Hue...the life of the rich and famous...well, the later at least

So yesterday was our travel day. We hung around for the morning, took the ride back to the airport and had sudden pains of airport syndrom all over again. We were still checking our bags at boarding time so we were cutting things a little close so by the time we got on the plane they were just about ready to shut the doors and get ready for take off. The ride was only 55 minutes and to us felt like a walk in the park...a short one. We barely had time to get comfy and we were landing. our ride from the airport to the Inn was a very sudden realization that this was a much different place than Hanoi. Light traffic, cleaner streets, much less honking. This place is much more open and spacious compaired to Hanoi and it doesn't smell like trash!! Once we reached the hotel, we came to a second calming realization. This place was sooo much nicer and more peaceful (and friendlier) than the our previous residence. We all had our spirits lifted and I think experiancing Hanoi (the big city) first allows us to appreciate Hue so much more.

We got to the hotel and after the family and staff (tiny girls) in a loud, confusing mass lugged our suitcases up the stairs as we claimed rooms, we relished in our new home for the next three weeks and some of us (me) unpacked. Then we had an early dinner (since most of us, if any declined the prepackaged, processed meat sandwich on the plane). Practiced for the cultural exchange, and I thin all but three of us fell asleep (whether we wanted to or not) before 9. Today we met our volunteer interpretur counterparts. 9 female vietnamese university students. we said (and spelled) our names several times around before playing a gazillion rounds of name games. (still don't know who's who and took us the entire morning to even figure out if we were pronouncing the names right). Vietnamese is hard...

After the meeting time we had a little free time, then lunch (a feast might I add) and then last minute practicing before the cutural exchange then on the road to the school. Crazy experiance! I rode on the back of Nhi's (n-ee) motorbike while the rest of the group rode rusted cruzers. It was awesome facing death trying to cross the road and manuvering the busy streets of people and bikes and whatnot. When we got there, and walked into this old gymnasium, it was as if we were celebraties! university students against the walls and in a balcony above with the middle as the center isle for us, cameras flashing and people yelling and clapping and pointing. it was like a movie. incredible! We all did our profomances and though we deffinately didn't spend half the time on ours as they did on theirs I still think they appreciated the effort and our precence. If they weren't impressed with our singing skills they were deffinately impressed with Emily, Danny and my balloon animal skills. We're lucky to have any balloons left for the kids after that frenzy!! At the end of the experiance we all had a great time and felt very excited by the energy that was flowing around the room.

Our ride back the the inn was a wet one with raining pouring down. The rain is beautiful. It has cooled everything down and the smell of it is amazing. I think sleeping tonight is going to be very nice.