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!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This morning I woke up at 9:00 am and talked to Jill for a bit before she departed to get some work done. I hung out and sang, played games on the computer, got ready, and then ventured out to get my second dress. I walked down the street to the tailor at 10:15, tried it on, had her loosen the chest part, and then paid and left. I got a buoi (huge, sweet grapefruit) on the walk back to the dorm and was back to my room by 11:00. I threw out some stuff and tried to slim the amount of stuff I’ll be packing to go home. Maybe that will make tomorrow’s packing easier.

Jackie came and got me to go to the Old Quarter and I caught the 31 bus with her and Meggie at about 12:30. We took the bus to the lake, got Jill from the Highland’s Coffee in the mall, and walked to this great restaurant called Pepperoni. It smelled exactly like Pop’s Pizza in Cheshire and we were able to eat at a pasta and salad buffet for less than $2. It was nothing less than glorious. Then we moved on and found this really cool t-shirt shop. We’ll pick up some cool t-shirts tomorrow, since I designed one and we have to pick it up then. Then I went with Jill to pick up her dress (we were told to come back in 45 minutes) and Meggie and Jackie went to pick up their robes. We met afterwards and found the Kangaroo Café, where we got these really funny t-shirts and had really big, tasty iced coffees with condensed milk.

We split up at 3:00 pm and Jill and I went back to get her dress. We then did a bit more shopping and caught a xe om back to the dorm at about 4:00. There was an urgent email about packing up our bags for tomorrow morning’s weighing in DiDi’s room. I was going to complain about the short notice but it’s just so that we don’t have to pay so much money in overage charges. I did a lot of packing and then took a short shower before donning the dress I picked up this morning.

I left with a bunch of people on the 31 bud and took it to the lake. We walked about one block before reaching the Italian restaurant called Al Fresco’s. Our professor made reservations for a great Thanksgiving dinner and we had a lot of fun. We got to draw on the tablecloth and I asked everyone to hold hands, go around the table, and say something they’re thankful for. The professor asked me to say a “multi-religion” prayer and it meant so much to me. I kept it simple and didn’t specifically address any deity so as not to leave anyone out or make anybody angry. Afterwards I was trying to explain to DiDi and Monica how much that meant to me to be able to pray with the group. I said, “I was so surprised (but happy) that the professor asked me to say a prayer! I mean, everyone doesn’t believe in the same things” and Monica said “Well we all believe in you.” It was incredibly nice of her to say and it made for a great Thanksgiving.

After our awesome dinner of calamari, nachos, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and broccoli (I even had a few trees in honor of daddy). It was really good and dessert was vanilla ice cream and apple pie. Thank God!

Our group left the restaurant at about 8:30 pm and I went with Brittany, Monica, Jackie, Jill, Sarah, and DiDi to Le Pub. We sat in the back and played Jenga and I drank Coke. Then Eric showed up and we all played Rummy until 11:00 pm, when I took a xe om back with Jackie (and then Jill on the other vehicle). I got back to the room, threw a few more t-shirts in my big orange bag, and then went downstairs with Jill to make phone calls. She’s been really nice to me and let me use her computer with her Skype minutes to call both of my families! That made for an awesome Thanksgiving as well. Time to go try to reach mom again…

School's Out!

On Wednesday I woke up at 8:00, hung out and got ready and went to Vietnamese class at 9:00. We took our last final test and mine went very well. There was writing, listening, and speaking portions and thankfully it all went so well. I left at 11:00 and came back to the dorm for a bit before Jackie and I caught a xe om to Finnegan’s. After a while Mike, Dale, Oliver, Tony, Leah, Meggie, and Will all showed up. I got this amazing penne pasta with chicken, mushroom, and alfredo sauce with the usual Coke. I ate it while teaming up with Mike to beat Tony and Dale at pool. After a couple more games with Leah, Meggie, and Jackie, we moved towards the front door and found that we were not the only ones eating at Finnegan’s. There was this cute little Vietnamese baby name Cami and her adoptive mother. The baby wanted me to hold her so I did and she was heavy and warm. We chatted for a bit and then I left with Jackie, Leah, and Meggie. We walked down the street and Meggie said she wanted to buy some flags, wich was a good excuse for me to go into my favorite flag store and again see my friends there. They were so excited to see me and my friends and immediately hooked us up with some little blue stools and really good glasses of Vietnamese tea. We sat with them for a while before walking down the street so that I could show them where I got my robe. It was 3:15 by them so I left them in the silk shop and caught a xe om back to the dorm. Jill was sleeping and when I arrived she got up and we took a xe om with all of her books from her independent study and two of mine. We traded them in at this English bookstore (the only one in Ha Noi), got money for them, and then I bought another one for all of the traveling I will be doing in the next few weeks. We left and then took the 31 bus back to the dorm.

