Goodbye Vietnam, Hello My New Home

It's 4am here. I've been up since 3am because I had a skype date with my parents, Jill, Charles and the triplets. Oh how I miss them! It probably sounds crazy to get up that early, but we're getting on a jet-plane (actually, it's probably going to be more like a puddle-jumper) and getting outta Vietnam.  The day of departure has arrived. The much-anticipated arrival is almost here. I'm super excited, somewhat exhausted and just looking forward to meeting our team leaders, seeing the country and starting language learning. Being in a place for over 3 weeks and speaking like zero language has been really frustrating, and it's something I'm definitely not used to. But, even though I'm excited to be heading out, there have been many good times here in Vietnam and I've made some really awesome friends.

Here are some of the fun things we've done this week...

We went to the zoo that is nearby - the one we run in - and they have this interesting "activity" that you can do on the lake. At Lake Eola in Orlando they have swans you can ride in, and they have those here too, but for the more extreme experience, you can go in this huge hamster-ball thing and float around in the lake that way. We'd heard about it and seen pictures, so two of us decided to give it a whirl.

Here's me getting in

 Christa getting in too...the ball is not inflated til you get in so it's really hard to squeeze in

Quite snug 

Walking out to the lake. I really did feel like a hamster for all of 10 minutes. Those poor little creatures;)

The guy totally didn't wait for us to walk into the lake...he just gave us a big push and we rolled right in! As you can see, it's a little difficult to balance. Christa and I were trying to stand up at the same time here.

But we eventually gave up. What you can't see is the incredible amount of sweat pouring down our faces...it was like an oven in there! But, a fun experience nonetheless.

The next day, since it was raining (for the 3rd day in a row), we scratched our plans to go to the Botanical Gardens and opted for a massage instead. Beka, who is teaching in Vietnam, hooked us up with the place.

 

Here she is modeling the "pajamas" we had to put on. They were definitely not American size!

 

We had to do a little miss-matching because the sizes were a little off for us.

Here we are all dressed and ready for a massage. It was supposed to be a foot massage, but it ended up being basically a full body massage - all for about $7! Not a bad deal. And it was a great way to unwind after a week of lesson planning, observing and teaching!

Well, I better jet now. Leaving in T-minus 20 minutes and still need to finish packing. Next time I post I'll be in-country! :)