It’s been such a long day – in fact it’s so long that it’s actually stretched over two days. No one should go this long without sleep (I’m definitely getting a little loopy by this point). This morning I opted out of gallivanting around the city in favor of packing. It was pretty tricky to fit some of my stuff in, but I managed and I was really glad I got it out of the way early – it would have been stressful to leave this much to the last minute. Lunch was pizza delivery from the unique pizza place we ordered from before (featuring such unique pies as beef with corn and barbeque chicken with pineapple). I haven’t had as much quality roommate time these past few days as I would have liked because Van Anh is in class, but we did get a chance to make one last snail run today. This time the whole group came and we went to a different place, which wasn’t as good as the original snail restaurant but it still brought back wonderful memories.
CET treated us to a fancy farewell dinner at a Vietnamese French fusion restaurant. We sat at a long table in a private room, encouraging us to be especially silly in roommate pictures we took at the table. There were six courses – the first was my favorite, a beef-vegetable mix that we scooped onto crispy rice cakes. The last dish was a hotpot, which I now consider to be the most hazardous food in the world. The waiter had Loan drop the flammable cakes into the open flame below the pot, but when the first one dropped in, the second caught fire in her hand. She flung it away and the fireball flew towards me, but fortunately landed in front of my plate and not in my lap. Miraculously Loan’s hand wasn’t burned and we went back to our calm meal together, though I couldn’t enjoy the hotpot quite as much knowing it nearly took our lives.
The Vietnamese roommates had made t-shirts that said “CET Vietnam Summer 2009”with everyone’s names on them, so we gave them gifts in return. We gave each of our roommates a framed photograph of the whole group taken at the Cham ruins. After dinner we went to the cafe that resembled a rainforest. The lights were dim and we were at a table on a balcony overlooking an indoor garden. I ordered my last cafe sua nong (made with chestnut coffee interestingly enough) so I could stay awake until the plane ride. Van Anh and I also shared a coconut filled with scoops of taro, durian, and coconut-flavored ice cream – quintessential Vietnamese flavors; I love it.
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