I was back at the dorm by 5:00, hung out in my room for half an hour, and then went downstairs to grab Meggie, Jackie, and Leah to go get our dresses. We walked down the street to the tailor’s and she was ironing all of the dresses. It then took almost an hour and a half for all four of us to try ours on, get them shortened or taken in, etc. One of mine will be done tomorrow morning and the other was perfect. I just sat there and gave meaningless feedback since I probably know more about the digestive system of starfish than I do about freakin’ dresses. By 7:00 we were back at our rice buffet and I got extra peanuts, which was glorious.

At 7:30 pm I came back to them dorm, showered, put on my new dress, and hung out in Becca and Tica’s room while they got tanked. I drank the orange soda and hung out with them until they were ready to go to Finnegan’s at about 10:00. I took a taxi with Sarah, Brittany, DiDi, and Jackie and then sat around the pool table until it was Mike and me’s turn to play. We hardly got to take any shots at all because we played these really drunk (and somehow talented) Vietnamese men. They were creepy. After my game I heard that Meggie was almost having an asthma attack and ushered her out of the smoke-filled bar. We worked on counting and breathing in the “fresh” air outside. She was more stable when I was approached by this young woman who needed to get a xe om ride back to the Ha Noi Backpacker’s hostel. She had just gotten on one and he was drunk and lightly crashed into a car. I found a driver I usually go with, made sue he wasn’t drunk, and got her all set up with him (payment, address, etc). I then walked across the street and got on a xe om myself, which put me back at the dorm at 1:00. I climbed over the fence and then talked to Jackie for a bit before going up to my room, getting my laptop, and checking my email in the hallway. I got into my Morality of War class and now I finally have four classes! I’ll sign into the Feminism and Philosophy class (God help us) when I get back to school.

Home Yet?

Today was crap. I woke up to Jill electricuting heself while trying to plug in her hair dryer and apparently said "tinglies and jinglies." I then woke up for good and tried to get the internet to work in the downstairs hallway. Of course it didn't so I went and got my stuff and headed to the internet cafe. I ordered an iced coffee with milk and sat down to talk to Bridget, get the new David Crowder Band cd sent to me, and then write my final internship reflection paper. I finished at about 12:00, when Monica and Brittany came to the cafe to get me for lunch. We finished lunch and came back to the dorm by 12:15 and I listened to the new cd and chilled out. Photography class was really short and we handed in our two papers and 52 final photos in our last portfolio.

Then my professor told us that our trip to Hue and Hoi An in the center region of the country has been changed because the area is so flooded. It sucks because we can't see that part of the country now. We'll be visiting some beach and then going to Sai Gon a few days early. I just want to go home really. We won't really be seeing anything new and I'm so homesick.

Class ended really early and I was back in my room by 2:00 pm. I went and talked to DiDi, made plans with Sarah and Brittany, and caught the 31 bus with them and Jill and Bryan at about 4:30. We walked to this other sushi place called Tokyo Sushi, but they weren't opening until 5:30. We then wlaked to the southern tip of the Old Quarter and on the way there I discovered that my camera would turn on but not take any pictures. I went with our group to this clothing store and finally got up the courage to call my professor. He was walking around the lake and he and his wife Donna met me at this coffee shop on the west side of the lake. He looked at my camera, checked a few things, and decided that I needed to go back to my room and read the manual to find out the real problem. I spoke with them for a bit and then we went our separate ways at 6:00. I booked it around the lake and back to the sushi place. My friends were already there and we quickly ordered. I got some egg sushi rolls and fried rice with shrimp. It was good and we finished eating when Brittany and Jill went home. This left Bryan, Sarah, and I to deal with figuring out the huge bill. Sarah ended up paying a great deal more because of some mishap and they had all of the food in American dollars (who has those?) and it was basically a mess. We caught xe oms back to the dorm and I was back by 8:30. I went to my room to find that my camera's booklet is no help at all and took a shower in an effort to calm down. I've been sitting here in the hallway talking to Andy and typing this blog ever since. I just want to change my plane ticket to Saturday and skip the rest of the traveling.

A Silent Thank You

Last night I finished uploading all the photos to my blog entry and then went to Jackie’s room where she and Sarah we doing work. I worked on my photo project for about two hours, finished most of it, and then went to bed at 12:30 am.

