Hanoi, Vietnam

We made it safely to Hanoi after the longest day of travel ever. So miserable. We were picked up from the airport by Thu, a Volunteer Peace Vietnam (VPV) employee. She took us back to the Peace House which is the program's office space/housing for the majority of volunteers. We then ate lunch and went to sleep for the rest of the day and night, in our separate rooms. Yup, separate rooms. We are only staying at the Peace House until Wednesday, when we move to the Thuy An center about 50 km West of Hanoi. Initially we were told it was an orphanage for disabled children, but now we think it is a rehabilitation clinic where children live full time, although they are not orphans. But then someone else said it was sort of an orphanage. So I dunno, there will be kids there, some/most/all (?) have disabilities of some sort.

On our second day at the Peace House they were filming a little music video to remember the house by. They are moving to a different location closer to the city center sometime this month. It was a fun way to get to know the staff and volunteers. I'll post the video when it becomes available. I have a starring role and even dance in it, so... get ready?

After we filmed the video we walked up the road to a little store to have a beer with everyone. There are tons of stores that are more just road side shacks. And everyone sits on tiny children's chairs? I'll take a picture, it's pretty hilarious. But the beers are 10,000 dong which is actually only 50 cents USD.

After dinner a group of us took a cab to the Old Quarter to go to The Hair of the Dog for drinks. The drive there was terrifying. The informational packet said the only real rule of the road is "don't hit anything" and that instead of using their breaks, they use their horns. Not an exaggeration. There are two-way streets with lines down the center like everywhere else but everyone drives all over the place, totally disregarding the delineation. And there are probably 20 scooters for every car on the road at any given time. They just all swerve around each other, cut each other off, honk, flash their lights. But everyone is really calm about it, no one gets mad or yells or even looks remotely stressed out. And shockingly enough, there aren't many accidents.

At the bar we bought a bucket of alcohol (like, a small bucket full of a vodka and red bull) for 10 USD and it was buy one get one free. So cheap! Somehow we managed to finish them between the 10 of us. But some people in the bar had an entire bucket to themselves.

The bars close at midnight here so we took a cab back pretty early. The driver missed our exit on the free way so he drove IN REVERSE over the next on-ramp for probably 15 minutes. It was hilarious/terrifying.

The red bull combined with the time difference kept me awake until 5am, so I'm pretty exhausted today. We are going out again tonight then we have a city tour tomorrow morning. Sunday is a free day, we have language lessons on Monday and Tuesday then finally move out to the Thuy An center to start work on Wednesday!

Oh and the food! They provide three meals ever day and its all really tasty. Lots of rice, veggies and fish sauce. I can wait to try eating at some of the little street-side shacks/restaurants.

(No pictures right now. Also I don't have time to read back over this before posting so I'm sure there are a million mistakes sorry)