They also have pigeons in a giant cage, and Son was a bit shocked when I explained that pigeons are quite annoying and numerous back home. In the center of a lake they built these very elaborate bird houses... for pigeons! Apparently they are quite the thing of beauty here, although they are in a lot better condition than the pigeons roaming the streets of New York.
After the park, we headed over to the Trung Nguyen Cafe across the street from the mausoleum. After a very chilling avocado milk shake, I was off to the pool to meet some friends for night swimming.
Since the USA soccer game was on at 1:30 in the morning, we had some time to kill. The pool is a happenin' spot at night, since most Vietnamese people are afraid of the sun and don't like to be out in the middle of the day. Mid-swim I ran into my student Dieu Lam, and it's always a bit funny to see my kids out of class. I've bumped into three of them now, and they always get really embarrassed to see me in normal clothes hanging with friends. I figure they think I am a teacher 24 hours a day, so it's always a little jarring to have that perception broken (at least I felt that way when seeing my teachers outside of school). I had an interview at an architecture firm, and it was really interesting to see a bunch of the housing projects they were working on in Ha Noi. I was offered a bit of an internship for the summer, but I had to turn it down. There was no wage and they expected me to do a lot of computer work in a program that I'm not too familiar with. I also would have had to give up my month-long summer vacation. My mother is arriving the 21st, and we are heading down to the island of Phu Quoc in the very south of Viet Nam for a spa week. After she leaves to return to America, I plan on spending the next week traveling, which sounds a lot better than being stuck in an office in front of a computer...
Since I have the SIS Year End Concert coming up, I invested in a new camera (hence the influx of pictures today).
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