I woke up this morning at 6:30, grabbed an egg sandwich from a new place down the street, returned to my room and donned my ao dai, and went back down the street to catch a taxi with Jackie and Leah. As we stood on this island in the middle of traffic and everybody pointed at us because we were wearing traditional Vietnamese dress, a man with a huge camera approached us and asked to take our picture. We laughed, said yes, and then he told us to walk across the street. After our impromptu “Abbey Road” photo shoot, he asked for our names and our cell phone number because it might be printed in the paper. Oh boy!

We finally caught a taxi and got to school just in time to enter the premises through the front gate, where a drum and trumpet fanfare ensued. I was startled and even a bit scared until we saw our supervisor Thuy. She escorted us to the courtyard of the school, where there were hundreds of children already sitting on benches and pointing at us because we were wearing our ao dais. We sat down at 7:45 am and waited for the ceremony to start. It’s our school’s 90th anniversary and tomorrow is National Teacher’s Day, so it was a huge ceremony complete with flags, dancing, saluting, singing the national anthem and the school’s song, dancing with flags, raising the flag, etc. The kids had worked so hard on their dance and even had really cool costumes. It was a bit loud, though, with the music and the announcer speaking in Vietnamese over the music. At one point at the beginning of the ceremony I spotted a huge entourage entering behind this one older man who was wearing a dark suit and a Communist red scarf. I came to find out that he is the secretary general of the Communist party and that his name is ¬¬Nong Duc Manh. (See fourth picture). As he passed in front of our group of English teachers, he smiled, bowed a bit, and put his hands together in a silent thank you. It was pretty neat, actually.

I then sat on this really uncomfortable wooden bench in this restrictive traditional garb until 9:30. We heard this Vietnamese woman speak about the anniversary of the school and then the secretary general spoke. There was a lot of dancing by the kids and then it ended. We took some pictures with our supervisors, said goodbye to the students we could find, and then left. On our way out, Jackie and I were stopped by one really sweet little girl from our class. She told us her mother was coming with a present for us, so we waited by the road with her and spoke about her trip to American next summer. She is so cute and wants to visit us so we said she could email us and we’d try to see her. When her mom arrived a bit before 10:00, she presented us with a card and two Christmas tree ornaments. We thanked her and then she even offered to have her driver take us to class! That was so nice because we were already an hour late, as we had planned.

We got to class at about 10:15 and did the usual stuff until 11:00, when we were dismissed. I walked back to the dorm (in high heels!) and I went with Jackie to get her lunch at our usual rice buffet place. The girls who work there were so excited to see us in our ao dais and then I went back and took it all off (thank God!) Jill and I were on the 31 bus and on our way to Asashi Sushi before 12:00 and got off the bus early, walked down the street, and ate lunch. I had some salmon rolls with their awesome fried rice which they add salmon to. We finished, paid, and then walked down a block to the Vincom shopping mall, where I finalized my final photography portfolio (which can be found at http://hws.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020916&l=2f70d&id=32001827 ) and wrote my last internship journal.

At 4:00 we ventured over a few blocks and waited awhile before catching the 8 bus to the lake. We then walked to Sago and talked to DiDi, but she had stuff to do and we left right before she did. We walked around the fringe of the Old Quarter and Jill looked for some teacups to match her eating set. I found a robe, had them change the hem a bit, and we found this tasty and cheap food place on that street. I had my xao bo and a Coke and spoke Vietnamese with the waitress for a bit. At 6:00 pm we paid, left the restaurant, picked up my robe, and then found Jill’s teacups. We headed to the ATM and then caught a cheap xe om back to the dorm which put us back before 8:00.

Back in my room, I put my final photo project onto a cd and then went downstairs to try and get internet. Of course the internet and my computer are still feuding so I will have to post this blog tomorrow. I then talked with DiDi and Sarah in DiDi’s room until about 10:30, when Sarah left and we took a xe om to Finnegan’s. I had a Coke, played some pool and actually did well, and then left with DiDi and Leah on xe oms at 12:30 am. When we got back to the dorm, the gate was locked and I climbed over it before the guy woke up and opened it because DiDi was standing there in a dress and our friend Victor had to get his motorbike out. I then hung out in DiDi’s room for an hour looking at photos before I went to bed at 1:30 am.

