Hanoi

Katie and I made it to Hanoi this morning. The airport is about 45 min-1 hour outside of the city, so we got to see some farming areas. I am still overwhelmed with everything and still don't know what to think. It is all very interesting. Everyone is very "pushy" here (in both Saigon and Hanoi) and we have to tell them that we are not interested many times and they will still follow us a little ways. But it is nice to observe their culture. I did not know that the French had such a large influence in Vietnam. It is a little strange to hear fluent French being spoken by a Vietnamese person in the street. Hanoi is different from Saigon in that there are a lot more trees along the streets, so much so that some of the sidewalks are taken over by the roots. Katie keeps pointing out other differences and I guess I will understand more once we tour Saigon more. We are staying at a hotel in Hanoi tonight (US$ 17 for a clean room with 2 twin beds). Tomorrow morning we leave for a tour to Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island. It is about a 4 hour bus ride east of here. Pictures of it are gorgeous, so I hope that it lives up to that. We will stay 1 night on a boat and 1 night in a hotel before returning to Hanoi on Wednesday to catch our flight back to Saigon.

Oh, Saigon

Well I made it on my first overseas flight. The flight really wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I did sleep the majority of the time, but I made sure that I stayed up more in the second half of it, so that I would not have trouble sleeping. No major hiccups along the way. Though, since all my flights were either on time or early, I was praying that my luggage made it. If you didn't know, I have the worst luck when it comes to flying. I know I may be speaking too soon, but if anything happens on my flight home at least I will be back in the United States. Once I got through customs, I went searching for Katie. At the international terminal here, everyone must wait outside for their party. I saw her before she saw me and I just started waving like crazy to get her attention, which I did. Then we both went running to the closest opening and gave each other a really big hug. I am sure some people thought we were crazy, but we are best friends who have not seen each other in over a year :) Next we were in search of a taxi from a reputable company. All the taxi and motorbike drivers were really pushy and wanted us to use them, but Katie kept telling them no and we tried to walk away from them as fast as possible. Once the taxi was found and we were on our way, it was a surreal experience. Motorbikes out number cars by quite a bit. I saw up to 4 people on one bike (2 adults and 2 small children). Also, they drive very different here. Lanes and stop lights do not matter. Katie tried to point out many landmarks along the way, but it was dark so I didn't get to absorb too much. Once we got to Katie's house, she took me on her Motorbike for a little quick tour and to find her food. The weather was warm and very humid, but to her it was cool. It was a nice quick tour and I can't wait to see more later this week. Now we are headed to Hanoi and Halong Bay until Wednesday.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

I can't believe it is here. I leave at 6 am in the morning and SuperShuttle is suppose to be here to pick me up at 3 am!!! There is still so much to do, but I am sure it will all get done. I hope to post more while I am gone, but it is still uncertain. Pictures will definitely come when I get back. So tomorrow just think that at 6 am (Mountain Time), I will be leaving Denver for San Francisco where I will leave at noon (Pacific Time) for Ho Chi Mihn City with a stop in Honk Kong. I can't believe that I am doing this, but it is a chance in a lifetime. When else would I have a built in translator and tour guide :) As much as I am looking forward to seeing Vietnam, I am more excited to see Katie!!

Orange Power

Oh, how I miss being in Stillwater and going to OSU football games. I have been lucky enough to go to 2 football games this year. As you know, Brandon, Jodi, Chris, Chip, and I traveled to Seattle over Labor Day to watch the opening game. Then this past weekend, OSU traveled to us to take on CU (University of Colorado). We have been looking forward to this game for a while, especially with how well OSU has played this year (GO POKES!!). Chip got the tickets for us and Jodi planned the rest, she really takes care of us and makes sure that everything is in order :) On Friday after work, the Alumni Association planned an event for the Denver Alumni and Alumni traveling from out of town for the game to network and get excited about the football game on Saturday. Jodi, Chris and I bailed on this a little early, but we had a good excuse....COOKIES!!! Jodi and I had to get the cookies baked for our tailgate. So we baked and we baked and we baked some more and then we decorated. We ended up making 3 different batches of cookies...Chocolate Cookies Sandwiches with Orange Frosting, Chocolate Chip, and "O"-shaped Sugar Cookies. As if you couldn't already figure this out, but Jodi and I are the bakers of the group :) We ended up staying up until 2 am baking and decorating cookies. We might have gone slightly overboard, but it was a blast and everyone had a variety of cookies to eat (not to mention, more than plenty). Despite the late night, I was up early on Saturday to make Tortilla Cream Cheese Pinwheels (because I got lazy on Thursday and didn't do it then). We then all met up at Jodi's before heading up to Boulder, where the rest of the group would meet up with us for the tailgate.

Colorado has been having some beautiful weather lately. Saturday was no different. I had a turtleneck with a t-shirt over it and a light jacket when I got to Jodi's and I was a little warm. But in Colorado, it doesn't matter how nice the day is, it gets really cold when the sun goes down. So we arrive at our tailgate spot at 3 pm, which you would think would make for a couple hours of nice warm sun...not so much. The sun started setting 15 minutes after we arrived and that is when the freezing started. Since the game was at night I had packed a sweatshirt, jacket, blanket, gloves and hat, but I had not planned on putting any of this on until I got to the game. We were all in our sweatshirts within no time and the gloves soon followed. At this point we all became really stubborn and didn't want to put anything else on until we got to the stadium, for fear that it would not be enough. So after are wonder tailgate ended we were off to cheer on our Cowboys.

