I have been in Hanoi for almost a week and while it's an incredibly difficult city to summarize in a word or so, I am pretty sure that the two which come to mind most readily are hot and humid. On average, it's about 95 degrees here with between 50-60% humidity. For anyone who has never been under these conditions, it sort of feels like the inside of an oven...an oven that is dripping (or maybe pelting is more appropriate) your own sweat on you. When I go outside for more than 5 minutes between the hours of 7 am and 9 pm, it looks like I'm mid-shower and mid-marathon (purple face...) which I'm sure is helping me immensely to gain street cred with the local Vietnamese people (and people in general). In despite of my constant purple face and the indescribable state of my hair, I do actually do things here in addition to sweating...
To start from the beginning, I left JFK Airport on Sunday July 19 at the nice hour of 11:45 pm. I started out slightly worried because the lady sitting next to me in the terminal was wearing a dress covered in embroidered flip-flops and wearing sunglasses (inside and at night...). While it would be cool to say things got better, the 18.5 hours to Taipei weren't exactly awesome. The flight wasn't full which would seem great except that the lady sitting in the middle seat (I was on the window) decided to leave her bag on the open aisle seat and she spoke no english. Fortunately, she also wanted to share my headrest and slept on my seat all the way to Anchorage (half of the flight). After refueling in Anchorage, she started pulling endless fruit out of her bag. If was essentially like sitting in the middle of the produce section at the grocery store. When we made it to Taipei, I sat in the un-air conditioned airport (which had free wifi...yessss) for a few hours and finally made it to Hanoi on Tuesday July 21 at 10:25 am.
Okay, that is probably a decent amount of whining for one post. I got incredibly lucky with my living situation in Hanoi. The family that I am living with for the next month, Jenny, Lasse, and Jules (their 9-month old son who is one of the cutest babies ever), are so nice and essentially have allowed me to make myself at home (we'll see if that was a good idea on their part). They live in an area that has a lot of ex-pats but certainly some locals as well. However, the best part is that the area (which is essentially the very nice suburban part of the city) is loaded with "massage parlors" which is just code for sex shops. (Does anyone from Cheltenham remember the Sunshine Spa? yeah.) This is possibly the oddest area for sex shops but then again, who saw the Sunshine Spa moving in next to a pet store? The house is awesome and it has air conditioning so I can't really ask for anything more.
When I can deal with leaving the a/c, also known as 8:30am on weekdays, I venture to somewhere in the city (haven't exactly got my bearings yet) to Hanoi Medical University [Đại học Y Hà Nội...try pronouncing that one]. On my first day of work, the security guards thought it would be hilarious to send me to the 2nd floor when the group that I work with actually works on the 4th floor of the building so I spent 20 minutes knocking on every wrong door. That was fun. For the next month, I am working on a literature review about male sex workers in Vietnam (aka reading a lot), helping do some background research on the treatment of the various professions that work with HIV-AIDS patients (aka reading some more), and helping some of my co-workers improve their English so that they can eventually do work in the US (aka talking...yessss a skill I definitely have...not that I can't read).
Okay, I assume that this is more than enough for one posting and that if I write anymore, all of my readers' (hahahaha) brains will explode. In my next exhilarating and mind-numbingly long post, I will hopefully figure out how to post pictures so that I will be inspired to write less about what I've seen so far in Hanoi.
Brushing my teeth and wearing my bite-plate, Nance.