Soap Opera Royalty

I woke up this morning at 6:00 am before my alarm went off. I got dressed, grabbed an egg sandwich, and got onto our group’s bus. At 7:00 we embarked on our trip to “Dry Ha Long Bay,” which meant that we visited Toa Cac and Hoa Lu without doing any swimming. It was really cloudy outside and the bus ride (with a tourist shop/bathroom stop in the middle) took until 9:00 am, when we pulled into a small guest house. They let us use a bathroom in one of the rooms and then we headed down the street to a place where there were a bunch of steel “canoes.” As usual, I went with DiDi and two women who paddled our boat. We pretended to both be American and to only speak English, since the Vietnamese boat woman terrorized DiDi for more money on our last trip. They didn’t like us, though, because we just didn’t want to buy any of the linens or drinks they were selling to us. We sat there for an hour and went through three cool caves, I took some pictures, and then we hit the end and some other woman grabbed onto our boat and demanded we buy drinks from her. I was glad when she let us go after about ten minutes and then it was another hour-long boat ride back to the dock. It was just another awkward experience in Viet Nam and I was so glad to get off the freakin’ boat. We then had a group lunch of rice, goat, vegetable soup, fried fish, spring rolls, and Coke. At 1:00, we all stood in line for the bathrooms again before getting back on the bus.

I slept on DiDi for the hour-long bus ride to Viet Nam’s ancient capital in Hoa Lu. It was the country’s capital for 42 years at the beginning of the late 10th and early 11th century. The king wanted the capital to be there because it was surrounded by limestone mountains that would protect them from the Chinese invaders. After literally being attacked and asked to buy things, we saw the temples for the two kings that ruled at the ancient capital before it was moved to present-day Ha Noi. They had some great stories to accompany them as well. The first king was killed by his cook after the guy had a dream where he swallowed a star, which he took to mean that he would be the next king. They then fetched a huge drum and beat it once every time they cut off a chunk of the murderous cook’s flesh. After the first king was killed, his wife moved on and married the second king. Then they even moved her statue to the temple for the second king. Why not just make two statues? Good times in medieval Viet Nam.

We saw both temples and then a group of us climbed almost 300 steep stairs up this mountain. The two kings were buried there and I lit a little incense thing and stuck it in the sand in front of the big blocks of stone. I then walked a bit farther, got some nice pictures (well the white sky kind of ruined most of them) and then walked back down. On the way down the many steep stairs, I was accosted by about ten drunk Vietnamese men who demanded to take my picture with them. I distanced myself from them in the picture and made a really funny face too. Thankfully, I went down to the bus and immediately fell asleep in the relative safety found there (they couldn’t sell us stuff there!) and the ride lasted from 3:30-6:00, when they dropped us off around the corner from the dorm. I waited for a bit and then DiDi, Leah, and Jackie and I went to our rice buffet. I ate my usual rice, peanuts, sprouts, and egg and then got back to my dorm room at 7:00. I have been sitting here writing this blog and talking to Jill for an hour and then I showered. I’m going to continue to wrestle with the intermittent wireless internet and then go to Jackie and Leah’s room to do my final photography portfolio.

Flag Store!

My Saturday began very early at 6:30 am. I got dressed, had Jill clean my ear, made sure Will was awake, and left with Jill and Will to catch the 31 bus at 6:45. We got to the lake, walked along the eat side and took some morning pictures of everybody doing their exercises and then headed to Le Pub. I had an omelette with mushrooms and tomatoes along with a mango smoothie. I was able to talk with Andy over AIM for over an hour and that was amazing. I also talked to Katrina and Bridget, which was fun. At 10:00 am, Jill and I walked to the Highland Coffee at the big mall and had coffees and looked at photographs for our projects for a couple hours. Then Jackie, Leah, and Will showed up and I left with Jackie to do some errands at 12:30. After buying some t-shirts we took pictures while walking along the west of the lake and had some banana pancakes and iced coffees at Sago. It was a ten minute walk to the flag store (which was the focus of one of my final papers) and I was able to hook Jackie up with a cool Buddhist flag, introduce her to my friends there, and take cool pictures of three of the four generations of that family that run the store. I let the two year-old little boy play with my camera for a bit and then we said goodbye. We took more pictures on the way back and then went back to Highland Coffee, where Jill had been watching my laptop and doing her work. I uploaded some photos before we caught a taxi back to the dorm at 3:30. I was feeling odd so I took a short nap and woke up just before 4:30, when Jill’s coworkers/friends picked us up on their xe mays to go to their cousins’ house.

