This weekend I had the very exciting opportunity to go to a Vietnamese wedding. My roommate’s boyfriend’s cousin was getting married and Trang was nice enough to invite Anna and me to the wedding in her hometown and to stay at her house the night before. We got to meet her family and have dinner with them. Trang’s ten year old brother took us on a tour of the town, including his favorite place in the whole town, the supermarket. We also got to meet a lot of Trang's friends from home. We all went to a beautiful cafe by a river. Then we went to the town's large night market where I bought earrings for the wedding the next day. Finally, I got to experience a Vietnamese karaoke bar. Unfortunately Anna and I have only learned one song in Vietnamese but we sang that one, attempted to follow along with a few others and did two Beatles songs.
Playing a board game with Trang and her little brother
The next day we had breakfast at a great noodle place in the alley where Trang lives and got our hair done for the wedding. That was quite a funny experience. Anna had just gotten her hair curled and the hairdresser was spraying her hair with hairspray. We all closed our eyes to avoid getting hairspray in them and when we looked up, Anna's hair was gold. Apparently the hairdresser thought that Anna's black hair would look nice with some gold, glittery highlights. She eventually got her hair returned to normal color but we all had a good laugh. The wedding itself was a lot of fun. Waiters brought out course after course of delicious food while we were entertained by various singers. The bride and groom went around to visit all of the tables and talk with their guests and I got to practice Vietnamese with the people sitting at my table. Throughout this, the bride changed wedding dresses several times. The first was a traditional, white, Western style wedding dress followed by, what can only be described as a series of 80s prom dresses.
Trang, me, Anna, the bride and groom, Trang's boyfriend
Tuesday, we had a birthday celebration for Anna who just turned 21! We went out for a special dinner of bánh căn, small fried cakes, they are a little difficult to describe but were very delicious. After that, we made a surprise (for Anna) visit to a coffee shop with live music. We listened to some classical violin playing followed by a rehearsal of a band doing covers of really old American songs like "Money, money, money" and "Yellow polka dot bikini." Then the violin player came back and played happy birthday on the violin and we brought out a cake for Anna. She was very surprised! I've attached a video of Loan singing a special birthday song for Anna. Sorry that it's sideways, I couldn't figure out how to rotate it. Maybe one you technical types out there can point me in the right direction.
Hey I decided to stalk you a bit. looks like you're having a great time and learning some stuff too. way to go. I miss you!
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