Monthly Archives: March 2013

~I have a full on addiction to coffee- I have had for a long time. It is SO hard to find a good cup of coffee anywhere, but whenever I do, I slam as much as I can. The servers are shocked that I don’t use sugar or milk- I just want strong black coffee! We also have been loving bananas. People offer the kids bananas as a gift or we get them from street vendors for a buck. Oreos are a special treat – every couple of weeks, we’ll buy a roll of them. We divide them equally then Emerson says, “we eat them like pigs!”
~We went to a store to buy some lotion. They only sold whitening lotions. What?! I want to hold on to my tan for as long as possible- here, they think that white skin is much more beautiful. Speaking of what people find attractive- I forgot what city we were in but someone told me that the women there bind their chests with a heavy material because flat chested women are considered more desirable. Plastic surgeons would be bummin’ there!
~When we go anywhere in a car, Jesse sits up front and the rest of us sit in the back. The other day, Em said, “I want to lay down. Where am I suppose to lay?” Aye-yi-yi!
~If you’ve seen any pictures where you think I am wearing a fanny pack- I am not! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) But I prefer to call it my Side Hipster.
~Lots of Vietnamese women love high heels. It’s funny how some countries are all into being barefoot, then the next country over is into fancy footwear.
~When we were on a bus trip to Hue, the bus pulled over and some drunkard on a motorcycle wanted to fight the guy in charge of our bus. The bus was trying to move forward so the guy threw his motorcycle in front of the bus, then he started throwing punches. Our guy grabbed the guy by the back of his collar and threw him. Maddux was sleeping in the front seat next to the driver. He woke up and was like ‘what is going on?!’ I looked around for a weapon in case the guy was going to try and get on the bus. I found a long metal pipe and was ready to fight him off! Everyone on the bus was standing up and watching. It really got our adrenaline going and we all perked up real fast. Finally, a woman got off the bus and started talking to the guy trying to calm him down. The guy in charge of our bus gets on the bus, doors wide open and tells the driver to go. He then sits down and starts showing Lennon a little video game he has on his flip phone. We are just laughing and shaking our heads. Apparently this must be business as usual…
~Sometimes the people in Vietnam have loose boundaries. They’ll grab Lennon and try to kiss him or they touch us or grab our shirts to get our attention. Last week, we walked through Haiphong where every single person was saying hello and touching us. I told the kids to say hello but keep walking. I was so tired, but kept saying hi to everyone. I turned a corner and said hello to a mannequin outside of a store. You know you are exhausted when you’re saying hello to mannequins whose wigs are on backwards.