Yesterday Jill and I bought food to make them an American dinner. We arrived at their cousins’ house and immediately made “no bake” cookies and stuck them in the fridge to cool and set. We then made grilled cheese, minestrone soup, and macaroni and cheese. The six of us sat down to eat in the living room at 6:30 and it was so good. They enjoyed it as well. After dinner the girls turned on the t.v. and it was already on the Disney Channel. In fact, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was on and Jill and it was fun to watch with our friends. They noticed at 8:00 that Jill and I were drooping (and had eaten too much) and drove us back to the dorm on their xe mays. I then spent some time looking over my photos to complete my final portfolio since it’s due this Tuesday. DiDi entered the picture and asked me to accompany her to a party across the city with her new friend, Victor. At first, I said no because I was so homesick and DiDi left to call Brittany. I thought about it for a minute and remembered that I am in Viet Nam and shouldn’t be sitting in my room, feeling like that.

I ran downstairs and got DiDi and within five minutes we were sitting in a taxi with Victor. He’s from Ukraine and is very flirty with DiDi, so I was glad the darkness of the taxi hid the constant rolling of my eyes. We arrived at this really nice apartment and found a bunch of Ukrainians and Russians having some beer and wine and chilling out. It was so nice to be ignored, speak English, and feel like I was back in the states. Brittany arrived about a half hour into the visit and we chatted it up before finding a taxi back to the dorm at midnight. I wasn’t tired when I got back so I washed up and sat in bed, looking at pictures, until about 1:30 when I closed my computer and fell asleep.

P.S.- The last two photo in today's entry is of some members of the flag store family!

Friday Funday

After posting my blog entry on Thursday night, I convinced DiDi to go to her own celebration/thank you dinner without ruining the surprise. I then showered, shaved, and put on a dress for the occasion. After making sure everyone in our group snuck by her room and got into taxis before we did, Jackie and I got DiDi from her room and caught a taxi across the city to KOTO. This restaurant is amazing. It was started a few years ago by an Australian guy who saw many street children selling postcards and books around Huan Kiem lake and said “know one, teach one” (hence the restaurant’s name). He went back to Australia, borrowed $50,000 from his mother, and returned to Viet Nam to open a sandwich shop. He trained the street kids, left them to run that store, and then bought the current restaurant and took in more kids to train. They are given so much through the 18-month program besides learning to wait tables, cook, clean, and even manage a kitchen. They get them housing, medical care, a stipend, a bike, and English lessons. Every single teenager who has graduated from their program (the number is close to 300 now) has gone on to hold a great job in a hotel, restaurant, etc. This KOTO (know one, teach one) restaurant is staffed by the trainees and the chefs are trainees as well.

Anyways, our group of 20 people was already sitting on the top floor of the restaurant when Jackie and I brought DiDi there. She was so surprised that she was actually shaking. She had no idea! We then presented her with the flowers and had her sit at the head of the table with Tica, Dale, and Dale’s female Vietnamese friend. The food was excellent and I had a Coke and the pesto linguine before choosing a banana and peanut butter smoothie for dessert. We left the restaurant at 10:00 pm in a taxi full of our group members. Back at the dorm, I went straight to my room, washed up, played on the computer for a few minutes, and then read in bed before falling asleep at 11:30 pm.

This morning I woke up at 6:45, got dressed, grabbed my backpack that I had packed last night, and headed to the internet café. I grabbed an egg sandwich on the way there and arrived at the café to discover that they weren’t open yet. I stood on the curb and ate my sandwich and they had opened the garage door and invited my in by 7:15 am. I sat down, turned on my computer, ordered an iced coffee with condensed milk, and checked my email. I talked to other people and emailed friends, since Andy didn’t get online almost 9:00 am, and then we rescheduled our talk for tomorrow morning.

I then wrote my short essay in Vietnamese so that my teacher can check it during Monday’s review session and then I can use it for the final test on Wednesday. After that I buckled down and wrote my Vietnamese Life and Culture paper, which is about the four generations I met in the flag store last week. I also wrote about how their life and relationships relate to Confucian philosophy as well as including some research about ancestral temples in small Vietnamese businesses. I finished the five page, single-spaced paper (God only knows why he wants it in that format) at 12:30 and it’s a good paper. I can email it to anybody who wants to read it.

I returned to my room at 12:30 and found Jackie in her room. We had this whole day planned out but she was feeling ill. I assured her we could just move our plans to tomorrow and then went down the street to get her some ginger ale and plain crackers.

