Our last day in Vietnam was quite a sad one. Austin and I woke up around 6 as usual and began our routine, a routine that was about to be no more—showers, getting dressed, down to breakfast around 7-7:15, out to the bus by 8:15. We took our normal route through the city with the normal destination of UEF, at which we had our final culture class as well as our final Vietnamese language class. As promised, our language teacher reviewed everything with us before having us take two speaking tests: one with a partner, consisting of asking each other four questions and answering them (entirely in Vietnamese, of course), the other being a solo introduction about yourself—your name, where you’re from, what you study, where you go to school, what you did in Vietnam, what you ate and drank, etc. The second test was scored on a 1-10 scale, with a 10 being the best. I personally scored a 10 (yes!) and was quite happy that I had managed to grasp as much of the language as I did in those short two weeks.
After the class was over, we took a few group photos to commemorate our class and took a short break while the UEF students finished setting up the room for our final day of activities together: UEF and UP, two schools, yet one big family. When we finally were allowed into the room, everyone took a balloon off the wall. Inside each balloon was a number, 1-4, that determined your group for the day. I was part of group two; we decided to name ourselves Angry Birds to show our love for the iPhone and Android game. In our groups, we did various activities competing against the other groups, varying from hosting a talk show about jobs and differences between the US and Vietnam to trying to eat hanging fruit blindfolded to trying to feed someone yogurt using a tiny spoon, while, you guessed it, blindfolded. The activities lasted for a few hours and ended with the UEF students presenting us with a gift—UEF keychains and various knick-knacks for us to keep to remember all of our friends in Vietnam.
Following our activities, we headed over to the soccer fields for a fun game of “football” with our Vietnamese counterparts. Deciding to play barefoot, although a good idea at the time, turned out to be not as fun as we expected: Austin and I ended up with huge blisters and various turf burns across our feet from not being used to playing without shoes or cleats. The game itself was quite fun however, and ended with the UEF players winning 5-4 (although they must have let us score some, it was pretty obvious they stopped trying after a goal or two).
Arriving back at the hotel following our game, it was time to shower and try to get some packing done before heading out to our farewell dinner. However, time was pretty tight, as the game ran longer than we expected, so we only had about an hour before we boarded the bus for dinner. Quite unexpectedly, and fortunately, according to Dr. Berman, we were able to witness a true monsoon rainstorm on the way as well as partway through dinner. The rain was coming down harder than I have ever seen rain fall, soaking pretty much everyone as we attempted to get from the bus to the table at dinner, even with umbrellas present. It was quite an experience, and I was glad that we were able to witness and even be a part of it, especially on our last day in Vietnam.
Dinner was excellent as usual, even better than normal. Tin had picked out the dishes for the meal, pretty much nailing everything that we have come to like the most throughout the trip. Tin and Anh were there, as well as our language teacher. It was really nice being able to see her one last time before we headed back to the US, as we all grew to love her over our two weeks of classes at UEF. After dinner, the rain had pretty much subsided and we were given the chance to walk around the resort area in which the restaurant sat. It was beautiful.
We finally said our goodbyes and made our way back to the hotel one last time, as we were planning to leave for the airport at 3:30 in the morning. After finishing up the final touches of packing and double checking the rooms, many of us decided to stay up for the next 4-5 hours we had before leaving, feeling like it was not really worth sleeping when we had a 15 hour flight ahead of us on which we could sleep anyway. And with that, we decided to go to Lush one last time, ending our trip on a good note. Xin Chào Việt Nam!
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