Mưa

I had the opportunity to spend a month in Viet Nam this summer. It was the greatest summer of my life! Vietnam is such a fantastic culture to get into. I spent most of my time in Ho Chi Minh City. That city essentially became my home away from home. I have such a long list of positive memories; these are my favorites:

- Phở
- Public Transportation.
- Going to sleep at 4 and waking up at 9.
- Fitting an emasculating helmet over my curls and riding around on an emasculating motorbike behind a girl who threatened me constantly... with emasculating castration.
- Blowing all my cash at the Casbah.
- Covering taxi fare for, or having my taxi fare covered by, my best friends.
- Learning Vietnamese the hard way (Immersion) and the easy way (by parroting funny-sounding phrases) at the same time
- Leaving an American passport in a Vietnamese hotel room and having them drive it to us
- Meeting a German, a handful of French, a handful of Spaniards, a Bosnian, and 4 Americans without being in Germany, France, Spain, Bosnia, or America.
- The bat-shit crazy cleaning lady at the Casbah
- Not traveling to the North because of a storm. Or something.
- The hotel room that smelled like cancer
- Going to that same hotel's pool in the middle of the night, and realizing the next morning that each of us was right in front of the security camera
- Syntactically referring to currency as "Thou".
- Seeing the Vietnam war, finally through the eyes of Vietnam
- Freaking out Dylan by repeating all the Vietnamese words he spits out
- Hearing the Cathedral bells while at the Casbah
- Hearing the words "Of course we fuck up each other's lives. Why else do you think we're friends?"
- Watching Kim get red as a bloody lobster from the sun
- Explaining the mysterious hair found on the bed...
- "Một, hai, ba... dzô!"
- Going to a party for the World Cup championship almost straight away from touching down at the airport.
- While on the return trip, getting stuck in Japan for 12 hours and Hawai'i for 9 hours. Not complaining about either.
- "Hi, I'm Kristin. Do you have any fetishes?"
- "Hey, give me your driver's license." 
... Why? 
"Just do it. We need an ID to give to this lady so we can rent bikes."
"..."
- Realizing the only context I can enjoy pop music is when I'm surrounded by Asian people who love it so much more than I do.
- Instant noodles: Breakfast of champions!
- Waking up to the sound of car horns and Abba's "The Winner Takes it All"... every single morning. <3
- Constantly playing up the danger of being sold to the Shanghai slave trade
- "What is this called? What does that mean? How do I pronounce this?" 
- Being served by waitresses that were quite obviously eight years old... At least, to my eyes.
- Observing locals transport open trayfulls of food at a time... by motorbike.
- Dragon fruit. Enough said.
- Get up, shower, go outside, sweat, sweat some more, sleep, get up, realize how useless it is to shower, shower anyway, go outside...
- Getting pissed on by a merry-go-round. Multiple times.
- Getting my foot torn open by that same merry-go-round.
- 'Surprising' Fishy that I could stay an extra week, and having the surprise go slightly sour. Worth it anyway.
- Engrish! Engrish everywhere!!!
- Meeting the loveliest people in Vietnamese clubs.
- Eating fruit that is, quite seriously, outlawed in America for numerous reasons.
- The horror (and amusement) offered by the Bến Thành market
- Finding ancient-looking, Sino-Vietnamese buildings which are anachronisms compared to the modernistic apartments
- Seeing the genuine anger on my friends' faces when viewing VinCom's expansion plans
- Truc threatening to cut off (and fry) my "cu".
- Drinking at least one cà phê sữa đá a day.
- Vietnamese traffic: Survival of the fittest.
- Almost getting stuck in the Vietnamese airport because I don't know the address I'm staying at, and taking an address from a lovely young American couple on their honeymoon and jotting it down roughly.
- Making Midsummer 2010 the best time of my life.