Day 1

Today was our official first day in Vietnam! We were fresh off the plane with only a few hours of sleep so it was very difficult to wake up this morning, but nonetheless I had to drag myself out of bed at 8 a.m. We all had breakfast in the hotel before leaving for UEF. It was definitely nothing like breakfast in America. Most of the food was very strange so all I could eat was bread and pineapples with some orange juice. I need to get used to the food here quickly or I’m probably not going to eat much for the next two weeks.

Around 9, we all loaded on the bus to drive over to UEF which was a very interesting ride. I thought traffic in Pittsburgh was bad, but it is nothing compared to traffic in Ho Chi Minh City. The roads were completely packed with motorbikes. Clearly, there are no rules of the road. The bikes loop in between large vans to get through and merge whenever they wish. Not only that, we saw drivers carrying huge poles while driving or had large objects strapped to the back of the bike. I guess they’re making up for their lack of cars. Safety violations are obviously non-existent in Vietnam.

When we arrived at UEF, I was surprised to see the news people who came to film us and the large banners that said “Welcome Plus3”. I didn’t expect our arrival to be such a big deal. Everyone was very nice and welcomed us to their school. We all got a chance to meet some of the Vietnamese students. I met a girl named Thanh who is 22-years old and a junior majoring in finance. I was very surprised at how much older these students are. All the students were close to fluent in English. I did not expect them to know so much English. We were welcomed with an interesting puppet show to their traditional Vietnamese music and then serenaded by a group of guys singing “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it was very entertaining.

Next, we went to our first Vietnamese language class. We learned some basic phrases such as “my name is…”, “how much is this”, “thank you”, etc. The Vietnamese students were also there to help us learn. The teacher was really nice and repeated things many times so we remembered it; however, it was very awkward being forced to speak into a microphone and recorded by the film crew from the news station. But I thought it was a lot of fun, and I’m excited to be able to learn more Vietnamese these upcoming weeks.

Afterwards, we got an hour to rest before our trip to the US Consulate. The bus dropped us off across the street from the building, and we all miraculously survived our first road crossing. ‘Yield for pedestrians’ is obviously not something many drivers consider. Once we got inside the building, we were given a small presentation by three American diplomats that are stationed here. They gave us an overview of the Vietnamese politics, safety precautions in the city, etc. We then were able to tour the place and take the traditional Plus3 group photo in from of the memorial plaque. It was raining pretty badly during our trip, so it wasn’t has enjoyable as it could’ve been, but I thought it was really interesting to be able to learn more about the country’s history and politics.

I was completely exhausted after our visit to the US Consulate, but we had a welcome dinner at 7. We went to a place called Wrap & Roll which is a very traditional Vietnamese restaurant according to Tran. I forgot to mention that Tran is our Vietnamese guide. She will be traveling around with us for the next two weeks and help us adapt to the culture. Anyways, back to our welcome dinner. We were given so much more food than I had expected. There were many different types of food for us to sample. It seemed endless. The food was pretty strange. We spent most of our time poking at the food and guessing what was in it. They had their traditional spring rolls, squid, jellyfish, you name it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t eat much of it either because there was meat in it or it just didn’t suit my taste. I can already tell being a vegetarian in Vietnam is almost impossible. Surviving these next few weeks will definitely be a challenge. I guess I’ll be losing the freshmen 15 quicker than I expected.

Finally, we are back in the hotel and can relax. It was definitely a long day. It doesn’t help that I’m not adjusting to the time change too well. I’m hoping that’ll change soon. Tomorrow, we are going on our first company visit to Phu My Hung which I'm looking forward to.

And finally, my first blog is complete. Night Vietnam.