You're good at finding shortcuts around this part of town

First and foremost: please put a hold on the gifts/care packages/birthday cards. If you must must send me something, contact me and I will give you the DHL address but don't send it to my other address.

The past few days have been really tough work/program wise. In my opinion, it's a matter of days before I get kicked to the curb like so many greats in the program before me. When that time comes, I will write one heck of a blog.

Let's move on to more interesting things, shall we?

I drove into town tonight. And back. It was scary and people asked me why it took an hour and a half (traffic, I drove slowly, and I got lost)Luckily, Hanoi is pretty small and being a city girl I can figure things out. I had a moment, of terror, when the police pulled me over.

Before I go into more details about that, let me talk about the way they pull people over here. Policemen sit on the side of the road and then wave a flag at you asking you to pull over. I never thought I'd be one of the idiots who actually did.

Anyway, so the policeman STEPS IN FRONT OF ME with his little flag and I did what any self respecting white girl in Asia would do...started screaming in English that i was lost, scared, and looking for my father. He looked bewildered and waved me on probably thinking, "I'll let this one go...she seems more trouble than she's worth"
(hey Alex...don't you wish you had the same insight all those years ago?)

I still don't know why I got pulled over. My lights were on. I was driving well. I didn't run any lights.

Sean and Harry, if you repeat any of that story to Lucie or Tom then you will lose your status as best Godfather ever.

Speaking of drives, I am heading to Laos next week. Woohoo. I am going by bus. 23 hours. Sleeper bus. The fact that the chairs turn into mini cots or whatever reassures me. The articles I read about it being a death bus still startle me a bit.

but it's $30. And I am working on being this backpacker, free spirit type of traveler. I actually think I am a good traveler, I mean I've gone to enough places. It's not like I expect or am used to five star treatment, I've just never been a backpacker (partially because I think I look like a huge dorky loser in a backpack)before and I am kind of excited. While I am a very light packer, I am unsure whether my clothes and supplies for an entire week will fit in a backpack, but we will see. It's kind of my goal.

Now all i have to do is resist the evil temptations of partying this weekend. Bia Hoi has made my tummy a little rounder and I have facebook pictures to think about.

One quick shout out to CJP: for sending me incredible links to stellar songs, being a great skype chat buddy and most importantly sending me the following link which, I have played on repeat (if you don't like/know/understand Flight of the Conchords you may not appreciate): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2LpeA3jcEU