Vietnam, Day 1

I woke up early because Thao had class for his MBA program. We had breakfast at this adorable French cafe (whatever, they were a huge presence in Vietnam at one point so it's ALMOST like eating locally). Then Thao and I parted ways and I was off on my own for the very first time. I went to check out a couple of apartments and ended up finding one that was perfect. Then I took to wandering around the center of the city taking pictures, which I will post as soon as I can find a way to upload them onto my Mac. (For those of you who don't know or forgot, like me, Macs don't have a convenient memory card slot built in - and I forgot my USB cord.) I'll figure something out, don't panic. It's better this way anyway because it was my first day with this new camera and the pictures did NOT come out the way I had thought. I like to fancy myself a bit of a photographer, however, today my ego took a bit of a hit. The one good picture is of me (so clearly I didn't take it) in front of Notre Dame, the church in the center of town. A nice policewoman (and clearly professional photographer on the side) was nice enough to take it of me and not steal my, er Daich and Masako's, camera in the process. I considered asking her for some photography tips, then I remembered that the only way we were communicating was in slang sign language.

The center of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in front of the Notre Dame

The flight.

Early on Thursday morning Bud, Donna and Lindsay (BJ had school) drove me to the airport to see me off and have a little breakfast. Auntie Jay met us after and walked me through security and waited until she saw me walk on the plane. It was a nice little send-off!

This is an impressively small amount of luggage compared to a) what I normally pack and b) what I actually had wanted to pack

Now for the flight...

I'm not sure how many of you have flown to the other side of the world, but just as an FYI, it's FAR. I don't care what they say about the world getting smaller, my 19 hours worth of flying yesterday is proof positive that the world is LARGE and that Vietnam is far. I was in the middle seat (I know, I should have checked before and requested another seat) in between a very large, white male and a very tiny, Vietnamese male. Now, you would think that the very large, white male would have been the issue. On the contrary, he slept like a baby the ENTIRE TIME. My good friend to my left, the small Vietnamese man, took up more room than I ever thought a 5 ft., 90 lb. man could. So for 13 hours and 43 minutes I scrunched my little body in between these two and watched romantic comedy after romantic comedy. By the third one I was openly laughing and crying, because at that point I didn't want my neighbors to want to be sitting next to me anymore. See, my original plan for my flight was to make friends. By hour 7, I was making enemies. (I may have thrown a gentle elbow in the direction of Hoang (yes, I read his passport over his tiny shoulder)). By hour 13, I wasn't sure I was safe anymore.