By 1:30 pm, Jill and I had caught the bus all the way to the lake. We went to the third floor of the big mall and had lunch, which was a BLT and some shrimp fried rice that we split and traded. I then left to walk around the lake and get some more pictures for my final photography portfolio. I got some pictures I like (see above) and also talked to some older people. They offered me a tiny, plastic blue stool (Vietnamese trademark) and I spoke to them in Vietnamese for a while. When they asked my name and had a hard time pronouncing it, they gave me a Vietnamese name, Hoa. They were sweet and told me that should be my name because I’m a pretty flower. That reminds me of the skunk from Bambi…

I continued my walk around the lake and finished at about 3:00, when I walked back to the mall to meet Jill. I read my book for a short while before we paid, and went to the grocery store on the fourth floor. We are making an American dinner with some of Jill’s coworkers tomorrow and we’re having macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, minestrone soup (couldn’t find tomato soup) and some veggies. We’re also making “no bake” cookies for dessert. We found most of what we were looking for and then walked down the block to catch the bus. Getting off after only two stops, we hit up the small American grocery store to get the last few things we needed for tomorrow night’s dinner. We didn’t feel like waiting for the bus, the nearest xe om was charging too much, and we ended up grabbing a taxi. The driver looked to be about 15 years old and had the taxi’s radio turned to an American station. As soon as we got into the taxi, Jeff Buckley’s song “Last Goodbye” started playing and I had this crazy flood of memories from being with Andy. It was a crazy mix of wanting to hear the entire song and also wanting to jump out of the cab.

We got back to the dorm at 4:30 and I sat in my room and wrote most of this blog. I then showered and got ready because this week’s photo class was moved to tonight, as our professor and his wife are having their photography exhibition downtown. At 5:45, Jackie, Leah, Sarah, Monica, Jill, and I climbed into a bigger taxi, got to the Bookworm (the only English bookstore) and looked at the photographs. They were all right, but I wasn’t particularly impressed. I ate the spring rolls and cumquats and had some great red wine as I looked at his binder of other photographs, which I liked better than the ones on the wall. I talked to Donna, the professor’s wife about how most of us have been offered children to buy and then left with Jill at 9:00 pm.

We walked to the bus stop, caught the 31 bus back to the dorm, and I sang for a bit before DiDi called to tell me that she and Brittany were at Le Pub. I got dressed, took a cheap xeo om to the pub, and had a Coke and played Jenga with them until Becca called Brittany and told us to come to this new bar. We walked there at 11:00 and chilled with Mike, Will, and Becca at this new Rasta bar. It was chill but we were tired and planning an early morning so Will and I left on a xe om back to the dorm at 12:30. I was washed up and in bed by 1:00 am.

Extra Peanuts!

Last night at 7:30 I took a xe om with Jackie to Le Pub. We found our friends from the other program, Amy, Michelle, and Mackenzie, sitting at the long table which we usually inhabit. Since it was $1 gin and tonics night, the rest of our group was coming to Le Pub as well. Jackie and I ordered Cokes and margherita pizzas and talked to our friends who also introduced us to some of their Vietnamese-American friends from California. They were all chill and we ate dinner and had fun talking to new people in English, which doesn’t happen very often. At 10:00, the rest of our group arrived and I switched tables to talk to DiDi, Brittany, and that guy Eric whom we met at Dragonfly a couple of weeks ago. At 11:00 I got really tired, paid for my dinner, and caught a xe om back to the dorm with Jackie. We got back at 11:30 and the gate was still open. I got back to my room, washed up, played on my computer for a bit, and then fell asleep at about midnight.

I woke up this morning at 7:30 for some odd reason. I got dressed, went and checked my email, and then grabbed breakfast on the way to class. Our class was only Will, Brittany, and I today and we thoroughly reviewed chapters seven and eight in our book. We were dismissed by 11:00 and I came back to my room and began to write my weekly journal entry for my internship. At noon, Jackie came to the room and we got lunch at the rice buffet. The older guy who works there even gave me extra peanuts! I guess my rice looked a bit bland.

I came back to dorm, bought a huge grapefruit and some cumquats in front of the gate, and then continued to write my journal entry. By 1:30 I was sitting in my “Vietnamese Language and Culture” class and today’s speaker was a middle-aged Vietnamese man by the name of Pham Quang Minh. His talk was entitled “Globalization, the End of the Cold War, and Viet Nam’s Renovated Foreign Policy.” It was interesting at the beginning but I quickly fell pray to spacing out as he described the Cold War as an “ideological contest.” Wait, that sounds fun! :)

After drawing as many Spongebob Squarepants characters as I could and then creating my own games of Text Twist, the lecture ended at 3:30. Professor Benjamin gave us a ten minute break and Jackie and I ran to wake up DiDi from her nap and invite her to dinner tonight. We’re all going to a Dining for a Cause (not for profit) restaurant and surprising her by treating her to a nice dinner in honor of her graduation from college and as a big thanks for all of the work she does for us. Jackie and I then ran back to class in time to get a couple of handouts and clear up a couple of questions about our final papers and photo projects due next week.

