I had 1 main goal and a few minor goals for this trip: 1) learn Vietnamese, 2) learn how to cook, 3) learn how to shop for food, and 4) learn how to drive a motorbike (i.e. small motorcycle).  Well, I’m happy to say that after my first few days of questioning whether or not I have passed that threshold of learning a new language that I am, in fact, improving.  I’m learning many new words such as:

- fly kite

- mushroom

- lychee

- sweet

- skinny

- fat

- angry

- cry

- worried

Kind of in that order.  I’ve also learned how to cook many foods.  We go to the market every day to buy fresh produce and then cook at least 2 meals a day.  Very delicious vegetarian foods, including vegetarian pork head meat cooked in tomatoes, mmmm!

I also had my first motorbike lesson.  OMG! First, as two men held the back of the motorbike and I drove 5 miles per hour, I tried and failed to keep the bike straight. Easier than riding a bicycle, my butt. Then, some young guy, maybe my age, came over and started instructing me on how to ride a motorbike and what I was doing wrong, of course all in fluent Vietnamese.  He then got on the motorbike and instructed me to sit behind him.  He was going to help steer and I was going to control the gas and brake.  Hmmm…  It actually worked.  By the end of it, I still couldn’t drive it on my own but I had made progress.  We ended the lesson after I repeatedly got scared of a hole in the ground and almost ran into a tree, multiple times.  He was very nice.

A few other random things I learned this week:

- after peeling and separating the fruit from a jackfruit bigger than your torso, wash your hands with rice to remove the sap.

- eat sour fruit all day, every day, for 3 months and lose 15 pounds

- little kids everywhere know more about technology than you do (My 7 year old cuz Khang knows how to successfully find and play all the games on my MyTouch  (better than me), take and review pictures on the Canon camera, and take me to the internet cafe by himself).