Day 104: December 2, 2014

Cate and I had made plans to get a real Vietnamese breakfast this morning from a street vendor, but when we woke up at 9am neither of us were really feeling it. So she got her typical breakfast and I got mine (this time with one egg instead of two), and we sat on the front steps of the dormitory. When I was getting my banh mi, the woman working, who speaks a little English, asked me if we have rice in our country. I tried to explain that we have it but don't eat it all the time like they do. She told me that tomorrow when I come for breakfast, I need to get the rice they have because it is very good. Sounds good to me!

The morning was spent working on my sociology final paper. Here's the thing--it's a super short paper because it's only eight pages. It takes about 15 minutes to write one page. That means that if I just put aside two hours, TWO MEASLEY HOURS, I could have this paper finished. But it's the idea of having to sit down and write a paper, of having to actually do work, that makes me continue to put it off. I only have four pages left to write though!

My original plan for the day was to leave the dormitory around 12:30 and go finish my souvenir shopping. Plans, however, change. Binh asked me to get lunch with him and I was once again responsible for choosing where to go. Let me tell you, when you're in a foreign country and have not spent the last four months eating at restaurants it is very hard to find a place. I tried to use Google to find a close place nearby, but all of the places listed on English sites are in Districts 1 or 3 as they cater more towards tourists. I eventually just told him the name of a street, and we got on his motorbike and headed there before we found a place to eat. We actually ended up eating at -18 Celsius, the same restaurant across from Open University. I got what I'm going to call a chicken rice omelet. It was a very thin egg, like an omelet, stuffed with chicken rice. It was pretty good, although it sounds a little strange. We stayed at the restaurant for quite a long time as we had to wait out the downpour outside, but we spent it watching YouTube videos and learning that it is possible to send/receive messages from a Vietnamese phone to an American phone. (Um.. weather? Didn't you know that it is the dry season now?)

The students at University of Technology don't have any classes for the next few weeks as they prepare for final exams. Theirs are much harder than ours, though. Try writing 60 page reports instead of an eight page paper. Most students spend these weeks studying 24/7 (that's not an exaggeration), but Binh told me today that he had enough studying done so we could spend the entire afternoon together. We came back and got ice cream from Jollibee, walked around the arcade a little, and then he bought some type of melon that he wanted me to try. We came back to the dorm to eat it (it was pretty good) and found the English movie channel on TV. Around 6pm we headed to the canteen to get supper. It's funny how in this week of lasts I am still able to celebrate a first--my first time eating a meal at the canteen! Binh showed me what he wanted and then asked me to order it for him. I think he really just gets a kick out of seeing me speaking Vietnamese (he asked me to order the ice cream today, also). I got grilled fish with rice, and I'm still not used to purposefully eating the entire fish, bones, eyes, and all. I pulled out the spine but ate the rest of it, but it's safe to say that my eating habits will for sure change in the United States. Fat and bones no longer bother me!

He had to leave to go tutor, so I came back to my room to (attempt) to do a little more homework. Yen came and gave me a present, which was a Bach Khoa polo. It's a great gift, and now I can wear my clothing from both Open and Bach Khoa! The rest of the evening was spent talking with some of the other Loyola students as well as dreading the upcoming few days.