Christmas night

Merry Christmas everyone!

It is Christmas night in Hanoi and all is well. It was a very different Christmas but one I will never forget. It started with a phone call (via Skype) with my family. They were celebrating at my brother's home so I got to talk to all of them. It was so fun to hear all the voices from home. As they all headed out to skate on the lake we got on with our Christmas day.

We went up for breakfast - seems most hotels have top floor restaurants over here. After about 7 cups of coffee it was time to figure out what to do with our rooms. Seems using a travel agent for rooms over here isn't the best way to go. Unfortunately there is also a 48 hour cancellation needed to get out of your room. So round and round we went....unfortunately Ryan (one of the dads) got stuck doing most of the negotiating. We still don't have things where we want it, but the price came down and we will have to figure out what to do tomorrow. What a big huge waste of time!

Katie, Trey and I headed out to try to get a feel for the city. It is so different from Saigon. For one thing it is cloudy and cool compared to the hot and sunny south. It is just as loud but not nearly as many scooters. You do not have to dodge moving scooters on the sidewalks here, but they just park them there so you end up having to walk in the streets a lot. There is also the "news" (read propoganda) over the town loudspeaker at 7:30 am and again at 4:30 pm. Weird! I don't think we made it to the part of town we were looking for. We stopped for our Christmas lunch (see picture) and then Trey was crashing so we headed back to the hotel for the afternoon nap.

This evening was our Christmas party with all 6 families here from our agency. One of the dads organized a big buffet at their hotel. It was so fun to meet all the kids and see all the newly formed families. The older kids ran wild and the younger ones stole toys from each other. It was a very fun night.

Now the wait for the I600 really starts. It is hard as (we think) we will be notified via email so you just want to keep hitting refresh on the computer. Good thing we are back at the hotel for nap time so we can keep checking. Unfortunately it limits us on excursions, but maybe we will do something over the weekend to get out of town.

That is all from here. Hope Santa gave you what you were hoping for, I know he sure came through for me!