I got back to my room at 4:00 pm and finished writing my weekly internship journal as I had hoped. After I finished, Jill and I went down to the corner and got DiDi a bouquet of flowers from the girls and another one that will be from the boys. We then headed to the ATM to get the necessary money for tonight’s dinner. I’m about to go make sure DiDi’s getting ready for the dinner…

Leave comments!

Last English Class

After posting my blog in the hallway of the dorm last night, I came back to my room, showered, and wrote the introduction for my “Vietnamese Life and Culture” class’ final paper. I finally decided what to write it on- Vietnamese families and the businesses they run out of the front of their houses. I then read for a while and fell asleep at midnight.

My Wednesday began at 8:00, when I got ready and then checked my email and talked to Andy online. I ate my usual egg sandwich on the way to class and arrived a bit late. Class was interesting because we finished chapter ten and then reviewed from the first to the seventh chapter. Class ended on time and I walked back with Jackie, since we had to spend a bit of time in two stationary stores. We searched and finally found a journal as a prize for one of our students that had won the ABC Game last week. We then went to her room and planned for our class this afternoon and at noon we headed to our rice buffet for lunch. The three Vietnamese girls across from us talked about us the entire time and didn’t even try to hide it.

I then returned to my dorm room and had a sing-a-long while I continued to write my paper that I began last night. A little before 1:30 pm I tore myself away from writing in order to get dressed and meet my fellow teachers in front of the dorm. We took the 31 bus, arrived on time, presented one of our supervisors, Huong, with her spa gift certificate, and then Jackie and I taught our class in the big room alongside Graham and Natalie’s class. We didn’t have chalk, so we played the ABC Game for almost the whole class. We tried to squash the cheating and the kids love that game so whatever. Then Graham and Natalie gave their class some 3-D glasses and then gave the rest to our class, which was nice of them. They had a ball with them and at 4:00 the other two classes came into the big room and everybody was given a little baggy of these crab-flavored chips and some jelly candy. Some of our students came up to the microphone and said their goodbyes while I was being bombarded by requests for my email address. At 4:45, Jackie, Leah, Natalie, and I went across the street to our usual Monday morning breakfast spot and got some banh bao (fried dough balls that you dip into condensed milk). By the time we ate, paid, walked to the closest bus stop, caught the 8 bus, and walked back to the dorm, it was already 5:30. I then talked to Jill, looked at some pictures, and have been checking my email because there are so many from our professor concerning our final papers and photographs.

Talkative Tuesday

This morning I woke up at 8:00 am, got ready for the day, and checked my email. I got an egg sandwich and ate it while walking to class. Class went fairly well and I was back at the dorm by 11:00. Then Jackie, Leah, Meggie, and I walked down the street and had banh xeo for lunch (greens and cucumbers and some egg/meat concoction that you roll into rice paper) and then kept walking until we found the tailor that people in our group use. I brought a dress for them to copy in two different colors and we only know so much Vietnamese so it took us more than an hour to sort out which styles and colors we wanted and then get measured.

I went back to the dorm at 1:30 and got some small oranges from the ladies outside the dorm’s gate. After packing my backpack with my camera and Jill’s camera, I took the 31 bus to the lake and found Jill on the third floor of the big mall. She was working on her computer at Highland Coffee and I sat and had a coffee with her before going to the fifth floor to the grocery store there. I got Becca’s Froot Loops but couldn’t find Dial soap or salt with which to clean and soak my ear. I’ll continue with cleaning it twice a day and applying bacitracin all the time. I went back to find Jill, check my email on her computer, and then headed out to take pictures by the lake, since this is my new final photography assignment. As soon as I reached the lake across the street, I spotted my professor and his wife. This was so convenient because National Teacher Appreciation Day is next Tuesday and our final test in Vietnamese language class was just moved to Monday because of the holiday. The six English teachers, me included, must attend our last day of the internship and attend our school’s 90th anniversary celebration on the same day. We must move our final for Vietnamese and the professor charged me with this rescheduling project. I walked halfway around the lake before finding a 25 year-old Vietnamese guy who always tries to sell me books. He’s homeless, always high on something, and today I saw him with most of his head shaved and bloody, along with his face and arm. I rushed up to make sure he was ok and he said he was hit by a taxi a couple of days ago. I told him I was so sorry and he described his debacle, which was extra horrible since he doesn’t have any money for health care. I sat with him for a bit and then continued to walk around the lake.

