First day! And other explorations

So today we had teacher orientation at the school. This was pretty nuts. First they just had a short presentation and some people spoke to us, whatever. The staff is pretty small and as I came to realize, we are understaffed. It is also pretty chaotic. The teachers all got their schedules today. So, literally they did not know what they were teaching until today and classes start Monday. After we got our schedules we sat down with our departments and had lunch. Since I also am apparently teaching 10th grade Language Arts (this should be interesting), I sat with that department. It seemed everyone I was with was used to how things work here and just laughed when they saw their schedule. One woman is teaching preschool and her schedule had "Coloring" on it. Another woman is new and she is a math teacher and she was surprised to see she was teaching 1 math class and all the rest of her classes were English Language Development classes. Since I am still the counselor my schedule only had one class, I guess because they needed someone. However, they later added a second class - English Language Arts for 6th graders. Luckily, that class only has 2 people in it so I think it will be easy. Everyone was very nice and very helpful despite the craziness. It should be interesting to see how my teaching skills are next week!

For lunch at the school they had several people serving us. They are VERY on top of it here. If your drink gets low they are right on it to refill it. For lunch we had a bunch of stuff I couldn't even tell you what it was. First there were some fried sort of appetizer food, some meat on a stick, something that looked like buffalo chicken wings (it was in fact chicken, but it was not buffalo sauce - I didn't really like whatever sauce was on it), fried shrimp, beef with some green vegetables I've never seem before, and then a hot pot. The hot pot was pretty cool, it was just a boiling pot of broth, meat (pork I think?), pork skin (looks weird but tastes good!), and giant prawns and then we added in vegetables like mushrooms, herbs, squash blossoms, and more stuff I've never seen before. It was pretty good but what I've eaten at restaurants so far has been better, I think.

Later on in the evening I went to District 1 with a Vietnamese girl I met here. She is working on improving her English so she offered to show me around basically in exchange for me speaking English with her - good deal. Her English is definitely a little rough but I could understand most of what she said and I surrrre can't speak Vietnamese. I asked her to teach me a few words but they are so hard to pronounce! I think all I've got down so far is "Hello" and "Thank you". It is only my third day here though so I guess I have time to improve.

So this girl, Thang, took me on her motorbike to the city center and showed me around on the bike and then took me to Ben Thanh Market which is basically a touristy little market where street vendors try to sell you things like clothes, bags, jewelry. There are also little street restaurants there. I looked around but didn't feel like shopping so we just went to eat. I got Pho Bo, which is a beef and noodle soup and Thang got Banh Xeo which was basically an omelette filled with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts. It was nice to eat with Thang because she showed me how to eat everything like you're supposed to so I didn't look dumb! For her Banh Xeo you apparently cut off pieces of the omelette and wrap them in a piece of lettuce. Then you dip it into this reallyyy good sauce. I thought hers was delicious but she claimed there are much better places to get Banh Xeo. She also felt that the place we went was expensive, yet she wouldn't let me pay for her no matter how hard I tried. I thought it was cheap, my meal was under $3. If that was expensive, I'll definitely let her take me to other places. It was also funny because I ordered a beer, which is way easier to say in Vietnamese than any other drink - "bia". Thang looked shocked because apparently, at least where she is from, Vietnamese women do not drink. I educated her a bit on the drinking habits of American women.

After we walked around the market a little bit more and I spotted some North Face backpacks (not sure if they were real but they looked it!). Since they would be at least $60 or more in the US I wanted to see how much they were here. Thang bartered for me but I didn't really want to buy anything at the moment so we started to walk away. They chased us down the street a bit to offer it for less money...I'll probably go back another time because Thang got her to offer it to me for 150,000dong which is about $7 ... Thang thought that was also expensive and I just nodded and smiled.

It was awesome getting a tour from a local. My favorite park was the motorbike ride. I thought it would be way scarier. I probably should have been more scared but Thang is very used to driving in the traffic and she drove very safe. She told me she was driving slower so as not to scare me...haha. The motorbikes just weave and drive wherever they damn well please. It is the most ridiculous thing ever. Aggressive driving is necessary. There are a few traffic lights but they seem to be more of a suggestion than a necessity. Although, at intersections one side does stop, but there is always traffic going and turning so that is why it is impossible for pedestrians to just find a break in traffic. Around traffic circles it's especially hectic. They go pretty slow though, probably no more than 10mph so it isn't that bad. You get so close to other motorbikes that my arm brushed another handle bar at one point and my leg just barely missed brushing another bike. They are good at maneuvering those things though ... I even saw a guy talking on a cell phone and driving one. Families ride on them, usually parents will sandwich their baby. The baby will face the mom and therefore be facing backwards. I saw a dog on one too. It's hilarious.

Anyway, Thang would not let me buy her dinner but she asked me to come to her English class tomorrow. I feel like she's bringing me in for show and tell but I figured it was the least I could do since she drove me around a bunch! So that should be interesting...more on it tomorrow! I didn't take any pictures tonight because I wanted to scope the pick-pocket scene...I think if you aren't carrying a purse or wearing pockets (which I wasn't) they probably don't try to rob you! Although, I figured it'd be smart to keep my money in my bra. Sure, no one tried to take it but it was prettyyy awkward when the waiter was waiting for me to pull out my money. I tried to be discreet...not sure how that worked. Oh well!

After going into District 1 I am glad I live way out here in District 11 (it is only about 7 or 8 miles away but it takes at least 20-25min to get there with the traffic!). It's like if District 1 is Times Square and District 11, where I live, is the East Village or something. Basically, District 1 is touristy, flashy, neon lights everywhere, high-rises, hotels, etc. My street is relatively quiet and although the main street down the road where the school is on is fairly busy, it isn't touristy AT ALL, as I have mentioned I am the only white girl I've seen. It is much more quaint and low key, which is way more my style! On my walk home from where Thang dropped me off tonight I saw bats flying around the street above my head and then I heard some squeaking and a HUGE rat ran out from a crack - a very large crack, obviously, in the sidewalk. I still just really like those little geckos that crawl around the walls and eat bugs.