Day Ten: Wednesday

It was a monday, wednesday, or friday, so we headed to UEF for culture class and language class! The culture class talked a lot about the yin and yang aspects of the society, such as houses facing east vs west and how many gates are customary to have out front. It was interesting to me that the direction a house faces could influence it's value, since that doesn't happen in American real estate. Then we had language classes where we worked on learning numbers and phrases, though our favorite is "Mot Hai ba yo!" which is the Vietnamese version of a "1, 2, 3 cheers!" type saying. At the end of the class though, she told us there was a quiz on Friday, and some of (especially me, 'cause the Vietnamese kids always help me in class!) got nervous about it.

After lunch, we walked to the UEF administrative building, which was around the corner from the hotel. We walked the long way, and saw this cute restaurant with swings instead of chairs. When we got there, we met with Mark Oakley, who worked for the law firm Duane Morris Viet Nam LLC. He talked about new companies coming to Vietnam and how they go about getting different permits and permissions they would need. It was interesting to me that he wouldn't comment on anything political, even in our non-public setting, as the government in the country was communist and so it's not acceptable to speak your opinion regarding politics.

For dinner, we went to the Black Cat again, the guys reallly like their burgers. It was fun though. That night, we went to the Rex hotel's rooftop bar. No one wanted a late night since we had our soccer game Thursday morning. At the Rex, the singer started singing Sweet Caroline, which was random but so well timed! We all joined in singing with the Pitt lyrics which was veryyy fun. About half the group left and got taxi's back, but a few of us stayed a little longer. We ended up walking back to the hotel since it was such a nice night, and it was such a different experience to see the city at nightt.