Our Cowboys won, though it was not pretty. We had a great time at the game and it was warmer in the stadium, which made all of us happier.

Oh, how I miss our Cowboys.

Now We're Even

Brandon turned 25 on Monday and so I am no longer "older" (Yes, I know I am still older, but I am not being technical). It really doesn't bother me being a whole two months older than him, but I do have to give him a hard time about dating "an older woman" :) Brandon's parents flew up for the special occasion and we had a wonderful time. Brandon was able to come home Friday night and wasn't called back to work before he was officially off on Sunday night!! Brandon's parents came in on Saturday and were a little surprised to see Brandon so soon. As soon as we got back from the airport, we headed downtown to watch OSU take on Texas Tech and that is all I will say about that. The good thing of the night was that we were able to introduce Don and Charmaine to a few of our Denver friends and we had a delicious dinner (Hawaiian Pizza on the Chicago-style crust...yum). On Sunday, we lounged around awhile before heading up to Boulder to have a late lunch, window shopping and driving in the mountains. For Brandon's actual birthday we drove up to Allenspark and went ATVing. This was the first time I had ever been on an ATV and I was a little nervous that I would fall off it and break something...I am a pretty clumsy person, so it could happen. I did not fall off and I actually had a fantastic time. There were a couple occasions in which I was a little scared, but overall I enjoyed it. It was a cool day with a few snowflakes and snow on parts of the trail. I think this made it an even better day. For Brandon's birthday dinner we went out for a scrumptious dinner at Joe's Crab Shack where Brandon was humiliated by everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him while he played the "drums". (He had a good time, even if he doesn't want to admit it). It was so nice to have a few days off work and spending time with Brandon and his family.

I am an American

On Tuesday, November 4, 2008, I voted in my second Presidential Election. This was much different than my last voting experience, because I actually voted the day of the election at a voting booth. Woo Hoo!! The last election I was in college and had to vote by absentee ballot. I thought that it was really cool to go to vote, which I believe makes me an even bigger geek :) Anyway, I got up really early on Tuesday morning, so that I could leave my house by 6:30 A.M. to get to my voting place. I was really lucky and it was just a short walk 3 blocks away from my apartment. I arrived 20 minutes early and was number 9 in line. (During the last election, Denver had really bad lines and issues on voting day, so I thought it best to be an early bird). When the doors finally opened, I was off to vote. But being me, it wasn't without some glitches. First, I only received page 1 of the ballot. I probably would not have noticed this had Amendment 58 not been on the first page. So I had to ask for page 2, which luckily they didn't hassle me at all. Then as I am voting, my pencil breaks. Should I have taken this as a sign? I got a new pencil and finished voting. In and out in 15 minutes. I wore my "I Voted" sticker proudly all day (even out to dinner at Olive Garden with Brandon). Not all the election results went in my favor--I only got 1 of the 3 things/people I wanted, but I will not let this discourage me from voting in the next election for what I believe in. So I am an American and I have a say (good or bad) about how I feel the government is taking us because I did my civic duty and voted.

October

Well October has come and gone and I feel like I am still trying to keep up. I just don't know where the month went. It has been a very eventful month. At the beginning of the month Brandon and I got moved. So I had to get things unpacked and in its place before my mom, my aunt and his mom showed up a week and a half later. I basically killed myself trying to get as much done as possible and it turned out pretty well but I still have a lot to do. As mentioned, I had an apartment full of visitors which was wonderful. This was the first time for our moms to meet and I think it was a success :) We spent most of the weekend shopping and eating. Poor Charmaine probably had no idea what she got herself into when she agreed to come. This has been an annual event for my mom and aunt since I moved to Denver two years ago. We had a great time and each came away with some good bargains. Charmaine came to Denver bearing a gift for Brandon and I--an OSU Christmas Tree!! I love it and already have it up in my apartment in support of my OSU Cowboy Football team. As I was writing those words, Toby Keith's "Should've Been a Cowboy" came on my radio. For those who are not familiar with OSU tradition, this song is played after every home game (football and basketball) and is our unofficial school song. (I am sure that Toby is not happy about this as he is a huge OU fan). So I am going to take this as a good omen--GO POKES!! Speaking of the Pokes I have spent many of my Saturday's of this month at Old Chicago's in Downtown Denver with my fellow OSU Denver Alums cheering on our Cowboys. We have been very proud of them and have probably run a few people out of the restaurant with our loudness :) It has been great to hang out with Jodi, Chris, and Chip again. We have added a few more people to our table this year and have begun planning our assault on Boulder when OSU play CU on November 15th. I have also had some fun this month. I spent the Friday before Halloween carving pumpkins at Brittany's house. I cannot remember ever carving pumpkins before (I think we painted a few), so I had a lot to learn and my poor pumpkin looked like a 5 year carved it :) Unfortunately, none of our pumpkins survived the warm weather we are having and had all collapsed inside themselves before the Halloween party, this was probably a good thing for mine. Brittany's Halloween Party was great. Everyone had great costumes and was super nice. Brittany and her sisters were great to me and lent me a costume (at 10 am yesterday I did not have one). I was a pirate and Brittany was Young Elvis. Her costume was so good that she was hardly recognizable.

So October has come and went and I know November won't be much better. I leave for Vietnam on the 21st, so I have better get busy getting stuff together!! Hopefully I will be much better at keeping everyone updated.