I shouldn't reveal the devil.

We began learning some Vietnamese on our third day in HCMC, Monday. After a week of 4 hours of Vietnamese a day, we can now introduce ourselves, say where we're from, and say "I like," "I want," "I want to buy," "give me," and ask for directions. Understanding the directions is a bit trickier, as we learned when we took to the streets to practice on unsuspecting strangers. We were trying to get to a market about 3 blocks directly down the street from us, yet everyone we asked told us different things, drew us maps, and spoke Vietnamese so quickly. We eventually got there, though. When we got there, we bargained (not bartered, as I like to say) for lower prices on things. We know numbers and how to say "too expensive," "lower the price," and "no." That's really all you need. Kathy was the master from our class at actually trying to speak. We started trying to haggle for some bracelets at one shop, and she developed a crowd of people who tried to advise her on pronunciation and vocabulary. Of course, they were doing it all in Vietnamese, but it kind of worked. Unfortunately that was in a fixed price store, so we walked away with nothing. Kathy tried again at another store, where she didn't really want to buy anything, but she asked how much a dress was, and then offered half the price. She didn't expect the shopkeeper to say yes, but eventually she did, so Kathy is now the proud owner of a dress made for a very tiny Vietnamese woman. Fortunately Kathy is Vietnamese-sized, so it works out.

Nights in HCMC, we kept hanging out and trying new fruits. They have a lot of jack fruits, which taste "like a banana, and a starburst, but not a banana starburst." Kathy and I put that one together. It is so true. I dare you to taste one, and you will understand completely.

Katie plays guitar really well and sings, so we did some in-house karaoke. We also exchanged quality YouTube videos like, "How to rock a mohawk without chopping off your hair." We talked about our families, and about mutual friends. Kathy made the bold statement, "I always wanted a friend." I think we can hook her up while we're here. We also almost convinced Joey, who plays in the marching band, to reveal the student/students who act as the Blue Devil mascot during basketball, football, soccer, etc. games, but he stopped short.

Double Black Diamond

By far the craziest thing we've done here so far is cross the streets. Picture a high-speed 6-lane highway filled with motorbikes and cars. Then think about stepping off the sidewalk onto that highway and walking across without looking. It's kind of fun once you get the hang of it, until you almost get run over by a dump truck that won't stop.

These motorbikes especially are insane. They're all over the streets. There are cars, too, but far more bikes. I've seen a few with four people on them. I'm not sure how, but I guess they just squeeze each other really tightly and hope they don't fall off. There are also bikes with huge piles of stuff on them, or big crates, or anything you can think of. Yesterday we saw someone with a huge bunch of pink balloons. He couldn't even see around them.

Sunday morning we visited the Presidential Palace, which you can just roam around now, since no president has lived there since the South surrendered in 1975. A lot of the decor looks like it's straight out of the 70s. There's a gambling room with courduroy chairs and yellow carpets. Classic. We almost lost Xuan there, but eventually found her wandering around more slowly through different rooms. The Palace was the historic spot where we first got asked to have our pictures taken with Asian tourists! They were so thrilled to see us. They ran up to Kathy and me and pointed excitedly at their camera. They seemed a little surprised, but really happy, when I wanted a picture on my camera with them, too.

We went to this huge mall that is super upscale and maybe 6 floors tall. It has really nice stores that very few people in Vietnam would be able to afford. Few Americans could afford the high-end stores, with 24K gold iPod covers, etc. I just got the 14K one. (jokes) The one thing we did buy there was food. Mm so good. We got hot pot, where you get a bunch of food and cook it in broth on your table. They brought us all kinds of seafood and meat and veggies and then basically cooked it and served it to us because we had no idea what to do. A little embarrassing, but they seemed entertained, and we were well fed. The weirdest thing I ate there was clam. It tastes good, but it took me a good few minutes to actaully swallow it.

Eyeballs & Flesh

Saturday night, Katie fed us mangosteen, rambutan, and dragon eyes (different tropical fruits). They taste incredible, but they look kind of gross. We also discussed the potential perils associated with Alyce's speed-walking problem. I have never seen a person walk so fast in my life. I have no idea where it comes from, but absolutely no one can keep up with her. She also has a cute tendency to smile all the time, including when she talks about all of the things that could go wrong on this trip. Example: "We've never had someone step on an unexploded mine. Just don't go wandering into the jungle."

In the spirit of group bonding, we checked out some pictures of Juan-Pablo's engineering club and their race car. I admired the one girl in the photo. Juan-P: "But we didn't have any girls in our group..." I forgot he has long hair. Woops.

Since when do cockroaches fly?!

The first thing Lydia said to me Saturday morning was, "Oh, by the way, there's a cockroach in our bathroom." Turned out that wasn't the only bug sharing our room. I spotted another cockroach in a shopping bag I had in my carry-on. I reacted like any rational person would (threw the bag in the air so fast it hit the ceiling), and calmly removed the intruder (slowly dragged the bag outside the room with my foot while Lydia video-taped. We left the bag in the hall, near someone else's room). We found a few more cockroaches in our shower in the afternoon. Juan-Pablo has killed a few of them so far, and Joey killed half of one last night.

Alyce, our program director, gave us a tour of the city Saturday morning, and we stopped to have phở bò (fuh baw) for breakfast. It's a big bowl of rice noodles in broth with scallions, bean sprouts, and beef.  It's delicious, and costs about $1.50.

During our tour, a policeman started following us for a block or so. His jacket said "Tourist Security" on it, but we're not too clear if that means they're protecting us from Vietnamese or Vietnamese from us.

We made our way to Chợ Bến Thành, which is an indoor market with everything imaginable, from pig tongues to suitcases. We had been in there for all of a minute when Devyn starts yelling "Alyce, wait!" Despite about an hour of Alyce's wandering around the market, we didn't find Xuan and Logan again until we got back to the guest house. While we were waiting for Alyce to find them, we ordered delicious smoothies with mysterious tropical fruits in them. Alyce's friend also met us there to interview us about why we came to Vietnam. Granted when the article comes out, we won't be able to read any of it, but it was fun talking with her.

Welcome to Việt Nam

After more than 30 hours traveling, we got to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) late Friday. It was 12:30 am, and there were still people chilling on the streets, squatting on tiny chairs on the sidewalks near street vendors. I was really confused by all the people lying on their motorbikes on the sidewalk.

The adventures began immediately when we got to the guest house. I was halfway through my shower when the lights shut off. I can't believe such a large city has casual rolling blackouts, but that's what happened. Should be an interesting trip.