ole’ human touch and spoke to her in Vietnamese even though she just smiled, made gurgling noises, and grabbed my hands. I asked her name, which was Uyen, and received her story as well. She was born premature and was not strong enough to walk, the mother figure told us. Even though she was six years old, she was about the size of a two year-old and was confined to her crib. I felt really bad because maybe if she was in the United States she could be receiving the necessary intensive physical therapy to strengthen her legs and could someday walk.

We saw about four different “families” and most of them wanted their pictures taken, especially two older, outspoken boys with Downs Syndrome. We saw the older boys all studying, and playing soccer as well as the piano. I was able to speak with then in Vietnamese and that was a lot of fun. I asked one little boy if he studied well and he said “kind of” which was accompanied by a big smile, of course.

I was a bit disappointed by the family friend, Thuyet, as she kept pointing out and labeling the “handicapped” children. Thankfully, she stopped this after a while because I just kept saying “khong sau” (don’t worry/doesn’t matter). At one point, she was asking a 12 year-old boy about his studies and he reported that he was in first grade. This was because he had just arrived at the orphanage and had just begun his studies. I saw him get very embarrassed when Tuyet told us about this in English and I looked him in the eye and told him not to worry about it.

We saw all the kids and then left in our taxi at 6:30, which put us back in our hotel room at 6:45. I took the time before dinner to upload pictures to my computer and write most of a journal entry. We all met in the hotel lobby at 7:30 pm and walked literally around the corner to get dinner. I sat with DiDi, Brittany, and Sarah and we had a set menu of fish, rice, beef with sesame seeds, greens, spring rolls, and Coke. The meal ended with dessert of pineapple and bananas and at 8:30 I went with Jill and DiDi to find some trung vit lon (fetal duck eggs). We found them right across the street and DiDi and I ate a couple while Jill watched in disgust.

We came back to our room at 9:00 and I got onto the internet, posted a blog entry, briefly talked to Andy (thank God), and then went out to the beach with a bunch of people. It reminded me of Savin Rock in West Haven. The tide was too high to sit on the sand and DiDi and I got bored and took a xe om to this bar/dance club right on the beach called The Sailing Club. We hung out, I had a Coke, and then we were joined by the rest of our group around midnight. Shortly after, I left on a xe om with Jackie and I was cleaned up and asleep by 12:30 am.

Da Lat: Day 3

On Monday morning I woke up at 7:15, threw on some clothes, and went down to the hotel's breakfast place. I ordered the scrambled eggs and bread with hot coffee and milk. I ate at a table with Jill, DiDi, and Oliver and we had a good time before finishing the meal and returning to my room at 8:00. Jill rebraided my hair as I watched an old episode of the "Friends."

Our group met in the lobby of the hotel at 8:30, boarded the bus, and arrived at an old Vietnamese king's summer palace after only 20 minutes. It was all French architecture and old furniture since this Nguyen guy (see first picture) began his reign in 1925 and was overthrown by Uncle Ho and his force of fellow Commies in the mid-1950's.

The house was nice and big and we all wandered around with denim booties to cover our dirty shoes. These allowed me to slide all over the wooden and tiled floors of the palace, which was fun. At one point I got DiDi to open a closet in one of the bedrooms and Tony popped out and startled her. I also sat in the king's hammock when our tour guide moved onto another room and wasn't watching. :) We spent an hour inside the palace and then went outside to the front lawn. There we found ponies and their mothers and we pet them for a bit before heading back to the bus.

Another ten minute bus ride brought us to these two Buddhist pagodas. This gave way to a one hour stint of photography and climbing about seven flights of stairs to get to the top of the taller pagoda. There was also a life-sized dragon that was made out of beer bottles. We all got back onto the bus at 11:00, drove for five minutes, and got off the bus to find that we were going to traverse the "secret streets" of Da Lat for an hour. I wasn't feeling that well (maybe because the weather and therefore the temperature was changing every ten minutes). We walked through some small neighborhoods, visited an old train station that the French built quite a while ago, and finally walked back into town.

We ate lunch at the same restaurant at which we had dinner our first night in town. Lunch was lamb, crunchy sesame chips, curried potatoes and tofu, veggies, noodles, and bread and ended at about 1:30. At this time Jill and I grabbed our backpacks off the bus and headed directly across the street to this outside internet cafe. I ordered a hot coffee with milk, answered emails and wrote in my journal. I posted two blog entries and then walked back to the hotel at 4:00 pm.

