Salsa night

Last night we painted the town red. Increasingly, Ilene and I feel like chaperons on these outings, though the young people we're running with don't need much looking after -- they drink the minimum and a late night ends at midnight. One of our friends has been taking salsa lessons and has become a regular at the Caravelle Hotel's rooftop bar where a Cuban band plays a couple nights a week. The crowd is a mix of hotel guests and young Vietnamese. The band jumps off stage to lure people on to the dance floor. The Japanese businessmen grab the asses of the hostesses. The middle-age Westerners try to get the phone numbers of the young ladies. The big screen TV runs a slide show of hotel services -- massages, drink specials, breakfast buffets, sightseeing tours. Every few minutes, a picture shows a smiling young man dressed in the costume of a Vietcong soldier popping out of one of the Cu Chi tunnels, one of the popular destinations for war tourists. Towering above on every side of the patio are the skeletons of the next generation of hotels and office towers. The sparks of the arc welders working late on Saturday wink inside.

Well fed

We had breakfast today at the home of our friend Tuan. One of his innumerable sisters runs a restaurant out of the front room, and she is a fantastic cook. She specializes in "broken rice" -- short-grain rice with a variety of heavier dishes with gravy, such as barbecue pork, stewed tuna steaks or hard boiled eggs. We had a sample platter and went away stuffed.

This kind of room facing the street is a combination formal receiving room and garage. (You can see the family altar and a motorbike in the background of the second picture.) It's pretty common to run some kind of small retail operation out of these rooms -- a quickimart or a small dining operation like this. She told us she has 100 customers per day, and basically what you see in the glass case in the background is the whole set up. Other sisters help at a stove in the kitchen in back, and the stock is delivered in small quantities by motorbike. I counted three deliveries while we were there. The breakfast rush is children getting breakfast on the way to school, and the lunch rush is laborers on break and some kids out from school.

I lost track of all the cousins in the household, but I do know the six-month old girl is the child of the brother whose wedding we went to in 2008.

Setting up house

I wanted to get some video or pictures to show the apartment before I told about it, but it's going to be a few days before I'm that organized.

So, we are in an old apartment building directly on a well-known traffic circle/landmark a little north of downtown. Very Vietnamese in style -- nothing like the towers built especially for the comfort of expats. 1 bedroom with a large living room and kitchen area and very simple furnishings and utilities. (The water is in cisterns above a drop ceiling and a pump turns on every time you use a tap or flush to keep the cisterns full.) We have tiny little washing machine and hang the clothes to dry out the back window. In front, we don't really have a view out on the street -- the unit is recessed a bit back in the building and the gallery outside our bedroom window belongs to the next unit, so we keep those curtains closed. In back we look out over a jumble of alleys. We like the location a lot, but it's a little noisier than I had hoped. Until I get used to it, I'll be waking up with the start of motor scooter horns about 5 a.m. If I really need a respite and feel like blowing a lot of money, a large Western-style department store with a bakery and movie theater is very close.

Our landlord is really sweet. She put in a lot of time helping the get the internet situation resolved and doing other little favors. She's a professor of law at a local university.

Between us, Ilene and I have carried 8 arm loads of essential supplies from the Co-op Mart a couple blocks away -- linens, brooms, fans, toilet paper, groceries, and everything else essential that wouldn't fit in the suitcases. It's looking pretty homey now.

That's been exhausting, and the week of traveling and apartment hunting was exhausting, and I guess I didn't realize it until now, but the month-long sprint preparing for the trip was exhausting, so we've hit the wall the last couple days. I've been laying on the couch eating Ritz crackers and special dark chocolates all day. Hopefully we can get some rest for a fresh start on Monday, but our social calendars between now and then are already packed.

Tonight my lack of language skills tripped me up again like it has in the past -- I accidentally ordered twice as much food as I intended, and at a pretty expensive place, too. It's always embarrassing to sit there and watch that second plate of food being carried out while it dawns on you how you screwed up the order. The good news is that I finally have an overload of protein in my belly, and I should be feeling better soon.

Settling in

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we're getting settled. A fuller description later. We don't have internet in our apartment yet, so our ability to get online and check email, etc. is limited to when we go to a cafe with our computers.

We signed the contract and paid for the apartment Monday night and moved from the hotel on Tuesday and started setting up our new place. It's been a long week of little sleep and lot of uncertainty and a lot of literal heavy lifting. More about the apartment when we have more time online.

Ilene and her colleagues had their first meeting with their counterparts at the university here re: the exchange/State Dept. grant and came away very enthused. She's scheduled to start work on the Fulbright on Monday morning.

More shopping for apartment needs, finding a gym, retrieving books from the consulate, etc. in the next few days.

-Robert

Twain on Forex

The Portuguese pennies, or reis (pronounced rays), are prodigious. It takes one thousand reis to make a dollar, and all financial estimates are made in reis. We did not know this until after we had found it out through Blucher. Blucher said he was so happy and so grateful to be on solid land once more that he wanted to give a feast -- said he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand banquet . . . . In the midst of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him and then read the items aloud, in a faltering voice, while the roses in his cheeks turned to ashes . . . .

"'TOTAL, TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED REIS!' The suffering Moses! There ain't enough money in the ship to pay that bill! Go -- leave me to my misery, boys, I am a ruined community."

. . . . [The landlord] glanced from the little pile of gold pieces to Blucher several times and then went out. He must have visited an American, for when he returned, he brought back his bill translated into a language that a Christian could understand . . . . $21.70. Happiness reigned once more in Blucher's dinner party. More refreshments were ordered.

--The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain