Theme for Day 1 in Vietnam: Know your Limits

I landed in Ho Chi Minh City sometime last night. After spending an hour or so at the visa office and figuring out currency and exchange rates and all that, I caught a cab to the hostel where I’m staying. Lucky for me (and it was luck) this hostel is right where I need it to be. It’s right downtown, and within walking distance of some of the interviews I have set up for tomorrow. Overall, the journey here was pretty flawless. There was a lot that could have gone wrong, and it all went just right.

This hostel is super cute. Without me even asking, they gave me a little map of the city, and highlighted all the places I should go “because they’re very interesting,” and gave me a list of all the things that come along with this room (wifi, air con, hot water, and laundry . . . am I in heaven?) The laundry is actually reason #1 I decided to stay at this place. First things first. I also figured out this morning that they have free delicious breakfast. Christmas comes twice a year.

I’ve lived in new places before, but not quite like this. I’ve always had some kind of group that I either came with or met upon arrival. Most times I’ve had some kind of language skills to help me along. This kind of thing. So I decided to set my expectations pretty low for today in terms of what I would get done. Below is the list I made, in all its glory:

1. Phone home and let them know you’re alive
2. Stay alive (stay hydrated, keep food in the belly, don’t wander off the map in your hand, and don’t get hit by a motorbike)
3. Take a shower – this needs to be done at least every 36 hours, and it’s been 60 . . . I think.
4. Do laundry
5. Get the wrinkles out of your one pair of nice pants for your interviews tomorrow
6. Buy an adapter
7. Figure out where the heck you’re going tomorrow

I’ll have you know that it’s mid-day now and I’ve accomplished everything on the list. Well, except #7. I’m about halfway there on that.

So there’s no Wal-Mart in Ho Chi Minh City. There’s not even a 7-11 that I’ve seen (this one actually did surprise me), so getting the iron and the adapter was no easy task.

I walked down to Ben Thanh Market, which seems to be the biggest market in town, having heard that “if they don’t have it, you don’t need it.” This sounded perfect to me, since I do, in fact, need these things. However, this is mostly only true if what you need is clothing, or jewelry, or hats, or coffee, or food. Not so much adapters and irons.

Most of you know I hate shopping, especially when it’s in something that feels like a maze. I get claustrophobic. Note to all vendors everywhere: when trying to sell something to me, grabbing my arm and not letting go ain’t the way to do it. Swarming me is also not a good strategy. And if what you’re selling is jewelry or hats or shirts or fans or anything beaded, forget about it. Just tell me where the adapters and irons are.

But, having checked these things off my list, I must say I’m quite intrigued by this little city. They have tons of cute little bustling alleys, more bicycles and motorbikes than cars, good good food and apparently never any shortage of places to go and things to do. I think I’m gonna like it here.

And there is so much to be learned.

A final slideshow of Costa Rica odds and ends . . .

Final dinners, impromptu graduation parties, all that jazz.

One Canadian, one American, one Brit (and then another), and one South African do Montezuma . . .

At the end of our course, Jamie, Clem, Natalie and I took a bus to a ferry to another bus on an all day trip to Montezuma.

While there, we hiked to a waterfall we couldn’t photograph b/c the only camera we took on the trek died on the journey.  But, as they say, remember this in your head.

At the waterfall we met 3 boys and a girl, the girl so gorgeous that even the straight girls among us only wanted to talk to her.

We drank rum on a rock.

We each drank a $6 cocktail on our last night even though we only had about $30 cash between us and no ATM.

Natalie and Clem tried their hand at modeling in one of our backyard hammocks

On our way back, we met a kid from Seattle who caused us stress with such difficult questions as:

Where are you from? (SA, US, Canada, England, CR, Portugal, or Peru, depending on who you’re asking and what you mean)      How long have you been traveling? (4 days? 1 month? 4 years? what do you mean?!)      Are you going home now? (again, it’s that “home” thing)     Note to readers: don’t ask these questions if you run into a group of traveling TEFL teachers or any other breed of global nomad, it will only cause stress for everyone involved, and make you feel that you are being laughed at.

We met up again with one of the three aforementioned boys, Alex, who lent us cash to complete our trip back to San Jose. After greeting him with a chorus of “where’s the girl, we want the girl,” we warmed up to the boy as well.

