Reunited.

"I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone."

Extrememly Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

A Toast to Tomorrow

tomorrow.

tomorrow.

tomorrow.

I mentioned that I might say something about my recent thoughts about expectations. Lets be honest, before the impending transition we all know I have a lot of them. The rather unfortunate thing is that most of them are vague and idealist and well...completely undefinable. At this point in time I know that I cannot do that entire thought process justice, but what I can do is share this awesome article. And I can highlight a quote for you:

"In so many ways, for so many of us privileged enough to make the most of our sparkly new opportunities, those years (20's) offer an exuberantly selfish scope for our ambitions, the chance to mold careers, social circles, homes and selves from the still-gloopy clay of late adolescence. But that doesn't mean that the stretches of time in which we work to make ourselves into who we'd like to be aren't also dispiriting and terrifying and frequently kind of boring."

And on that note, let's raise our glasses and toast together:

To expectations, To change, To sparkly idealism, To home. chúc sức khoẻ!

See you Thursday, dear mother land... :)

Before You Go...

There are some important things you must do before leaving Vietnam:

Contribute to society by making Uncle Ho prettier.

Hang out on a xe may and just happen to have a camera handy while you do it.

Go to Twilight and be those girls; laugh A LOT.

Go to lunch with a wonderful co-worker.

Force people to look like they like you in pictures, your 12-year-old host brother and Co Hue are good examples

Get Vang to look at the camera in a picture! This is harder than you might think.

And just enjoy your last days on the other side of the world!

A Packing Lesson

Yesterday I began the official process of packing. My family left for a vacation and will not be back before I leave, so we said our final farewells and left it with a promise that if I get married I will bring my husband back (obviously ever conversation about what I will do when I go home had to include that I will find a husband. Details have even been discussed: will I look for a rich one? big? one that lives near my parents? Clearly returning to my home country presents a plethora of significant other options...). Then I sadly walked back into the house and started gathering my belongings into two bags. Weird, eh? I’ve been making piles of things all week, so it wasn’t like I had not thought about it yet. But setting up the officially packing station in the middle of my floor made it undeniable: I am leaving.

I spent a while putting things in their rightful places, trying to be organized so that everything I need for the next week and a half is accessible and won’t require shifting the carefully constructed balance of weight. I felt like I was making good progress. Then I stopped and looked around me.

There is something very odd to me about cleaning and packing. I don’t think I have ever participated in an overhaul of the pack up one’s life from the entire year caliber that did not involve, at one point along the way, things looking way worse then when I started. At one point it looked like the tropical storm that is rumored to be heading towards Hanoi had come and gone and had hit only my living space.

But now it’s a day later, and the mess is relatively gone. Granted, I still have a little ways to go, but the closets are empty, my desk is cleared off and you can see the floors. The transition from my things living here to being on their way home is almost over.

But my personal transition is far from over, in fact, it has barely even started. I feel myself entering the chaos, the tropical storm phase where everything looks and feels worse than when you began. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited, just like I was excited to pack and be done with it. I look forward to being settled and home, but I don’t look forward to the mess of getting used to it all: of creating routine there, finding a job, and readjusting. I know myself; I know at one point I will feel worse about my decisions than I do right now. But I also know that you have to make your way through the cluttered path to a place of contentment and comfort. Hopefully today’s packing lesson can stay with me in this next month, I think I’ll probably need it...

Glorious History

Sometimes I edit things for the Women's Union, which is the government department that oversees women's issues in Vietnam. Here is a little lesson from the "glorious history" of Vietnam for you:

"Since its establishment, VWU has been known as many different names, such as the Liberation Women's Union (1931-45), the Anti-imperialism Women's Union (1936-38), the Democratic Women's Union (1939-40), and then the Women League for National Salvation (WLNS) to carry out the common task of the nation in each specific period."

So in the course of 20 years (in 1950 it was officially made the Vietnam's Women Union), the VWU worked towards liberation, salvation and democracy (I'm sure there is some way to fit that word into the communist revolution...right?), and against Imperialism.

Gotta love history.

"Soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification."-Donald Miller

I have some thoughts on expectations that I'm going to save for another day, because this--this passage from my favorite few pages of a book I've never read--articulates everything that is right now. 10 days people. 10 days.

