2 crazies and Momma Food

Hokay so i met two crazies and mamma food this week:
Crazy #1: We went to go have coffee with our program director on monday at this little coffee shop by school and as we are walking into where all the tables are (it's an open air cafe) this woman pops out of nowhere and grabs me and starts yelling hello at me...to which i just respond ahhhh ummm hi and she keeps shaking me and yelling hello at me...then decides i'm boring and walks to the back of the coffee shop
Crazy #2: I worked at a college fair on thursday that my internship does twice a year...I was making packets of pamphlets and handing them out to students when this older, grungier looking man comes up to me and is like HELLO VERY NICE TO MEET YOU then sticks out his hand to shake it which i do...i don't think anything of it until he comes up to me about 20 minutes later and starts asking me all kinds of questions...after the second question one of the men that works with me comes over and says "he comes to all of our fairs, we think there is something wrong with his mind, he only ever wants to talk to the foreigners"...at this point i become a little alarmed and wonder where the security for the 5-star hotel is...the man just kept yelling at me in english for a good 10 minutes until someone grabbed me to help tape up boxes
Mamma Food: On Monday after coffee with our director we decided to try this restaurant right across from the french consulate...it was only 11am so there weren't many people there...we walk in sit at a table and start looking at a menu...then this woman magically appears and is like come with me i show you the food...she takes us back to a buffet and we just get to point and tell her what we want and she makes sure we get a lot and the best of it...we all got rice, veggies (which we never get to eat b/c we have to eat every meal out), soup, and a main dish (i got stuffed tofu yuuuuuuuum)...so we basically got a mountain of food....so we eat and then ask her how much we owe her and she says 25.000 which is only $1.50 for a MOUNTAIN of food...as we pay the bill and go to leave she keeps telling us to come back and that she really likes us...so on wed we went back to see if she remembered us and sure nough she did which was great so i have a feeling mamma food is a person we shall be visiting a lot
Oh and the one plus of being a white girl in vietnam...everybody automatically thinks you are vurry pretty...of course i can't understand them but that's what mai and tu tell me they say...who knew....

I have met the love of my life

Sooo it's been a pretty low key weekend but Friday night we went out to a really great dinner with tons of food and then to a coffee shop called acoustic...acoustic is a really cute coffee shop that has live music most nights of the week and the music is in ENGLISH YYYYYYESSSSS...i get so excited when i hear anything is in english now it's ridiculous...so we got to acoustic at 8 so that we could get a table and sat around and talked until the music started at 9:30...a little while after we got there a guy that takes vietnamese at the same place as us showed up and we have affectionately (or not so affectionately) named him skeeves well skeeves promptly began hitting on poor little vietnamese girls and i'm really looking forward to tomorrow when he tries to talk to us about it...also before the music started an extremely old man with a 20-30 something asian woman showed up and we named him cb...thank god for creepy men keeping us entertained until the music started...then the performers showed up and it turns out the vietnamese people really like there simple plan and other early 90s rock music and early 80s joan jett and carly simon...the first two performers came and then the LOVE OF MY LIFE got on the stage...he may be an extremely short korean man but i love him nonetheless...the first song he sang was maroon 5 this love and then i thought to myself if he sings gavin degraw i will be in love...sure 'nough next song was gavin degraw i dont wanna be...needless to say i will be at acoustic stalking poor short korean boy/man for the next few weeks...then a girl we affectionately named crazy white bitch showed up...crazy white bitch tried to grab my hand so that i would dance with her and i immeadiately thought to myself omg omg omg i'm gonna get the herps but she soon turned her attention to asian nelly who appeared to be approx 16 max 18...but she got bored with him and promptly sat down next to another white guy and began to groom him (it looked like she was checking his hair for lice)...crazy white bitch then tried to make him dance with her and when he wouldn't she lit a cigarette and started waving it around and almost burned every person sitting at my table...then she grabbed some guys drink and chugged some of it which made the men yell at her in vietnamese/korean and demanded she buy them another drink...which she did but not before she gave the white guy she was grooming earlier a sip of it...ohhh and there were some cute white guys who were taller than me!!!!!!!! standing in the back of the coffee shop so i have a feeling i will be spending a lot of time at acoustic...english music and boys taller than me...it's a winner all around