DiDi, Jill, and Brittany were chilling in my room and we braided hair, listened to music, and talked until 6:00, when we set out to find dinner in the center of town. Jill set off to the internet cafe and I found some my xao bo with DiDi and Brittany at this little roadside place. We paid and went across the street to get some trung vic lon (fetal duck in egg) which was delicious as usual. I was also able to introduce it to Brittany. Then Sarah called and she joined us. She was entertaining and screamed when she caught her fetal duck "looking at her." We finished eating, paid, and sat there talking for more than an hour.

Since that egg place was on the side of this big run of stairs in the center of town, we exited onto the stairs and saw something funny happen. A police car drove by and caused plastic chairs, stoves, and baskets to go flying. The unlicensed street vendors moved out of the area and then went right back to what they were doing when the cop car was no longer in sight. The four of us then sat and had the four different types of snails and befriended a nearby elderly woman who was crushing and then gumming some of the intoxicant beetle nut. After a bit I left to go see if Jill was still at the internet cafe down the road. I arrived at the cafe and saw my professor and his wife Donna, who invited me to sit with them. They said Jill had already left and I ordered an iced coffee with condensed milk and we discussed the upcoming weather and I had the opportunity to fully explain my recent church debacle. I was then approached by my waiter from the previous night and he wanted to speak in Vietnamese and we did just that for a bit before I had to continue speaking to my professor and Donna. They even paid for my coffee and I left to walk back to the hotel at almost 9:00 pm.

I arrived back at the hotel and watched two episodes of the tv show "Friends" on my bed with DiDi, Jill, Brittany, and Sarah. We watched the episode where Ross tries to write down all 50 states in six minutes and after the episode ended I tried it with Brittany and Sarah. I only wrote down 38 states after six minutes and then we tried to remember the other states, which ended up taking us to Meggie and Brittany's room to find a map at 11:00. Meggie realized that we had forgotten Kansas and we kicked ourselves and then watched one more episode before I got a bit lost in the hotel on the way back to my room. I got back at 12:30 am and found DiDi lying diagonally across our bed. I moved my stuff to the larger triangle of free bed space and after a bit she woke up, asked me what I was doing changing sides of the bed, hit me in the face, and went back to bed. I laughed and fell asleep by 1:00 am.

Da Lat: Day 2

On Sunday morning I woke up at 6:30 am, before my alarm went off, rolled out of bed, and walked to the hotel's restaurant. I stood in front of this locked door for a bit before realizing I had to get in another way. I found the correct entrance and sat down, ordered my bread, scrambled eggs, and Lipton tea with milk. Then Jill and DiDI came and joined me after a bit. I ate quickly, left early, donned my black and white dress and Jill's little white sweater, and headed across the street to the church at 7:45 am.

An older, very friendly Vietnamese man greeted me and ushered me to a pew on the right side of the church, towards the back. I was then joined by a Caucasian guy and his wife. We got to talking (quietly, as three different Bible study groups were occurring around us) and found out that this was a Protestant church, and he teaches English at the local college, speaks almost no Vietnamese, and is originally from Philadelphia. He explained to me that they have students from the university that come to the church services and translate for us. I plugged the headphones I was given into the jack I found on the back railing of my wooden pew and felt like I was in the U.N. I then turned around to find another older couple who wanted to know where I'm from. Apparently they lived in Hamden, CT for a while and their nephew graduated from Hobart a couple years ago. Small world.

The service began promptly at 8:00 am and I noticed that all of the female parishioners sat on the left and the males all sat on the right. The place was so packed that some men had to stand in the outside aisles as well. Most people were wearing nothing dressier than jackets and slacks. The service began with the hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy," sung in Vietnamese. I removed my translation headphones, grabbed the nearest hymnal, and sang along as usual. Singing with the tones of the Vietnamese words turned out to be easier than I had initially thought- you add the tone (up, down, short, etc.) onto the end of the note before you move to another one.

Then the congregation said the Nicene Creed, which I could only mouth/whisper in English because they didn't provide or display the translation. A middle-aged Vietnamese woman (who I think was a deacon) then read from the Book of Solomon and we sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness." The song lyrics appeared on a Powerpoint presentation that was displayed on a screen to the right of the altar.

