I had a Nutella and bacon sandwich for breakfast this morning…it was AMAZING. I am a very happy girl right now. I don’t know how it’s possible that I haven’t eaten that before.
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Then we stopped at a donut shop and got Joey a tic tac toe (X-O-X-O Ding Dong!) donut.
Karaoke last night was a monumental failure (as in, we spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to locate the same place we went on Wednesday), so I think we’re trying again tonight. Happy Halloween!
The week leading up to our wedding, Joey started running low on his GERD meds. He called up his doctor’s office and asked that they call the pharmacy to authorize a refill. They didn’t. In fact, for several days in a row, he was making calls back and forth between Walgreens and the doctor’s office, trying to figure out why it hadn’t been taken care of. Eventually he ran out. Finally, they authorized the refill…the day after Joey finished working at Push and was therefore dropped from his insurance.
One of the medications, Pantoprazole, makes you sick if you stop taking it for even a few days, and Joey did get really sick—it was a nightmare. What’s more, it was several hundred dollars to get the prescriptions without insurance!
He’s started running low again, so today we set out to get his prescription refilled. We had expected to need to visit a doctor, but someone suggested we try just showing up at the pharmacy instead. We did, armed with his current medications.
The pharmacist took a look at the bottles and pulled out both drugs. No doctor, no problem. The grand total? 164,000 dong ($9.37). Really?! Really.
(phonology)
In other news, we both passed the grammar and phonology test with flying colors, and received our certificates today. We’re graduates! The past four weeks have gone by incredibly fast, and it’s really hard to believe that we’re finished.
(studying!)
We’re still seriously floundering about what to do in terms of this job situation…we’ve come across several other possibilities in locations we would much prefer (the beach, the mountains), but I’m not sure how long we can put off responding to the offer in Bien Hoa without being really rude. And I’m just not positive that things will move quickly enough with the others that we’ll be able to wait.
Tonight? Karaoke!
Okay, here it goes…I wrote a big post on the top ten things I’m missing right now, but it turned out to be pretty complainy, so I deleted it. Joey and I are nearly finished with the course: today was our last observed teaching session, and tomorrow we take our grammar and phonology exam. On Friday we’ll receive our certificates! It’s gone by incredibly fast, and I can hardly believe that we’ve been here for four weeks.
Currently, our focus is on making a decision about a job. We have an offer from the school in Bien Hoa, but both feel a little bit iffy about it. Seriously, both Joey and I go back and forth on a daily basis! The most attractive part of the offer right now is the idea of knowing where we’re headed at the end of this week—and that sounds really, really good. So does moving out of our teeny tiny hotel room and into a two bedroom house.
Okay, maybe just a little bit of complaining so you know where I’m coming from… We’ve been living in our little hotel room for almost a full month now, and I am going nuts. We’re sharing the little wardrobe, and don’t have a dresser, and there’s a constant tangle of cords that frustrates me to know end. What’s more, there’s nowhere for either of us to go for some alone time (and you know how much I need time alone, right?). Limited entertainment options (one laptop, tv with a handful of channels in English, mostly playing the same couple of crappy movies again and again, one ipod), no desk or workspace… Weekends are the worst, because I really want to just chill and recup from the long week, but this claustrophobic little room means we’re stepping all over each other. Needless to say, Joey’s been putting up with an extra-large dose of crazy lately.
So I’m sure you can see how the idea of an imminent move from one tiny room into a house with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 balconies, a living room, dining room, office and kitchen (kitchen! no more restaurants!) sounds reeeaaally wonderful. Very tempting, even if we are unsure about the job/location.
The big question is this: if we don’t take the job in Bien Hoa, where do we go? A bunch of our classmates are flying to Hanoi on Sunday to look for jobs there, and I’m a little jealous. I loved Hanoi when I was here last year. I think Sarah put it well when she said there was just something sort of magical about it…
But Hanoi has plenty of difficulties, too. Although my understanding is that there’s plenty of work up there, it means moving all of our stuff by plane (we barely made the weight limit last time, and have acquired a few extra items since then), moving into ANOTHER hotel room for who knows how long (I can hardly think about it), and locating housing ourselves. And Hanoi will definitely be much more expensive than Bien Hoa (salary differences would probably make up for this eventually, but startup costs would be high).
I could go on and on. There are also a few other possibilities in the south, closer to where we are. It’s just hard to know. This is basically the argument I have with myself…oh, say, five or six times a day?
So, you know how anytime you walk into Moe’s, you’re greeted by someone calling out, “Welcome to Moe’s”? (If not, they also apparently do it on their website, so you could click the link to get the idea.) Cross Moe’s with Panera and you get Tous Les Jours, which describes itself as a “French Asian Bakery”. They started out in Korea, but have multiple locations in Vietnam, and a couple in the US as well. When you walk in, the entire staff calls out, “Tous Les Jours, Xin Chao!” or “Welcome Tous Les Jours!”
It doesn’t hurt that they have a ton of delicious baked goods, for very little money.
We found Tous Les Jours while looking for another restaurant in the area that seems to have quadrupled its prices since its recommendation in Lonely Planet. The original location we visited was a pretty decent walk from our hotel, so I wasn’t terribly worried about it becoming a major habit. The next day we realized there’s one directly on our route to school…uh oh.
This is what we got on our first visit: a little mini-pizza, calzone, red bean doughnut, and hot dog in a really-fancy-bun. Total: 42,000 dong (or $2.40). Seriously? Dangerous.
Best pig in a blanket I’ve ever had, hands down.
