Getting my feet wet

 “There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.” – Orson Welles

Friday morning I arrived at the airport, and things were slightly more complicated than I expected. When I checked in it turned out that I could not get my seat assignment for my second flight and I could not get a boarding pass to my third flight. But I was assured that neither of these were problems and that I could probably take care of both when I got to Dallas. When I got to my gate I discovered that my plane would be leaving 20 minutes late. No big deal. A few minutes later, that got edited to 60 minutes late. Big deal. My layover was only about 90 minutes long and I would have to change terminals; cue the terror. I spoke to the lady at the counter about my odds of catching my flight. She broke it down to me in terms of my options: take my assigned flight and risk it or deciding to change travel plans then and there. If I took my assigned flight, the worst case scenario would be that I would miss my connection and they would reroute me from there, where there would theoretically be several options. I'm not one to call it quits, so I took my assigned flight. She was also able to print out a new boarding pass for my second flight, this time with the seat assignment. Upon landing in Dallas I sped to the interterminal shuttle and then to my gate. My next flight was 10 minutes late, and I made it in good time. In fact, I was able to get my third boarding pass, and it turned out that my seat assignment for this flight had for some reason been changed and I would now have a window seat. Yay!

From Dallas I would be flying to Japan. It would take 13 hours. Cue the boredom. My seat back was broken so it couldn't lock in place. This meant that during takeoff it leaned back, and that when I wanted to lean back it would creep back to upright if I didn't maintain slight but steady pressure. It also meant that the guy behind me could shove my seat back forward whenever he decided I was getting too comfortable. My original plan was to sleep for the first half of the flight, during which it would be night time in Vietnam, but my body was not so cooperative. Instead, I watched Big Bang Theory and tried not to laugh too loud. I watched an array of entertainment and played around with the language options, rewatching part of Water for Elephants in Portuguese just for kicks. After thirteen hours worth of intermittent naps, TV, movies, games, and three meals, we arrived in Narita.

I knew that here I should convene with several other Fulbrighters who would be on the same flight to Hanoi, but they were nowhere in sight. I was going to sit at my gate, but I decided to wander. In a bookstore, it was a strange feeling to be surrounded by text that I could neither read nor imagine how to pronounce. Maybe 20 or 30 minutes after I went to the gate, the rest of the group arrived. After a good while of catching up and bemoaning the humidity in the airport, it was time to board the last flight. I ended up sitting next to a Vietnamese man who at first asked me if I was Japanese. We chatted for a while and, aside from being repeatedly told I was very beautiful, I found out that he was a civil/electrical engineer who spoke Russian in addition to Vietnamese and English. In Russian, I said I speak Russian too -- just a little bit. I felt like he overestimated my humility and started speaking to me in Russian, in which he was apparently much more comfortable than English, but I guess maybe I was being overly humble, because I understood everything he said. He told me I was very beautiful again, but in Russian. After two more movies, a lot more sleeping, and yet another meal (including miso soup served from a clear pitcher -- at first I thought it was a really pulpy tea), we landed in Vietnam. After claiming our bags, my peers named me the best packer. 

By the time we made it to the hotel, it was almost midnight, almost 30 hours since my 'day' had begun. This whole summer I have been waiting for the reality of this pending experience to hit me. Even though I am perfectly aware that I will be here for 10 months, I don't really know what that is going to mean. I expected it to start feeling real when we landed, or maybe on the way to the hotel, but it didn't. I think that might have been because it was so dark. Landscapes that might have been quite striking and indicative of this new life were reduced to the silhouettes of banana trees and the bright lights of karaoke bars. Neither this, nor the unique architecture, nor our shuttle driver, who seemed to consider the lane divider more of a center marker, driving as often right over it as on one side of it, were enough to make me really feel the magnitude of the change in my life that is just beginning.

At the hotel, I discovered that I forgot one member of a pair of shoes. I also discovered that the TV has channels in Vietnamese, French, Russian, German, and English. I said good night around 1am, and so far haven't been feeling any jet lag. I think that the exhausting chronological length of the journey compensated for my failed attempts to reprogram my sleep schedule on the plane.

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This morning, after a breakfast that included pho and watermelon juice, we went wandering. Not long after we set out, it started drizzling. I was pleased with myself for having decided to bring a poncho (thanks Mom!), though in this humidity encasing yourself in plastic might make you just as damp as if you had just braved the rain. My photographic impulses were at odds with the weather, but I got some nice shots. The streets are a beautiful interplay of color, trees, grit and grime, and people. I had my first street crossing, and then my second, and third, ... and I lost count. It really is less daunting than everyone made it seem, but it is much easier to jay walk than to try and deal with the onslaught of an intersection. Our seemingly aimless wandering led us to the lake, where there is an island with a temple. On the way back we stopped for lunch. Hooray for street food! It was heavenly. On tiny stools (and by tiny I mean 10" high if that), I introduced my mouth to heaven. Spring rolls (which are actually fried; summer rolls are what we call spring rolls in the US), vermicelli, meat, yum yum yum. I do have to say that Vietnamese food in the US seems to resemble Vietnamese food in Vietnam much more so than other foreign cuisines do. I was accosted by a woman selling fruit, who loaded her baskets onto me despite my fervent 'no thank you's.

After a morning of drizzles and puddles, I think the soles of my feet have become permanently blackened. I am looking forward to starting language classes tomorrow, and decreasing my miming and reliance on other people's English.