I think I made it perfectly clear to everyone in Long Beach and San Diego that my trips should come with a disclaimer as it seems that I could very well get lost in a paper bag! I must have forgotten to mention that to Intrepid though....
Suffice it to say I got fantastically LOST with this group of passengers -- not once, but twice. To make this tale even sweeter, the first time I got lost with them was on the FIRST NIGHT!! I tried to take the group to dinner <<to a restaurant I had been to just the night before!>> and I missed the huge street we were supposed to take, so we ended up wandering around Hanoi for an extra 25 MINUTES I kid you not, before finding the restaurant. And finally, to complete my humiliation, when we got there, all of the passengers had gone there for drinks the night before and could have given ME directions! The only redeeming factor in all this is that this group is incredibly nice and easy-going, they still trusted me to lead them through Vietnam and China, and they've even restrained themselves to only giving me shit about the situation once a day when they could do so much more :-)
Especially after the second time we got lost... To my credit this one was far less blatant. In Liuzhou I have a card with Chinese characters written on one side that says "Please take me to 5 Star Street" and on the other side that says "Please take me to the bus station" (we use these when we have to take seperate taxis). I had the hotel front desk copy the cards for me and we set off for dinner at 5 Star St -- only to find ourselves 10 minutes later at the bus station. Oops. I may be doing much better with my Chinese characters, but I certainly haven't learned all 50,000 of them and the ones on that card I did not know.
Aside from those times, the trip has gone so smoothly. I've had ten times as much confidence going into this one than I did on my first trip. The pax have been really nice, not picky, no attitudes, and they take care of each other like family. One girl, Benni, a cute little Norwegian girl, definitly gets the quote of the week; upon seeing the tennis racket shaped bug zappers snapping and electricuting the bugs she asked "But how do they use them to play with regular balls?" Oh my... :-D
I've been really nostalgic for America in general on this trip. I think because we celebrated Norway Day with the Norwegian girls last week, I started thinking about 4th of July and fireworks and BBQ's and swimming pools! Granted I haven't been able to celebrate in a couple years anyway since working in hotels, but I still miss the idea of it and wish I would be there to see friends and family, hang out in someone's backyard swatting mosquitos (okay, I can do that here), and soak it all up.
I don't know if you all realize how much I think about you and appreciate what awesome friends (and family) I have. I dont get homesick too bad because I'm absolutly stoked that I'm here, but it's knowing that you all are there that keeps me going. I may not get to write to each of you individually as much as I'd like to, but I think about you constantly and you make me happy.
I love you all!
~Jami
Current Injury: slipped coming out of a store in Vietnam, scuffed both knees... I am officially a 5 yr old
