Leave it to Trang

I thought I would have almost nothing to blog about today, but my night out with Trang provided more than enough blogging material. But let me start from the beginning.

It was a lazy day at the start. It seems like a miracle that I managed to sleep in both yesterday and today without anyone knocking on my door or any ambient noise disrupting my slumber. Late in the morning, Morena asked if I wanted to cook together today. I have been trying to get myself to cook for quite some time; I'd even bought some instant noodles (not the epitome of cooking, I know, but I thought if I broke the ice by boiling some water it would get me started) to no avail. Our cooking wasn't that big a deal, I ended up just frying some frozen spring rolls while Morena made the noodles with some carrots and eggs, but now that the ball is rolling I think maybe I'll cooking more. I can't cook less than I have been, anyway.

A beginner's feast

Nothing of note happened for the rest of the day until Trang took me out for dinner. We had bò lá lốp, grilled beef wrapped in leaves, wrapped in rice paper with more leaves and vermicelli and fruits like pineapple, starfruit, cucumber, and/or banana, and then dipped in fermented fish sauce. I think it is one of my favorite dishes. I learned that your skill in rolling the rice paper is used to evaluate you as a prospective daughter-in-law. I started the meal as unmarriageable and finished it as worthy bride material. After that we went for ché, the Vietnamese dessert that is not one of my favorite dishes. Today's variation was floating cake ché, ché with two balls of glutinous rice dough filled with green bean powder that float to the top when they're done cooking.

Bò lá lốp

Ché

Better than the second round of food was the second round of conversation. On the way there we passed a place called Café 666, and I explained to Trang that that number has a negative connotation in America. She explained to me that the Chinese word for 6 sounds like the Vietnamese word for luck, so it is a very good number here. We checked whether Trang had won anything with her lottery ticket, and then we bought two more. The roving lotto salespeople are extremely poor, as the tickets are their only source of income, so it is rude to flag them over to check your numbers and then not buy a new ticket. Trang told me that people often wait to check their numbers from the most miserable looking person. Trang told me that a few years ago one of the teachers bought six tickets and ended up getting the equivalent of about $35,000. I think my past posts suffice to explain how much money that is here. She told me that the night before he won he had a dream that he was bitten by a large dog and began bleeding heavily. I then discovered that this foretells very good luck. So does dreaming that you get something really dirty on you. So does dreaming that you are drowning. Dreaming that your tooth falls out foretells losing someone close to you. Talking about teeth turned conversation to the Tooth Fairy. Vietnam does not have a Tooth Fairy, but if you lose a tooth from your top jaw you put it under your bed so the new one will grow in straight, and if you lose one from your lower jaw you throw it on the roof so it will grow in straight. I love cultural exchange.

Welcoming committee member outside of my room.