I don't wanna take off my shoes

So these last few days have been a blur. We started classes and i have one on one vietnamese lessons 3 times a week for 2 or 3 hours and lets just say i'm hopeless although if i realllllly wanted to i could probably catch a xe om (motorbike taxi) and get them to take me home for a ridiculously high price b/c SUPRISE i look like i don't live here (who would have thunk it). So last night the two other girls on the program and i all went out to dinner with our roomates to this really good thai place in our district. We rode motorbikes to get there and lets just say i much perfer walking. This was my second time on a motorbike and i'm getting better about not looking completely and utterly terrified but it still scares the crap out of me most times. I just don't like the feeling of seeing 30 other motorbikes flying at you. My chances of getting hit by another motorbike are greatly decreased if i'm walking on the sidewalk (note: greatly decreased...not gone b/c people do rides those things on the sidewalk)...so after dinner they suggested we go to a cafe so we drive to what looks like this skeevy looking car wash and walk up some questionable stairs and read a sign that says please put your shoes in the locker...i immeadiately think aw hell no i ain't takin off my shoes but i did and it turns out the cafe was actually this really nice japanese style cafe with hardwood floors and cushions on the floor to sit on. It also turns out it was play night so we watched a two hour play in vietnamese...i understood approximately two words so someone had to translate for me. After the play some of the girls wanted to meet the actors so they came over and talked to us for a while and then told me i didn't understand anything and laughed (which is true but still they didn't have to say it) but then we went "home"/back to the hotel and i promptly passed out...this weekend we're suppossed to get wireless so fingers crossed i'll be able to keep in touch with everybody better if that happens!
<3 and miss

Yes...I am alive

I made it here (even though i just discovered i threw away my arrival-departure card...score 1 for helen)...So to begin the trip i woke up at 4am on thursday morning in atlanta and then flew to chicago with a four hour layover then got on a plane to hong kong and right as we were getting ready to take off we had to turn back around because one of the engines wasn't working (not the thing you want to hear before a 15.5 hour flight) so we got delayed 2 hours and after 17.5 hours i landed in hong kong and then barely made my flight from hong kong to saigon...made it through customs and went outside to the beautiful 85 degree 90% humidity and met my roomate named tram...i did not sleep AT ALL on any of my flights so i was awake for 34 straight hours...but thanks to my 34 hour marathon jetlage hasn't been a problem at all...there are 2 other girls on my program Mai and Tu both of who speak vietnamese (thank god) and poor them have to babysit me b/c if i get lost it's basically a hopeless situation...the food here is AMAZING (i haven't gotten sick yet...fingers crossed) and vietnamese coffee=crack it's so addictive and strong it's pretty much just sweetened condensed milk (sua)...the streets here are PACKED with motorbikes and crossing the street=taking your life in your hands...it's ridiculous i'm pretty sure there are more motorbikes than people...you just have to make eye contact with them and start walking and hope that they will move to avoid you...we had orientation on saturday which was basically breakfast and a 2 hour walking tour then our director gave us a map and just said go for it...hence we've basically been wondering aimlessly around the city which has been fun but confusing...the infrastructure here is in pretty poor condition...streets/sidewalks have tons of pot holes and masssive number of power and phone lines (most of which are low enough to hit me in the top of the head)...you have to be really careful where you walk too b/c power lines will just be laying in the middle of the sidewalk...but enough of that...tu and i went on a "date" for valentines day date we were looking for a bar in one of the nice hotels in the city and stumbled upon a pretty nice bar called soa and had drinks (well a drink) and it was strange b/c none of the couples were talking to each other...relationships here are really different...but yeah sooo that's my long rambling update...wireless here is really unreliable so video chatting is probs not gonna be that practical...right now i'm sitting in a place kind of like a french starbucks but the internet here can go down at any time...i'll try and keep y'all updated...facebook messages containing various sorid stories are appreciated!!
Miss and <3

What I know so Far

Okay so I leave in 10 days and here's what I know so far:
There are 2 other people on my program (just 2...which gives a grand total of three)
I'm going to be working at a school/continuing education place for my service learning placement
I'm pretty sure my Vietnamese classes are going to be one on one sessions
I still only know the phrase "the boy is under the plane"
My travel time is really freaking long
I will be 12-13 hours ahead depending on daylight savings time
I have to take my malaria medicine everday
Last but not least I know what my address is but I can't say any of the words in it besides District 1 which isn't even Vietnamese so won't be helpful when I get lost