Mía Đá

Summer has brought many things to Hanoi, most of which I am not a big fan of. But there is one thing that I am currently obsessed with that I have this blazing hot season to thank for: mía đá, also known as sugar cane juice. I've mentioned it before, but since the re-discovery in Da Nang a few weeks ago I've been stopping by the side of the road whenever I have a chance to indulge myself in this deliciously refreshing treat.

The appeal is more than just the drink itself, although with a cup full of ice, a fresh squeezed green fruit that is rumored to be kumquat--although I have yet to decide if I believe that rumor or not---called quả quất and pressed sugar cane you really couldn't ask for anything more revitalizing on a sweltering day. But no, the appeal also comes from the process of obtaining mía đá. Come June, signs popped out of nowhere, littering every street in Ha Noi with stall after stall of new vendors. Granted, I'm sure these vendors were there before, just selling another season's speciality. Now though, they have all decided to make the switch to mía đá. If you inclined for a cup you just have look for one of these:

After you stop and let someone park your xe may for you, you order một cốc mía đá (one cup sugarcane with ice) and watch the magic happen. Ok, maybe its not actually magic at all, it is just a motorized press, hearkening back those early days of Industrialization, or perhaps a vicious torture device from an earlier era. You get to watch the seller thread the already peeled sugar cane into the monster's teeth over and over, starting with a round bamboo like stalk and ending up with only a frayed pancake, eking out every iota of deliciousness. It entertains me to no end:

After that you simply enjoy. Whether it is in a bag to-go:

Or for a moment's reprieve from the xe may cluttered streets on one of the infamous Hanoi stools:

Or an outing with friends:

Then you pay your 6,000 VND (about $0.33) and continue on your way. A perfect moment for those days that reach a heat index of 118.

First of Many

Today is no ordinary Tuesday. No, today is the first real goodbye: this evening dear Mr. Joel will board a plane bound for his Canadian motherland, leaving behind a year of cafe cultivated friendships for an unknown, yet without a doubt exciting, future. Girls all over Vietnam---maybe even all across SE Asia---will cry themselves to sleep tonight knowing that our Canadian Don Juan has fled the country. Joel has the amazing ability to rally troops with just an hour notice for evenings of bia hơi delight (hold the bia for Joel) and, as I noticed in the last few weeks when he was away travelling, life in Vietnam just isn't as exhilarating without him. As a self-proclaimed creator of epic-ness, he has valiantly led the way deep into the Vietnamese country side on many xe may excursions, sometimes on longer and rougher trails than anticipated but always on track for an excellent story with only a few bumps and bruises along the way. Joel has supplied me with a treasury of completely useless facts throughout our always entertaining hangouts. Whether eating ice cream, drinking coffee, or on one of Joel's perpetual hunts for more food we have had a lot of fun this year; he has kept me sane with an infectious love for all things Vietnam and the ability to laugh at any and all situations. I cannot even begin to imagine what this year would have looked like without his friendship.

Joel arrived in Vietnam just a few weeks before Calah and I, and now leaves just two short weeks before we về quê (return home). His leaving marks yet another notch on the path to my own departure, adding a sense of reality to an event that is still hard for me to believe is actually going to happen. But it also gives me something more to look forward to at home because, luckily for Joel, Canada and the States are really not that far from each other and he can come visit me :)

This is the first official farewell of many that are to come in the following weeks. Goodbye to Joel. Canada is lucky to have you back.

A Silver Lining

I have discovered an upside to the current weather in Hanoi: blue sky!

Yesterday I was driving home by West Lake, an area that on even the grayest of days is far more appealing than the majority of the city's dust, construction and never ending line of xe mays, and could not help but be in awe of the brilliant blue backdrop and clouds so white and fluffy they looked like marshmallows just waiting to be plucked from their place in the sky. It was a scene from a postcard---not a Vietnamese postcard because those are all rather silly but the general idea of what a postcard should be---that would be considered legitimately beautiful in any country. I was shocked to see a mountain in the distance. I have never, in my 11-month stay in Hanoi, seen even the hint of the outline of this mountain. Suddenly yesterday, with a clear sky, mountains are just appearing in the skyline. Again I repeat, I was in awe. While I could not catch the distant nature, I do have a few examples for you of how enchanting a city can be:

Who knew Hanoi could look like this?! I definitely did not. Turns out there is always a silver lining, even to record-breaking tropical heat.