By hook or by crook, Natalie and Clem are going to be stars. Modeling didn’t work out so well, so they tried Karaoke on the ferry.  As some of you know, they are very good at Karaoke.

On the bus Alex and Natalie spent 2 hours drawing up the family tree of all fruits and vegetables (this is why I love my CR traveling companions).

Once back, the homeless ones (all but one of us) took up shelter in Hostel Natalie and ate avocado quesadillas before we all parted ways the next day.

Below are a few more photos:

A coupla tributes to my CR peeps . . .

This is Owen – former NY police officer, scuba diver extraordinaire, action movie star, and pretty stinkin’ good English teacher. Here he’s telling a story from a dive where he was surrounded by sharks. Shark bellies on his head, our Owen had a little freak out, as would we all.

My roommie Andy. What’s there to be said? I set his alarm every morning, he makes sure my stuff doesn’t get lost. We’re such a team. Also, he’s every bit as enthralled by shark stories as I am, as seen below.

Two NY law enforcement guys find peace and love in Costa Rica. How precious.

Our lovely, priceless TEFL instructor, Natalie. From South Africa, has lived in Korea, Argentina, Peru, Costa Rica . . . what am I missing? This is a brilliant woman of endless energy.

Jamie – fabulous teacher, expert Canadian on American politics, key travel buddy, bookworm and unsuspecting birthday boy.

Entze – chef, linguist, bakery buddy, and hopefully travel buddy on the other side of the world?!

And we´ll see it!

Hey friends,

Just checking in, because I know I´ve been away for a while. We finished up with our course last Tuesday, at which point we spent a solid day and night farewelling and then I went to Montezuma with a couple of classmates and our teach. We got back last night, and I´m spending the day today preparing for my flight tonight and my life upon arrival in Vietnam. It took a while for intimidation at the prospect to really hit me, but I´m slightly nervous at the moment. It´s gonna be a whole new world. At the bottom of it I couldn´t be more excited.

These last couple of weeks have revealed a lot to me that I will miss about this place and this group. It seems impossible that I´ve only been here for a month. There´s so much that I want to share with you, but it will take me another couple of days (I leave here tonight and don´t arrive in Vietnam until Tuesday night, yikes).

The good news is I do have some idea of where I will be going when I get to Vietnam. I have three job interviews set up, and expect it to be pretty easy to find other teachers when I get there. So, hoorah.

Anyway, just wanted to send a little love. I miss you lots, and promise to be in better touch soon. Please let me know how you´re doing, a’ight?

Katie

G’ma and G’pa

I was just looking through some of John and Ansley’s family photos, and I just couldn’t resist. I’m sure you’ll agree that our grandparents are simply the cutest things that have ever happened. Credit: John and Ansley. Tie to Costa Rica? None, except that I wish they were here.

I just want to say that . . .

I just saw the Costa Rican National Youth Orchestra for $4.

In a fancy theatre.

That is redonkulous.

Shakira and ESL

We’ve just come through a rather gruelling week of practical teaching and paper writing, so this morning we were all a bit slap happy. At one point, we brought some of the “friendlies” in to practice demonstrating and eliciting some words . . . now that we’ve all “arrived” at being almost real teachers. At one point, our teacher Natalie was trying to get them to understand the word “epitome” (mind you, these are beginning/intermediate English students). Below is a direct transcript of what happened:

Natalie: Who is the perfect woman?

Carlos: Shakira

Natalie: Why is she the perfect woman?

Carlos: her eyes

Natalie: What else?

Carlos: her hair

Natalie: What else?

Carlos: her hips don’t lie

Independence Day

Yesterday, September 15, was Costa Rica’s Independence Day. Turns out, it’s a shared Independence Day for 5 Central American countries – celebrating their collective independence from Spain in 1821. As you might expect, there were lots of celebrations and parades, as most people had the day off. We still had school, but I snuck out for a bit to see this parade that was happening just down the block.

Visit with Kendal!

Sunday night I had dinner with my lovely friend Kendal from Davidson and her boyfriend Carlos. She’s been working with Habitat in El Salvador for two years. Good, good people.

Just like the good ole days

With the man, Carlos