Phan Thiet Oct'11

The last Saturday in October was set as the date for the house warming party. This kind of event was one of the reasons I wanted my own place to live. Although I hope it is not the last time that I invite people back to the house. Anna and I went to Co-Op mart in the morning to pick up party supplies. They included vodka of course. The house was fairly tidy as the cleaner had been on Thursday so we didn't have to really do anything there. I lazed the afternoon away, there really wasn't anything for me to do. And to be honest, I didn't want to do a lot. Anna and I started getting things together about 5pm, that included me burning a couple of Cd's so that we would have music. The house is pretty much fully furnished, including a T.V. and stereo in the living room. Anna put together the punch and snacks and things. We had told people that the party started at 7pm and people started to arrive pretty much from then. The front yard was turned into a parking lot and all the doors and windows in the house were open to try and get some sort of airflow through. Anna was in fancy dress as a Tiger beer girl. All restaurants here have girls whose main job is to serve beer and of course, get you to drink more. They all wear the uniform of the beer they're pushing. In addition to these girls who work at one restaurant are girls who move from busy restaurant to busy restaurant, their dresses are a little sexier and the shoes a whole lot higher. This is the outfit Anna had made to wear to the party. I didn't get dressed up, it was fine as most of our guests wore ordinary clothes. We had a good mix of Westerners and Vietnamese people, including a journalist from a local newspaper, she's doing an article on the party! Everyone loves the house, but most people thought that it was very big. I guess the kitchen is big, but the rest of the house isn't, not by Western standards anyway. And in all fairness it unusual in that we have a garden, which turned out to be perfect for a party. I should be able to have my birthday party here, if I am still in Vietnam and Phan Thiet then. I started kicking people out about 11pm and closed up the house before going to MTV with a few people. I was home and asleep by 2.30. It had been a good night. I woke up a little later than normal the next day, not surprising really. The house was a mess. I tidied up glasses and everything else like that but left the floors, I figured that our cleaner could take care of that. I don't think that this is going to be the last time that I am glad we have a cleaner. I relaxed after cleaning, had lunch at Win Cafe and then got me a little pool time in at Novotel. It was lovely, almost the perfect Sunday. I say almost perfect because of course I was recovering from a hangover and because I got bitten to hell at the pool. I don't know what's going on but in the past two weeks I've been bitten more than in almost my whole first year here. And the bites are worse. It's not a good look and I hope they all go down before the wedding. Monday was Halloween, I don't like Halloween. School held a Halloween party that Anna and I were obliged to attend. What a waste of time, we weren't really needed there and I had so much work to do. The first week in November was an exam week and I also had to write lesson plans for all the lessons I am going to miss when I am away. By Thursday this week I was going nuts and so tired. I had a really bad day on Thursday, so I decided that Thursday night was going to be my Friday and dragged Anna out with me. We started at our local nail place, which is just at the end of our alley, with beer. Unfortunately they were busy so we went and sat in the beer place on the other side of the alley entrance. This is not as strange as it sounds, I usually drink Saigon Xanh, which comes in a glass bottle that you have to return. Anna and I bought two crates of it from this beer place and the two bottles we had were the last two from the crates. I'd returned one crate on the Sunday morning and the beer place lady had collected another, minus two bottles, during the week. Everyone in our local area knows where we live. After the beer place we decided to walk around the corner to Bo Ke and go and get some dinner. We bumped into another expat, Rudy who was with one of his friends, they invited us to sit down for a beer, so we did. Then we had dinner and of course more beer. On our way home we got dragged into a wedding party and there was more beer and dancing. Even after all this we were back in the house by 9pm. We were watching T.V. when I suggested that we pay a visit to another local nightclub, so out we went. And on the way home we stopped at a roadside drinking place and drank with some dudes. It was an awesome "Friday" night! My actual Friday day at work wasn't great, as you might imagine, but totally worth it. I even came home for a midday nap.