Today, I woke up around 6:00 am after getting about 5 hours of sleep. After taking a quick shower and checking my email, I went down to breakfast at the Victory Hotel. The breakfast, although interesting (they had noodle and rice dishes that Americans would normally think of as lunch or dinner meals) was very enjoyable and delicious. I had a bowl of pho and some fresh fruit.
After breakfast, we went to UEF for a welcome celebration where we all introduced ourselves, sang, danced, and conversed with the Vietnamese students. The University of Pittsburgh presented UEF with a few gifts (a UPitt banner and Pitt t-shirts) and UEF gave each of us shirts. After the ceremony, we had our first Vietnamese language class, in which we learned some basic sentences and words in Vietnamese (what is your name, my name is, hello, goodbye, see you again, etc). Following the class, we had lunch at the canteen before heading back to the hotel.
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| Me introducing myself to the UEF students and faculty |
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| Group shot at the welcome ceremony at UEF |
We had about half an hour to freshen up and change before going on a short bus tour of the area and stopping at the US Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. At the Consulate, we talked with an American foreign policy worker who has been in the foreign policy business for 20+ years. We finished off the trip with a group photo in front of the plaque in the Consulate boundaries that commemorated the 5 US citizens killed during the Viet Cong attack. At 7:00, we headed over to Que Nha for a seven course dinner that was excellent and quite an experience. All in all, it was a very fun and exciting first day in Vietnam.
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| Dinner at Que Nha |
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