Five months later

Friday morning I awoke to a surprising phone call: 'Please come to the office. You have a package.' Who could have sent me a package? No one had told me to expect one. What could it be. I got to the office and got an even bigger surprise. It was the package my dad and Sandra had sent for my birthday, five months ago! By now we had all assumed it would never make it. I celebrated with grits for breakfast.

September 15, 2011

In the late afternoon, Violet arrived. We had planned for her to visit me this weekend before my spontaneous visit to Tra Vinh last weekend. The last time she came was for my birthday weekend, about five months ago. Back then I had yet to discover all of the awesome nooks and crannies of Ben Tre, and I didn't have a way to take us around. This time, I have more local knowledge and she has a motorbike, so we got to be more adventurous. Violet came to my door and a snake joined me in greeting her. We went out to my favorite hu tieu place and then came back and enjoyed a bottle of wine that I had received in my Tet gift basket from the college.

The snake did not like having its picture taken

On Saturday we had the luxury of sleeping in. I hadn't woken up so late (past 10) in at least a month. We went out for bun thit nuong and then went to a nice outdoor cafe to relax for a while. After that we took a quick tour of the city center, and Violet saw the supermarket, the market, the Ben Tre River, and the lake. We came back to my room and Violet asked me to cut her hair. I was happy to comply, though slightly apprehensive about having so much responsibility thrust upon me, given that it was my first time cutting anyone's hair other than my own (not counting haircuts using clippers). Lucky for both of us, I'd say it turned out well.

Final result

It's alive!

We went out for bo la lot for dinner, and since it was still light outside I got my first decent picture of the delicious dish. After that we went on a mini road trip to My Tho to visit it's bustling night market. We made it to My Tho easily, but one wrong turn on the way to the night market got us turned around for quite a while. I was wondering at what point it would be better to give up when I saw a sign for it. Hooray! I ended up buying a rare Adelina-sized dress with serious bargining tactics. A few other items caught my fancy but were just not reasonably priced.

Typical night market 'English'

This morning Violet went back to Tra Vinh, and I stayed in catching up on all of the grading and lesson planning I put off while she was here. It's amazing how quickly the weekend goes by when you have things to do and someone to do them with.