We’re headed to Bien Hoa early tomorrow morning to check out a job opportunity. It’s about 45 minutes (I think) outside of Saigon, a smaller industrial city that caters to the manufacturing needs of a lot of big U.S.-based companies. Wish us luck! If it works out the job has a lot of perks, but I’ve been feeling really unsure of where we should be (geographically)…more about that later, I guess. Hopefully it’ll be clear tomorrow whether it’s the right place for us or not.
We celebrated getting through our second week of class with a trip to Dam Sen Amusement Park on the outskirts of town…it was ridiculous. We were greeted by some awesome characters—some sort of fairy, I think, and a little girl and a butterfly? Not sure.
And, of course, the ubiquitous peace sign…
I’m sure I’ve been on variations of this ride a million times, but somehow this particular one was much more exciting! 
We also rode a zipline over the pond.
And then there was the rollercoaster. It was more or less along the lines of the Super Dooper Looper, except that the harness bar didn’t click into place—instead, they looped the seatbelt through the bar to hold it closed. Good—very safe. Never ever doing that again…
There were lots of other goodies, like a ridiculous haunted house, a mini-zoo (with really awful tiny cages), people fishing in the fake pond, a bust of Che Guevara…
Next weekend? The water park!
We’ve been in Saigon for a full two weeks now, and are halfway through our course. It’s gone quickly! Sorry for the lack of updates—hopefully I will get into a rhythm with this, and be blogging on a regular basis. So far, I keep starting posts and leaving them unfinished!
Anyway, we’re doing really well. We’re in class every weekday until four or so, and then head home to do homework and such. We’ve already done two 1-on-1 tutoring sessions as well as our first observed teaching practice. Coming up this week, there are three more observed teaching sessions plus some extra stuff.
We’re staying smack dab in the middle of Pham Ngo Lau, the backpacker’s district. Our alley is full of mini-hotels, restaurants, and lots of foreigners. Ultimately, we’d like to be living somewhere that isn’t quite so filled with foreigners, but for now it’s incredibly convenient. We’re about a ten minute walk from school, and just about anything else we could need.
We eat lunch almost every day at Ben Thanh Market, which is super close to school and very cheap. Although there are a ton of food vendors there, we found our favorite on our first try: they make strictly vegetarian food, and some amazing imitation meat. I say that as a non-vegetarian, so you know it’s good. :)
For 15,000 dong (about $0.85), you get a heaping plate of six or seven different types of fake meat and some sort of green vegetable on top of steamed rice. It’s delicious. Honestly, the first day we ate there, I was really afraid there had been some sort of misunderstanding and Joey was eating real meat (which would most likely make him seriously sick). Even the texture is incredibly convincing!
Lunch is a no-brainer, but we’re both pretty tired of going out for dinner every night. It’s delicious, and very cheap, but it get’s really old having to make a decision about where to go every night, much less what to order—the options are endless! I’m anxious to be finished with the course, get a job and move into something more permanent…with a kitchen.
I’m starting to get through all of my little unfinished posts, so look for more updates soon! Promise…
There was an incident on the 2007 Queens Guatemala Mission Trip involving a batch of homemade papas fritas. Our host mom, Avilia, made us an enormous pile of papas fritas—almost a mountain, really. They were incredible—crunchy and delicious with lots of salt. We eagerly whittled down the pile until there was barely anything left, thinking that it was meant to be dinner. We were stuffed and happy.
It wasn’t long after the pile of papas fritas dwindled that we realized there may have been a misunderstanding. Avilia began to bring more food to the table: rice, beans, tortillas negras, etc. We were a bit horrified: there was simply no way to communicate that we were full without hurting her feelings, but we could barely move! I can still remember how difficult every single bite was. Even still, Avilia took our small appetites to be a reflection on her cooking--it was so difficult to explain in our broken Spanish that the meal she served us was delicious, but we were full!
Two years and thirteen time zones away from that homestay in Xela, I’m writing to you with a stomach full of homemade banh xeo. And I mean full.
When Joey and I left to get dinner tonight, the owners of the guesthouse we’re staying in were on the stoop cooking dinner. They offered me some, promising to keep a plate for when we returned. I’m not sure what I was thinking—we ate dinner (albeit a small dinner) at a vegetarian place down the street, and even stopped for cookies at a little bakery on the way back.
By the time we arrived home, I was comfortably full. Our hosts* were still cooking, and promptly served Joey and I a plate of banh xeo (Vietnamese pancake with seafood, meat, etc.)—complete with an A&W! It looked a little bit like this:
They intended for Joey and me to share it, but it was full of all sorts of meat and seafood, so he had to opt out. I was on my own. It was delicious, and I surprised myself at how much I could eat! Then she offered me a second….
I spent one long moment wracking my brain, trying to remember if an offer for more could be politely refused in Vietnamese culture without offending one’s host. I was pretty sure I needed to accept. And so I did.
Needless to say, I’m more or less a worthless blob for the next hour or two—it’s good, really, because I have a ton of catching up to do for this blog. We’ve been in Saigon for nearly four days now, and I have a lot to share…not to mention Phu Quoc! I promise to post a recap within the next few days, as soon as I’m able to sort through our pictures. Between some unforeseen changes to our plans on arrival in Saigon to our TEFL course starting yesterday, we’ve been busy! But we’re doing well and enjoying the fun of learning a new city.
More to come!
*I should specify here that when I talk about the guesthouse we’re staying in, it’s a mini-hotel rather than a homestay. We’re paying for our accommodations, and so our hosts certainly have no obligation to share their dinner with us—they’re just generous and thoughtful!
