Hello All!
So I decided that a blog would be a good idea to keep everyone up to date on my life on the opposite side of the planet. I'll try my best to keep this current....we'll see how that goes.
I landed safely in Ha Noi August 7 and moved into my new pad. It's great! Four floors, air conditioning in the rooms, and wifi. My roomies are nice. Betty has already been here for almost a month and Julia just arrived on the 16th.
Week 1
For those of you who know (and love?) my awkwardness, you would appreciate the many bizarre interactions I've had so far. I'm really honing my non-verbal communication skills. I've successfully made friends with cab drivers, old beggar women, and an assortment of flavorful locals- well, I at le
ast give them something to laugh at.
Work is going well. I work for TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. The office is small and all but the director are Vietnamese. Everyone
is very nice and welcoming. Apparently I came to the office during one of their busiest weeks of the year. TRAFFIC co-hosted a conference on illegal wildlife trade with the Communist Party. It was held in Van Long Nature Reserve in Ninh Binh province about 2 hours south of Ha Noi. I bonded with elderly comrades over pig intestine soup and snails and saw rare Langur monkeys. Overall, a successful trip-I even brought back a nifty stomach parasite that wreaked havoc on my intestines for a solid three days. Hurray!!
Last night Betty and I went with some other expats to a Girl Talk concert in the city outskirts. Random, but so much fun! I'll be washing the glitter out of my hair for the next week...
So I decided that a blog would be a good idea to keep everyone up to date on my life on the opposite side of the planet. I'll try my best to keep this current....we'll see how that goes.
I landed safely in Ha Noi August 7 and moved into my new pad. It's great! Four floors, air conditioning in the rooms, and wifi. My roomies are nice. Betty has already been here for almost a month and Julia just arrived on the 16th.
Week 1
For those of you who know (and love?) my awkwardness, you would appreciate the many bizarre interactions I've had so far. I'm really honing my non-verbal communication skills. I've successfully made friends with cab drivers, old beggar women, and an assortment of flavorful locals- well, I at le
ast give them something to laugh at.Work is going well. I work for TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. The office is small and all but the director are Vietnamese. Everyone
is very nice and welcoming. Apparently I came to the office during one of their busiest weeks of the year. TRAFFIC co-hosted a conference on illegal wildlife trade with the Communist Party. It was held in Van Long Nature Reserve in Ninh Binh province about 2 hours south of Ha Noi. I bonded with elderly comrades over pig intestine soup and snails and saw rare Langur monkeys. Overall, a successful trip-I even brought back a nifty stomach parasite that wreaked havoc on my intestines for a solid three days. Hurray!!Last night Betty and I went with some other expats to a Girl Talk concert in the city outskirts. Random, but so much fun! I'll be washing the glitter out of my hair for the next week...
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