Hotel? Check.

In preparation for Sam's upcoming visit to Nha Trang, I went tonight to find a hotel for us. I'm just not sure how appropriate it would be for him to stay with me in my building--I mean, this isn't Transy! And even though I'm feeling more and more like it would be OK, especially since I was never told otherwise, I'm going to err on the side of caution and just find a hotel for us. I doubt I'd lose my job but I'd like to maintain some respectability around here. (Read: I dont want to be the the American teacher who wears shorts and who has her boyfriend sleep over.) Plus, a little privacy would be nice.

My friend Lien, a Masters student here, took me (on her motorbike!) to find a good place. She assured me I would get a better price if she accompanied me and was so generous in offering her assistance. Her mom had even put in a call to a friend of hers who owns a hotel, but unfortunately it was pretty far away.

I'd been eyeing a hotel called GMC, just a 3 or 4 minute walk down the hill from my building. In addition to its proximity, which is especially important since it's rainy season, the hotel looked clean and modern and has a nice restaurant/cafe attached to it. After checking out Lien's family friend's hotel (which was quite nice, despite its distance), we stopped in to GMC to check it out. The young guy at the reception took us upstairs to show us a room, and it was so lovely! It's not the Hotel de Rome, where we stayed in Berlin, and the curtains were a bit tacky, but the room was spacious, with a big wooden bed, a wardrobe, refrigerator, TV (maybe a DVD player), a nice big bathroom with a real shower and bathtub (!), hot water (not always a given here), and even wifi. And the room has a big balcony that overlooks the sea and Hon Chong Promontory. After seeing all this, I was afraid to hear the cost, but to my pleasant surprise, the room was only 150,000 dong ($9) a night! A total steal, in my opinion. The place is just adorable, and so close, and has the sea view and the restaurant right there...I can't imagine anything more perfect.

the promontory

With the hotel in order, my only other responsibilities to prepare for Sam's arrival are to plan all of our activities (including a possible trip to Hanoi!) and to figure out how to get to and from the airport. The latter chore is proving most challenging, but I really can't complain. Sam, on the other hand, has been frantically preparing for the trip. He's been touring so much lately and had only a couple days in Nashville this week (out of the past month or so) to pack, get everything ready, and get his shots and such. He's really freaking out about the prospect of catching some tropical disease. I've tried to tell him that his biggest health risk is just crossing the street, but as of right now he's still insisting that he wont even eat the ice. I wanted to put money how long he'd go without ice here--I dont think he gets just how hot it is--but he refused my bet. Just for the record, though, I'm guessing he won't make it a full day. :) He's also having a heart attack a day over the fact that I dont have my Japanese Encephalitis vaccine yet. Just yesterday he was lecturing me about it, and I was just laughing and laughing, because he was being so serious. Finally he said "Mallory, this is really starting to piss me off.", which of course only made me laugh more because he is never that stern or harsh to me.

By the time he gets here, I will have been in Vietnam for three months. I can't believe how quickly the time is passing. And I can't believe that it will have been three months since Sam and I last saw each other. We're used to long distance, of course, but the longest we've gone is 6 weeks or so. It's been surprisingly easy, though, these past three months. I guess just because we have our own adventures right now--I have Vietnam, he has the album, the touring. We're both following our bliss, and that's the most important thing for now. It will be so nice to have him here, though. The hardest part about being out here, more or less by by yourself, is not having someone around who really loves you, or who even really, really knows you. It doesn't create a feeling of loneliness--I'm not lonely at all--but maybe just a hint of emotional isolation? I can't yet articulate it, exactly, the feeling...but it does feel like something is lacking, just a little. What's coming to mind is that it feels like a vitamin deficiency whose effects won't be clear until much time has passed....

I'm still 100% happy here, nearly every moment of every day, but I am starting to miss some things a little more than I have been. I'm mainly missing people and the things I used to do with them. This is manifesting itself in my increased efforts to keep in contact with people--I used to be a pretty incompetent penpal but I'm trying to turn that around. And I'm finding myself missing random things or phases from my past. Lately I've really been missing the time I lived with my friends Celia and Suzie in house in Lexington--I remember scraping the ice off my car in the morning, driving to and from school, working late at the writing center in the evenings, stopping at the grocery on the way home, walking the dog (Hamlet), having pasta nights with the girls, watching Smallville with the girls, taking in a male stray cat that I mistook for a female one, making coffee in the mornings and salads in the evenings, hearing the clicking of the water pipes in the winter, getting drunk by myself one night while blasting Justin Timberlake and having my first (and last) experiment with nude feminist body painting... (As Jess says, if alcohol makes us more of who we are then I'm a pop-music-loving, nude, feminist body painter! Among other things at least :)

I'm also missing fall and winter. Despite my current residence in a tropical country, I am, at heart, a winter person. ("Winter" by Kentucky and Tennessee standards, at least!) I love the smell of cold, crisp, winter air, and the smell of a warm, heated building. I love rosy cheeks after being out in the cold. I love winter clothes--I miss sweaters, my favorite brown riding boots, my long wool gray coat, scarves, gloves, winter dresses with tights. I love curling up with a cup of tea and being so cozy while I know how cold it is outside, or finding refuge over a latte in a dimly lit coffee shop... And snow! Don't even get me started on snow!

At the same time, though, I'm starting to feel comfortable with the heat here, and imagining a snowy day almost seems unnatural...

But there's no point going on about things I miss. I've said before that I'm happier than ever here, and that fact remains true. If anything, I'm glad to be missing things from my "old life", because I was so critical about that life and being away is making me more appreciative of little things I had and took for granted.

Meanwhile I have so many things to be happy about here. I'm especially happy about starting to celebrate Vietnam's Women's Days tomorrow! Technically the holiday is on Monday but, for some reason, the festivities are going down tomorrow. From what I gather, there's a meeting/presentation/performance at 3pm, followed by some food...but I never really know what's going on here so I'll just have to wait and see. It will increase my excitement if nothing else. :) I have been told, however, to expect lots of flowers from my students--a nice gesture but I hate the thought of them spending money on me when I know they have so little. I'm really looking forward to Women's Day, though. I have extremely fond memories of an International Women's Day when I was in Italy with Sam, so I'm projecting good things on to this women's day as well.

I'm also happy that my internet has been strong enough for some youtube stalking of Sam:

an old one from the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan back in July...so beautiful!

And in weather news, today was overcast and cooler, it's starting to sprinkle more and more, fewer vendors are out on the street at night, and Monsieur Banana keeps telling me "Peut-être it rains ce soir". One can only guess, Monsieur Banana, one can only guess.


Currently listening: "Way To Normal" by Ben Folds