Then there appeared about 20 people in robes on the small altar and it was announced that they were baptized into God's family yesterday (which made a grand total of 67 for this year). All of them were at least older than 15 years old and half were men and half were women. They were presented to the congregation, sung the hymn "Meeting Jesus," and then the pastor, a middle-aged, balding Vietnamese man, gave them their baptismal certificates. One woman from the group of the newly baptized stood up at the lectern and spoke for about five minutes about her thanks for the support, classes, and teachers. She also made sure to ask for the parish's continued prayers in order to help "save them from sinfulness and temptation," which was mentioned more than once in the service. Their prayers also featured the reoccurring phrase "all children of God" and the word "Jehovah," which I found interesting. They end all of their prayers with "All this we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen." instead of just "Amen." Anyways, a guy stood in the center aisle and freely took pictures of the newly baptized people and then sat back down. That was when I noticed the running camcorder mounted high up on one of the pillars inside the church. That was when I borrowed a pen and began to take notes on the service. This led me to many thoughts about the fine line between praying and participating in the service and observing and taking notes.

Interestingly enough, the first group of newly baptized dispersed and was replaced by three H'Mong men and four H'Mong women. It was then explained that these seven people were also baptized yesterday (and came from almost 100 km away, where they live) and they then sang "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" in H'Mong, which was downright amazing. It made me realize how much of a great thing the Church is in Viet Nam, yet I still have mixed feelings about converting the H'Mong (and other tribal) people. They were wearing their traditional H'Mong brightly-colored scarves and garb. This conversion to Christianity means a certain loss of tradition for them, yet isn't religion all about changing as a result of transformative and transcendent powers as we search for the sacred?

They finished singing and said Psalm 103 responsively, and this was followed by the choir's anthem. This church choir was 30 singers, mixed voices, half men, half women, and mixed ages. As the guy from Philly explained to me before the service began, the mixed choir started at this church in 1975. The new Communist government regime told the church that they couldn't teach Sunday School so the parishioners began having the kids meet weekly for choir practice. The singing was coupled with Bible stories and the problem was solved. As I listened closer to the choir's sound, I was surprised to discover that they were being accompanied by a synthesizer.

After the choir's anthem came the Prayers of the People, which was led by the female deacon. She focused on their elderly and ill parishioners as well as the Vietnamese people in the Central Region who have been affected by the recent storms and flooding. She also mentioned that prayers will continue for the acceptance and safe passage of paperwork for their newly proposed Christian education building. They all seem so excited about that prospect.

The next hymn was "Give You Best to the Master" and the offering boxes were brought to the altar by two men. The female deacon then read the Gospel from the lectern (Ecclesiastes 3:1-15) and the pastor got up to preach afterwards. It was all pinpointed very nicely (albeit in Vietnamese) on the projector screen beside him.
He began by welcoming the visitors to the church and remarking on the recent cold weather before starting in on the current state of the world. Global warming is taking its toll, as is evident by the recent storms and flooding in central Viet Nam, and oil prices are rising at a frightening rate. His point was that the world and our lives change so much and so frequently. We should rely on God for strength, direction, and guidance. Just as he started to describe our duty to serve God, a man tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that someone needed to talk to me outside. I went outside and DiDi told me that our group had been waiting for me because we were supposed to be trekking almost half an hour ago.

It was so hard for me to leave the service and I was angry (couldn't they have just left me there?) and even a bit embarrassed. I am never late and certainly never purposefully late. I got changed quickly in my hotel room and went out to our bus, where I apologized to the annoyed and unchanging faces of my professor and his wife. That made me furious and I quickly sat down in the seat next to Tica, who kissed my head and made me feel a bit better. The bus ride was nice and short and our old tour guide, Viet, took that time to explain to us the history of Da Lat. The professor and his wife were over my lateness by the time we got to our destination, which was the top of a valley filled with farms amd multi-colored patches of crops. They were the same fruits and vegetables we grow in the U.S. since the two climates are so similar. We walked down into the valley down among the farms for two hours and slogged through mud, across little log bridges above rushing rivers, greeted the farmers, and took many photos before turning back and going a slightly different route to meet our bus. We got back to the bus at noon and drove down the road to this farm where we ate a great lunch of sticky rice, tofu, beef and snow peas, veggies, soup, spring rolls, and then bananas and caramelized sweet potato for dessert. I sat with the professor and his wife, DiDi, Graham, Natalie, Brittany, and this 23 year-old Vietnamese guy named Phuc. He just graduated from Da Lat University with a major in tourism and he's now a tour guide. He asked our professor if we wished to visit his old university and the impromptu visit was immediately arranged.

By the time we finished lunch, walked through some rows of recently-harvested strawberries, and got back on the bus, it was already 1:15 pm. I fell asleep with my head on DiDi’s lap for the short ride to the university and we then got a tour of the campus from Phuc, talked to some Vietnamese students in English, and I then showed them some camp games like hospital tag.

We left the university on our bus at 2:45 and I was dropped off in the center of town. I got coffee (hot with milk) with DiDi, Sarah, Monica, Tony, Dale, Oliver, and Viet. We sat and chatted for a bit more than an hour and when we paid and left I went with DiDi, Tony and Dale. We stopped at this roadside place and ordered a sampler plate of about five different types of snails. I tried them all, of course, and they were pretty good. We then saw that they had those fetal duck eggs and I had one of those too (see last photo).

I paid, left, and walked back to the hotel with DiDi. We arrived back at the room at about 5:00 pm and I uploaded my photos from Jill’s camera onto my computer and then took a nice hot shower. Jill braided my hair while I worked on renaming the photos and then I began the long task of writing about this day in my journal for class.

We met the rest of the group in the hotel lobby at 7:30. Viet led us on foot to this really nice restaurant downtown and it was a set menu of seafood soup, chicken, spring rolls, beef, and greens, with some fruit for dessert. We talked about scary/freaky personal stories and movies for almost the entire dinner and it was fun and carefree.

After the dinner ended at 9:15 I left with Jill and we walked down the street to a café that was advertising free WiFi. I ordered a hot Lipton tea with milk, checked my email, talked to Andy for a bit, and worked on the journal entry a bit more. At 10:30 pm Jill got a call from Sarah and I assumed it was about our nightly date to sit and watch episodes of the tv show “Friends.” We left shortly after the phone call, Jill found some M & M’s, and we got an extremely cheap xe om ride back to the hotel. Brittany, Sarah, DiDi, and I watched two episodes in my bed before dispersing and I was asleep by 12:30 am.

Da Lat: Day 1

Saturday morning I got up at 6:30 am, packed, and then we all got on a big bus to the airport. The bus left by 8:00 and even the beggar girls I know waved to me as we left. I listened to music and then prayed to Saint Anthony because Cathy temporarily lost her passport. She eventually unpacked her bags and located it which was great. We arrived at the airport, said a sad goodbye to Long, and checked all of our bags. Professor Benjamin said that the overweight baggage ordeal (we had almost an extra 1,000 pounds between us all) was solved with a "blank white envelope" filled with cash.

We all made it through security and I got some fried rice and a Pepsi while we sat in the airport. Our flight was supposed to leave at 11:00 am but got delayed once for the late arrival of the last flight and then once again for a wheel change. By the time we boarded the plane and took off, it was noon. I was seated in the aisle seat in a row with Meggie and Irish, who both conked out as soon as we took off. I read my book, listened to my new music, and ate the salami sandwich, crackers, and water that was provided by the airlines.

Our flight landed in Da Lat Airport at 2:00 pm and I found my baggage, put it onto a cart, and got to our group's bus. I stowed my orange bag under the bus and kept my blue one with me when I sat with Monica. I instantly fell asleep and we arrived at the A Dong Hotel in Da Lat City by 3:00. Jill, DiDi, and I moved into room 005 and we dropped off our stuff (except for Jill because she wasn't feeling well at all) and got back on the bus to grab a very late lunch. We ate "special pho bo" (the Vietnamese soup with noodles and beef) about ten minutes away from the hotel, walked through the market, and then headed back to the hotel before going back out with Bryan, DiDi, and Monica.

We headed out and walked around to find some fruit and to explore the center of town. After walking around for an hour and change, we went back to the hotel and hung out in the room before meeting everyone in the lobby for dinner at 7:30 pm.

We all walked back to the center of town and ate at this restaurant. We were seated in the middle of the place at this big, long table and ate rice, sweet and sour chicken, venison, and some vegetables before they brought us some fried bananas for dessert.

