Birthday Blog

Birthday Lanterns!

Forty-two and feeling fine!  It was a three cake birthday in Vietnam.  No complaints from the birthday girl.  John volunteered to take my place at school so I could have the day off to myself (best present ever).  I spent most of the day strolling around the Ancient City where the Miss Earth Competition was disrupting business as usual.  For one day I did not feel like the only awkwardly tall female in Vietnam.  There were gorgeous six-foot women everywhere wearing five-inch heels, minimal clothing and doing a fabulous job of entertaining the local population with their tottering efforts at bicycle riding in the above-mentioned attire.  It was pleasant to fly under the radar for the day.  The city had really gone all out to prepare for this festive beauty pageant, so I pretended all of the new lanterns and decorations around town were in honor of my birthday.

Awkwardly tall beauties



Oops!  Ate the cake before I
remembered to take a picture.
It was black forest.

Cake number one came with singing waitstaff at my favorite bakery, Cargo. Next up I treated myself to fried sticky rice and bean curd for lunch, and I worked on my Vietnamese workbook. 

When I returned to the house in anticipation of a nice birthday nap, I discovered that the cleaning lady had just arrived. There would be no relaxing at home while she scurried around the house, so I headed out for a rice paddy run in the sun.  To be running through a rice paddy, chatting with buffalo (mostly in that sweet "please don't charge me, and I won't bother you" voice), hopping over coconuts and enjoying the warm sun was really a birthday dream come true.  Thank you cleaning lady!  It gave me a few minutes to reflect on how lucky we are and how happy I am to be here (now, if we could just get those kids on board!).

Once the kids and John arrived home from school, we found more birthday bliss.  It began at the immigration office where we picked up our one-month visa extension.  The fact that we have our passports back in hand with new visas means a) we can go away for Thanksgiving weekend and b) "away" does not mean out of the country with all of our possessions.  At this stage, we are grateful for the month we get before having to deal with the bureaucracy again.  Apparently the folks working in the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C., this summer were smoking crack and thought it would be funny to give us C2 visas, which means we are here visiting family.  Funny.  I am awkwardly tall and pale (as are the rest of the members of my family).  I do not even slightly resemble someone of Vietnamese descent. If I really did have family here to visit, I think it would be quite a stretch to prove my case.  Alas, the authorities have granted us a one month extension which will get us through to Christmas when we can travel out of the country and get real tourist visas.

The passports were even more essential on this day because they are the key to the post office.  No passport, no package, no exceptions.  The passport was my ticket to my birthday package.  So all of the stars aligned properly to make it happen.  Package in hand, we went out for a huge birthday splurge dinner at the Mango Rooms - playground for the rich and famous.  The food was amazing.  I fell in love with passion fruit sangria. The moon was full, so the city was alight with floating lanterns on the river and the tall, beautiful women were everywhere.  Heaven topped off with cake number two and another serenade.



Yum.  Passion fruit sangria, shrimp and mango spring rolls,
orange beef on shredded mango salad...



Pan seared tuna and rice noodles

La Cubana

   

Duc at work in the Mango Rooms kitchen

Nolan and Foster check out the action.

Finally it was on to our regular restaurant #328 for one more birthday cake - Vietnamese style - with lots of warm wishes from friends.  Then it was present time!  I have never been SOOOO happy to get ant traps and real toothpaste for my birthday (with a few Vietnamese lucky chickens thrown in). I do indeed feel like a lucky chicken (and a Happy Budha too). 

Celebrating with Ha

Ant Traps!  Oh yeah!

Counting my lucky chickens!