Thursday, June 13, 2013

Life and Smoothies

Guess it's time for another update as I sit in a local coffee shop waiting for Heather to get off work. Stacy and I choose to sit here because it has comfy chairs, free wifi, and air conditioning! Life here in Vietnam continues to be awesome and amazing. I guess I've only been on this journey for ten days now, but it already feels like a lifetime has gone by, while at the same time, no time at all. I felt my first low this morning as I missed home just a bit and my community of friends and support, but that was also a time of waiting at home for Heather to be done with her meeting so we could get lunch. Often times, those feelings really only surface when I sit idle. I'm much better now. Met some new people today at lunch as we met with some of Heather's church friends so they could plan youth. That was fun. They just got a new intern fresh out of high school and he was very energetic about everything. People with that characteristic are such a blessing to me because they spur energy within me and stir my excitement about life. After our meal, we ordered this blended coffee drink and oh my goodness, it was ten times better than anything I've ever had from Starbucks!!! So good! Tonight after Heather gets off work, we move into a different house to house sit for her friends. It is air conditioned and very nice according to Heather so that should be a nice change. Although, we did just get new fans at Heather's house which helped a great deal with the heat! I guess maybe I should back up a few days and share. Tuesday we flew back from the island to Ho Chi Minh. We grabbed some lunch at Texas Chicken which was delicious! From there Stacy and I went to the coffee shop while Heather went to work. After work, we met up with a lot of Heather and her roommate's friends and went for froyo!! That was tons of fun! It was great meeting some new people and we even played a couple of rounds of Uno! For old-school YAMs, we played a variation of Dirty Uno! :o) After that some of us went for a walk to check out some stores, grab dinner, and smoothies. You know you're living a good life when you end just about every night with a smoothie for $1! Things are pretty cheap here. I can usually eat for less than $5 a meal. That has been very interesting to me, to see how cheap things are and how people earn money. Yesterday, I finally experienced rainy season while on the back of a motorbike. Yup, I got just a little wet. Ok, I got soaked from head to toe. Water was literally dripping off of me when I entered a new coffee shop to meet Heather and Stacy. That was fun. After the rain lessened to a sprinkle Stacy and I headed out on the town on our own. We hit up multiple shops checking out deals and bargaining. I'm not very good at that but Stacy does a great job at it! We met a white Buddhist monk and stopped to talk a while with him. He had a lot to say and was actually very engaging. At points I feel like he may have been looking to debate us in our beliefs, but it never got to that point. We didn't claim to know more than we knew and kept it simple by sharing from only our experiences. We eventually journeyed to the Notre Dame Cathedral and old Post Office which actually still functions as a post office. It was very fancy and looked more like it should be a train station. We made our way back to the coffee shop Sozo to wait for Heather to get off work. I bet you can guess how we ended the night. Yup, dinner and a smoothie! I have been pretty exhausted by the time we get home at nights. I mean, my head is literally bobbing as I keep nodding off to sleep. I've never experienced that kind of exhaustion multiple days before. I've been the first to bed and asleep the last several days just because I can't help it! Thinking I may need to take a sleeping pill to sleep soundly through the night to help with that. Stacy leaves tomorrow, but other than that I have no idea what's to come. Looking forward to building some relationships with others and experience a bit more than waiting around in coffee shops! I think that about covers life so far. I'll leave you with a few pictures I took yesterday and Tuesday! Also, I'm including the link to my Facebook album for those of you without Facebook accounts: Vietnam Pictures.

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