6 days.

I have less than a week left before I fly to Hanoi. I wish I had posted more in the past week and a half about my preparations and thoughts, but I've been driving back and forth between Kentucky and Nashville and hanging out with my little sister and my sweetheart. I'm just now back in Kentucky for good, and I'm facing an intimidating "Do Me" list, including lots of shopping. And I hate shopping. (Unless it's at Whole Foods, of course!)

Anyway, here's what's been going on.

Last Monday (14th) I took Hayley for on a "sister trip" to Nashville. I brought her down to there a couple summers ago, and I've been promising her another trip since then. With no AC in my car (went out at the beginning of summer. blah), we drove with the windows down, the radio up (no cd player either), and with plenty of cold drinks. Once in Nashville, and having picked Sam up at the airport for his latest European tour, I took Hayley on a mini Tour de Asian Food. I should point out that this was at her request. We did Thai (failed), Indian (huge success--she wanted to go back), Vietnamese (not her favorite but she ate it), and even Taiwanese bubble tea (ultimately successful). I was disappointed that she lacked an inherent love of pad thai and bun chay, but I think it's pretty awesome that at 14 she was willing to try so much new food. When I was 14, I wouldn't even touch Chinese food, so kudos to my favorite little sister.

Starting the drive

Sam and I also took Hayley to Pancake Pantry, a longstanding Nashville tradition and the first place Hayley asked to go. We ordered entirely too much food.

Sam, me, and Hayley waiting in line at Pancake Pantry

Too much food!

And monkey that she is, she wanted to go explore some parks. Including Dragon Park, which seems to be Nashville's take on Park Güell.

Sam and me at Dragon Park

We went to some movies (THE DARK KNIGHT and WALL-E, the latter of which I loved), spent a lot of time relaxing, eating good food, drinking bubble tea, playing Wii. Not terribly eventful but fun and memorable. Unfortunately, it was my last week with Hayley. After the trip she was leaving for vacation with her dad's family. She and I are 8 years apart, and in the past we haven't been really close. But in the last year--even in the last few months--we've become such good friends. We complement each other. I'm the nerd and she's the athlete. I can wonder about the Latin roots of words, and she can tell you what kind of freon you need in your car or how tie a barrel knot. I travel to Vietnam and she rappels down the sides of huge buildings. She's the handiest 14-year-old I know. And she's funny. And smart. And beautiful. And so thoughtful. And I absolutely adore her. I tried to make little friendship bracelets as a parting gift, but my bracelets looked terrible. The hemp was too thick. Of course, Hayley graciously accepted the bracelet I made, promised to wear it (even I don't want to wear the one I made), and then proceeded to make two sophisticated, minimalist, hip bracelets out of some thinner hemp she had buried in her closet. I'm wearing one of her bracelets.

Hayley doing some bungee thing while we waited in line for an early viewing of DARK KNIGHT on Imax.

I've also had a birthday recently. I've been pretty uninterested in it, though, with everything else going on. And I decided to "move" my birthday this year. It's technically the 23rd, but in order to have myself, Sam's family, and my sister all together, we had to celebrate it several days early. Plus, on my actual birthday Sam was leaving for Japan. I wanted the day just to be about preparing for his trip and about us enjoying one of the last times he and I will be together before I go. (I'll only see him for one day after he gets back from Japan.) Nevertheless, when I finally got home from Nashville at around midnight on my birthday, I found that my mom (just home from a business trip) was waiting up for me and had made me one of my favorite desserts from childhood. She even had 22 candles in it, and sang me Happy Birthday. I didn't remember the last time I blew out candles or had someone sing Happy Birthday to me!

In other news, I finally got my VISA! Now my passport officially has the world "socialist" in it. Eat that, Uncle Sam. Still haven't received my first check yet though. And I need it. Vomit.

Also, Sam and I booked his first flight to visit me! He's coming on October 28th and leaving November 9th. Having his visit already lined up makes leaving easier. But leaving is already as easy as it can be: He and I have been doing the long-distance thing for 4 years now, never in the same place for more than a month or so at a time. We've even had quite a bit of practice with one of us being out of the country. And we're both doing exciting things and "following our bliss". We're going to miss each other but we both agree that my trip to Vietnam is not that big of a deal. Totally manageable. In fact, he'll come visit probably 3 times, which means that we'll only go about 3 months without seeing each other. No biggie!

And on the subject of Sam in Asia, he is in Tokyo right now and left me an intoxicated Skype voicemail explaining that if/when he's not playing with Folds anymore, he wants to move to Tokyo or Shanghai for a while with me. I'm not sure where Shanghai fits in, since he's never been there and has not, to my knowledge, ever had the slightest interest in the place. But beggars can't be choosers--and I'm definitely a beggar with him when it comes to living out of the country--so I'll take whatever expat ambitions of his I can get.

Another news update: I now know that for the month of August I will be living at the Quan Hoa Hotel in Hanoi. Thanks to Fulbright for putting me up in what looks like an adorable little hotel with a swimming pool and massage services. Not sure about internet in the hotel but you'd think that a place with a pool and five tennis courts would have wifi. I'm vagina-crossing my fingers.

Ok, last thing. I finished EAT PRAY LOVE last night, and I have a few of comments. First, I love her thoughts about learning a language. Second, the book was a little heavy, for my taste at least, on "God" with a capital G. Third, I liked Bali best. Hanging out on a beautiful island, riding a bike everywhere, befriending a wise old medicine man and a spunky young medicine woman, raising money to buy a house for the latter individual and her children, having an affair with an older Brazilian man who lives in Bali.... When I got to that last part, I thought, "Finally--some good steamy sex is the only thing this book was missing." But--and this is my fourth comment--I was a little disappointed that Liz fell in love with this guy and spent the last half of her time in Bali with him instead of spending time with the medicine man or medicine woman. She's married to the Brazilian now--look out for her next book, WEDDINGS AND EVICTIONS, which will chronicle that adventure--and I wont begrudge her her happiness. I was just looking forward to book about a woman's journey of self-discovery that did not, for once, include meeting some guy and falling in love. To her credit, she had pretty well discovered herself before she fell in love. And the Brazilian guy did seem pretty incredible. Reminded me a lot of Sam, except for the part about being Brazilian. And finally--fifth comment: that woman totally stole my idea. I was going to travel the world and, for the first part of the year, just be a little pleasure machine. Eat whatever, drink whatever. And then I was going to go to India or somewhere and meditate for a few months to cleanse myself. I guess I can still do those things, but I'll just have to write my bestseller about something else instead. Maybe Vietnam.