Day 1

Today was the first, real day in Vietnam. We all started with a breakfast at the hotel. All the food was delicious. I tried various dumplings and noodles, but my favorite thing was the coffee. It is stronger than the coffee and home and its mixed with condensed milk. Then after breakfast, everyone got on to the bus and headed to UEF to meet the students that will be spending the next weeks with and to have a welcoming ceremony.  The first person I met was named Julia. I was immediately impressed by her English. She spoke very clearly and was able to understand very well. She seemed cool; we made small talk until the beginning of the welcoming. The first thing they did was a traditional dance. After the dance a girl came to sing to us. She wanted everyone to join in and as she was walking between the desks with an extra microphone to find someone to help her sing, I kept my head low and broke eye contact because I did not know the words to the song. Luckily, she walked up to Abe and put the microphone in his hand. Like me, Abe did not know the words either, which was funny. After this welcome, we had our first language lessons. We started by learning all the tones and vowels of the language. I was having a little bit of a hard time getting all of them. After he language, we had lunch at the canteen in at the school. Everything they served us was very good. After lunch we headed to the US consulate for a little history lesson on the attack on the former embassy and to talk with some of the workers. After the consulate we went to dinner as a group at Wrap it or Roll it. We got to wrap our own spring rolls. Tin Tin said i was the best wrapper. It was all very good, and we all had fun. After dinner the whole group went out to bond on the first night. It started slow but I feel like it ended well. It was a good first day and I am excited to see what tomorrow will hold.