day 12

Friday, May 18th

Today was our last day in Vietnam, a day which most certainly came much too soon. I am not ready to leave! We started out with a lecture from Giang Nguyen, a Pennsylvania Trade Representative in Vietnam. Apparently, PA is the only US state who has such an office, which I found interesting - I didn't realize our state did so much trade with Vietnam! It also got a lot of us thinking about coming back next summer on an internship. After her lecture, news reporters interviewed four of us about what we thought of Ho Chi Minh and what we thought of the program. I don't know how big of news it is that we are here, but it's definitely a little funny that we're news at all - usually in the US, people don't make that big of a deal about exchange students. I kind of wonder how many people will have seen me on TV. When the interviews were done, it was time to have our last language class. We had a small test on the stuff we had learned - I was paired with Eric, and we had to perform a short dialogue in which we asked each other's names, what we did last night and where we went. I didn't do quite as well as some, but I still definitely know at least a little more Vietnamese than I did before!

After language class, we had lunch at the Canteen, and then we drove to a local soccer field for our friendly soccer match with the UEF students! I am really bad at soccer, but I made my best effort.... and amazingly, our team won (though this was mostly thanks to Elliott and Tim, who scored goals, and Ricky, who was the goalie). After the soccer game, we had a sack hop race - Tuấn and I came in first during our heat, so we went on to the final round, and came in second! We got a nice little stuffed animal duck as a prize, which was very cute. When we were done with all the games, we had to head back to the hotel to get ready for the farewell dinner.

Shortly before we were about to leave for the farewell dinner, we found out that all our flights were changed! Apparently the flight we were supposed to take from Hong Kong to Chicago was delayed by 6 hours, so they moved all of us around. Out of the 13 people, 7 are now going to San Francisco (and then 2 to Chicago then Pittsburgh, 5 to Denver then Pittsburgh), 4 are going directly to Newark and then Pittsburgh, and 2 are going to Tokyo then Newark then Pittsburgh. SO much confusion! I am glad that I will be with the biggest group to go through customs, because I have never gone through customs before, and even when coming back through Canada the boarder control people sometimes question Americans pretty thoroughly (this happened to Pitt Band when we came back from Toronto).

The farewell dinner was held on a boat, though you could hardly feel the motion. It was very nice! There was live entertainment, which was definitely a treat. We also got to see the city lit up as we cruised along the river. After we were finished eating, we took lots of pictures with our group, our language teacher, and our wonderful guide, Tran. I never want to forget this trip, and I definitely want to come back!

When we came back to the hotel, our UEF friends were waiting for us. Because it was late, and a lot of places would be closed, we decided to just hang out at the hotel. They stayed with us until 2 am, when they left to go to the airport so they could see us off there! It was incredibly nice of them, and I will miss them so much. They also gave us lots of little gifts to remember them by, and I feel bad that we were not more prepared - but I was able to give each of them one of my friendship bracelets, and I really hope they liked them. While we were all hanging out, some people played blackjack (though I wasn't in the room at the time since I was finishing packing), gave massages (nice and relaxing before our long trip home), and read palms (I don't remember all of it but I am apparently undecided in my career, and I will have one husband).

Finally, we left for the airport, and shared a tearful goodbye with our UEF friends. We all said hẹn gặp lại, which means "see you again". I really hope I get to see everyone again!