I got a couple more photographs that I like and had almost completed a full lap around the lake when two Vietnamese guys my age asked to speak to me in English for their class. They were very surprised that I knew some Vietnamese and I pretended not to know so much so that they’d have to use their Vietnamese. It’s so much more important for them to know English than for me to know Vietnamese. We talked from 3:30-4:00 and I might come to their English class at their university on Saturday.

Continuing on, I began talking to three females and one male high school student in Vietnamese. I spoke to them for another half an hour before catching a cheap xe om back to the dorm at 4:30. I got back at the exact same time that DiDi did, and we cuddled until 5:00 pm, when I came to my room and began making a to do list for the upcoming week, when my classes will end and a couple short papers are due. I then listened to some music and played games until 6:45, when I hit up our rice buffet with Jackie and Leah. Upon returning to the dorm I hung out in DiDi’s room and then checked my email in the hallway. I’m about to go find some grapefruit with DiDi, so don’t wait up…

Mundane Monday

Today I woke up at 6:30 and got dressed, had Jill clean out my ear, ate a few cumquats, and met my fellow English teachers in front of our dorm at 7:00. As usual, we took the 31 bus to school and taught from 7:30-8:45 am. Jackie and I had a hard time today because we decided to play the ABC Game, which entails us giving the kids a letter of the alphabet and a short amount of time in which the students must write down as many words as they can that begin with that letter. Today, however, many of our students chose to sneakily use their dictionaries. Jackie and I were well aware of what was going on and planned to speak to them privately after class until the other kids complained about the cheating. We were put into a sticky situation because we didn’t want to chastise the cheaters in front of the class but one of the cheaters had won the game. Jackie and I quickly decided not to declare a winner for today’s game, planned another game during Wednesday’s class, and spoke to the class as a whole about cheating. Needless to say, we were a bit relieved when class was over and we met Thuy, our supervisor, and went to get bang bao and iced coffee for breakfast. We had a funny and lively conversation and she had to leave a bit early. We finished up and decided to walk down a couple of blocks in order to find this one spa from which to purchase treatments for our two supervisors. It took about half an hour of using our skeletal Vietnamese and simple English to begin to explain to the spa women about gift cards, and we finally called DiDi and she talked to them in the necessary Vietnamese. Will also walked into the front, glass door and that was pretty freakin’ hilarious because he was not hurt and the door remained intact. After talking to DiDi on the phone, the woman returned to the front desk and pulled out a bag of gift cards and we got really excited. We pooled together our money and bought a really nice stress relieving massage and manicure/pedicure for our supervisors.

The rest of the teachers left the spa place at 10:00 to catch the bus and I got a xe om to Finnegan’s because Jackie had seen a flag store around there. I bought a couple of really cool and colorful Vietnamese flags, including the Vietnamese Buddhist flag, and befriended the three generations that run the store. They gave me some tea and I sat around and talked with them in Vietnamese as they fed their baby boy and the mother sewed more flags. They thought I had two years of the language and when I told them I have only been studying it for two months, they were impressed. That always feels good. I took down their address and told them I’d send my friends, which made them even happier.

I took another xe om back to the dorm where I dropped my stuff, comforted DiDi after some bad news, and visited Jackie and Leah in their room. I then grabbed my laptop and walked out of the dorm where I found Lady Borton, a former presenter for our lecture series, with a cool book for me and some information for other students in our group. I thanked her and walked to the internet café, where I had a good lunch of my xao bo and a Coke while talking to Bridget, Becca Pav, and Amanda. I also officially changed my final photography project from alleyways of Ha Noi to “Personalities of Huan Kiem Lake,” which features my favorite subjects—people. After talking to all of these people, posting three blog entries from this weekend, and adding many pictures to Facebook, I came back to the dorm at 3:30 pm. I again went to visit Jackie and Leah in their room and then sang and played computer games in my room until 5:30, when I ventured out to see what everyone was doing for dinner. Since it was $1 tequila shot night, most of our group was going to Le Pub. At 7:00 I took the 31 bus with Leah, Meggie, and Jackie and then walked from the drop off at the post office. We ate dinner (I had pizza and a Coke) and then the rest of the group came—Mike, Will, Becca, Sarah, and Brittany. I stayed and chilled with them until about 10:30, when Jackie and I took a xe om back to the dorm. I washed up and went to talk to DiDi, whom I found doing a bit better than earlier that day. We ate a big grapefruit I had brought and then cuddled until we fell asleep. I woke up at 1:30, still in DiDi’s room, and went back to my room to sleep.