Monday May 9

I woke up and realized that I forgot to set my alarm.  My clock says 8:30.  I ran outside shoes in hand hoping to catch the bus that was supposed to take the group to the University of Economics and Finance at 8:15.  It is not there.  I asked a police officer if it is 8:30.  He did not understand my question.  I ask again, this time he agreed with me that it was 8:30.  In a roundabout way I found out that the time was actually 6:30.  I was relieved and made my way down to the hotel breakfast.  The only thing I did not enjoy was the salted hardboiled egg with the shell still on.  It likely would have been better if I had scooped the egg from the shell before putting it in my mouth.  It was very salty and crunchy, I got it down though.
We toured to UEF campus.  It is a gated compound with about 1000 students.  We met about 30 students who were very excited to see meet us, as we were them.  We were greeted rather strangely.  One of the professors introduced the school in heavily accented english that was difficult for me to understand.  He turned the introduction ceremony over to some singers who were pretty good.  Next came a girl whose did a dance with a hat.  For the finale, puppets danced above a blue curtain spastically, but with rhythm.  Eventually the puppeteers pulled the puppets behind the blue curtain in a dramatic, choreographed kind of way.  I guess they drowned.  I think the blue curtain was supposed to symbolize water.  There was a Vietnamese language class that was a little too much like work for me.  I don't want to have to study on this trip but if I don't I'll end up embarrassing myself in later classes.  We'll see how it goes.
After a delicious lunch at the UEF campus we took a short tour of the city, eventually stopping at the U.S. consolate for a tour and Q and A with the Chief of Consular Section.  The discussion on the history of U.S.-Vietnamese relations and the operations of the the Foreign Service was fascinating.  I particularly enjoyed to story of the Viet Cong attack on the U.S. embasy and could feel patriotic aura of the U.S. embasy by comparing the memorials built by the Vietnamese and Americans commemorating the heroes of both sides that died in the attack.
The welcome dinner was great.  The chicken feet were very chewy.  The fried shrimp head contained a gooey suprise. These two items pushed the limit of what I will eat if I am not starving.