Journey to 'Nam

It only seems right to start this blog with the reactions I have gotten after telling people that I am leaving Long Island for four weeks to travel to Vietnam to teach English.  A lot of people think I am crazy, but I feel this is one of the greatest opportunities I have earned in my life.  

I thought I would update this blog most days but that clearly hasn’t happened- I don’t really enjoy writing.  So this entry will probably be a bunch of random thoughts all mixed together- see if you can follow my brain.  I will try to post more regularly.

First I’d like to share the many positive responses I got when I first told family , friends, and many strangers that I was going to Vietnam for the summer.

“ You’re going to be blown up by a land mine.” (My dad’s initial reaction)

“Oh so you’re going to ‘Nam?” (My friends' initial reaction)

“Why would you want to go there?”

“Haha hey guys this girl is going to Vietnam for the summer.” (The camera salesman to the rest of the store when I wanted to buy a new camera for the trip.)

“Why wouldn’t you just go to Europe or Australia or something?”

“Ever seen that show ‘Captured Abroad’?

So to answer the question I get most often- WHY?  I am in Vietnam because I was provided an amazing opportunity to travel to Ho Chi Minh City to teach English in a Summer Fun Program.  The program is almost like summer recreation programs in New York but the students do a lot more learning.  I applied and interviewed for this program through school and everything (room, flight, and weekend excursions) is provided at a very low cost to me!  I am in Vietnam to learn and experience a new culture and so far everything had been amazing. 

Now for some advice that I received in the week before leaving:

            “Don’t eat ANYTHING”

“Don’t get married to small little Vietnamese man- you don’t know what goes on over there”

“Look both ways before you cross the street”

“Better yet you probably shouldn’t cross the street”

“Don’t bring home anything that you don’t want”

Clearly everyone was afraid of me falling in love while crossing and street and chowing down on some dog skewers.  I actually saw imitation dog meet on a menu, but no real dog yet.

Just in case anyone wondered what goes through someone’s mind on a 16 hour flight I took notes on my iPhone:

-       Get on plane

-       Close my eyes and doze off during take off (weird)

-       Woke up to my ears popping

-       Pick off half of my nail polish (yes I did just get them done yesterday)

-       Start a movie- extremely loud and incredibly close (is that the name?)

-       Eat brunch- chicken and rice (mystery meat) grapes and pineapple and a banana walnut muffin

-       Keep watching movie

-       Movie over it was good!

-       Put iPod on and try and sleep- feels like you slept for hours but I fell asleep and woke up to the same Dave Matthews song (Boyd Tinsley on the violin woke me up)

-       Eat a sleeve of mentos while thinking about Grandma Byrne

-       Realize I can’t eat mentos without thinking of Grandma Byrne

-       Give up on trying to sleep and start another movie- We Bought a Zoo

-       Eat chocolate covered pomegranates

-       Started crying for the third time during the movie

-       Think about how I wouldn’t have chosen this movie if I knew it was going to be sad.

-       “sometimes all you need is 20 secs of insane courage and I’m telling you…”

-       Planes are cold

-       Wahooo halfway through flight

-       Onto third movie – 21 jump street

-       Wow- didn’t think this movie was going to be so stupid

-       Ate dinner beef and potatoes with bread and ice cream

-       I really love ice cream

-       Less than six hours left

-       Should of brought my game boy

-       Read a chapter of my book

-       Very sleepy

-       About to fall asleep and the lady next to me shakes me to go to the bathroom…rude

-       Just discovered how to put the chair back

-       Wouldn’t call it sleeping but I wouldn’t call it awake either

-       Starting fourth movie- Crazy Stupid Love

-       3 hours to go

-       How much more is first class?

-       STRUGGLING

The above was word for word from the note on my iPhone.  Yes I may have been delirious.  The best thing happened to me for my second flight- I got upgraded to business class.  My seat laid down to a bed and I sleep from the moment I got on the plane to the moment we prepared for landing- it was like 1-3am New York time.  I didn’t even eat my red snapper that was served in business class, which both looked and smelt amazing.  I got through customs quickly and I was very happy because customs always makes me nervous for some reason.  There were two people from SEAMEO (the school I am working at in Vietnam) there to pick us up and we drove back to the school I was shown my room and then we went out to dinner.  Then it was off to bed and I slept very good straight through the night- I can’t say the same for all of the nights since then.

My room is very basic: a bed, a bathroom, a tv, AC, a mini-fridge, and a water cooler (best thing). I live with two other girls Tara (my roommate), and Helen (my suitemate).  Dennis and Jason complete our crew and they live down the hall in the other guesthouse.  We live on the 5^th floor  (yes it’s a walkup) and teach on the third, which is very convenient in the mornings.  The students are the cutest and I am having an amazing time teaching- more on that later!

Congratulations if you read this entire thing! Hopefully my next post will be shorter, more interesting, with less of my random thoughts, and  with more pictures =).