After dinner ended at 9:15 pm, I left with DiDi and went down the street to get some fetal ducks in their eggs. The one I ate was a bit young (and therefore not as crunchy) but it still tasted really good. Dale, Oliver, and Tony met us there by chance and then pissed off DiDi somehow and I walked back to the hotel alone at 10:00pm.

Once back at my room I changed into my pajamas, got my laptop, and headed for the front steps of the hotel in order to find my party people. I caught sight of a church directly across the street, however, and sprinted there only to find that there was no sign with the hours of their services. A young Vietnamese guy came out just then to lock the gate and I asked about services, which are held at 8:00 am on Sundays. I then found Sarah and we headed to her room to watch three episodes of the tv show "Friends" with Bryan, Monica, and Brittany. We got tired around midnight and I went back to my room to sleep.

Closure

This morning I talked to my mom on Skype at 1:00 am (so it was her afternoon) and that was great. I had to go after a bit and then went to bed at about 1:30. I read for a while and then fell asleep.

I woke up to my alarm at 6:30, grabbed my two packed bags, and took them downstairs to DiDi’s room. I also went and got the big scale from the dorm’s office/shed at the front gate. She weighed my huge bags and then I took them upstairs and went back to bed until 9:00 am. I got up and got on my computer for a bit before Jackie came and visited me. We went to our rice buffet with Bryan and got lunch as usual. I took pictures (with Jill's spare camera) with the girls there because that was my main focus today- taking pictures of all the places I’ve frequented for the last two months here in Ha Noi. I then went to the internet café and Kem My (ice cream place down the road), where Jackie and Bryan were chilling.

I came back to the dorm, got some stuff, and headed to my Vietnamese class building to get a picture. I then took the 31 bus from the closest stop and got a photo once I was on the bus. Getting off the bus at the school at which I taught English and then walking to the lake and the big mall, I took more photos. I walked up the east side of the lake and into the Old Quarter, which allowed me to get photos of the post office (we’re best friends) as well as the flag store, Finnegan’s, and Sago Café. I then walked back down the west side of the lake and met Jill, who was in the big mall’s Highland Coffee. I got a really big frozen coffee deal and read my book for a bit until about 2:00, when Jill and I ventured down the street to get a picture of Le Pub (see last picture, Katrina) and grab some CDs.

We met Jackie at the post office at 3:00 pm and decided to take a quick cyclo ride (guy pedaling a bike-like contraption with a carriage on the front that you sit in) around the lake. I negotiated a price for all of us and then went in one by myself while Jackie and Jill went together. I had a great conversation in Vietnamese with my cyclo driver. He was 18 years old, wasn’t studying any more, and even pointed out his dad, who is also a cyclo driver, as we went around the lake. It’s such a touristy thing, riding in cyclos, so I only wanted to go once around the lake. They dropped us back off at the post office after about only 20 minutes of riding and we paid and then saw Bryan mailing a package home. We joined up with him (and his bike) and headed back to the Old Quarter.

We stopped into a couple more CD/DVD stores and then decided to rest and get something to drink at this balcony café. I had a decent iced coffee with condensed milk and then continued on to this restaurant called Pepperoni’s. As it became rush hour on the way over to the restaurant, Bryan rode ahead on his bike and said he’d meet us there. When we got there, however, we realized that Bryan had gone to the other Pepperoni’s restaurant a couple blocks away. Jackie and Jill stayed and I went to go get him, since I knew my way around already. I found him sitting at a table outside the other restaurant and waited while he finished his Coke float. He then paid and I got on the back of his bike to go to the other place. We got there and then Will and Leah joined us on the second floor. We paid about $4 US dollars and got free reign of a buffet that included pizza, salad, and some fried rice. It was awesome and we had some funny conversations as well. At 6:30 Jill and I paid, left, and caught a quick xe om to Bookworm, where I picked up a cool Vietnamese food recipe book. We then caught the 31 bus back to the dorm and I arrived at my room by 7:15 pm. I’ve been sitting down here in the hallway writing this blog entry, talking to people, and uploading the new CDs to my computer.

Tomorrow morning I leave on a plane to Da Lat with the rest of my study abroad group. We'll land and spend a couple days there in the central region before taking a bus to Nha Trang and then Mui Ne (a beach) before spending the first week in December in Sai Gon. I feel almost sad to leave Ha Noi and everything familiar but I am so excited to finally be on my way home!