So ... I'm 33 ...

... for some reason, turning 33 is hitting me like a ton of bricks.  I realize it's not a major milestone (i.e. 21 or 50 or 18), and I also realize I'm still younger by several months/years than most of my friends (ha - had to throw that in there - love you guys!) ... but ...

THIS IS THE OLDEST I'VE EVER BEEN.

I think my issue is that I thought I'd be further along by 33 ... husband, kids, white picket fence ... and I'm not.  So that kinda sucks.

BUT!!! (oh yes, there's a positive ...)

1. I have the best family and friends a girl could ask for.
2. I live in Vietnam which is freaking amazing.
3. I have the sweetest dog in the entire world.
4. I have an amazing job that lets me see the world (and that I absolutely love - most days).

All in all, I don't have much (if anything) to complain about.  And 32 was a shit-tay year, so ... bring it on 33!!!!

How the day went down ...

• I woke up at 5:30 a.m. because I was so excited it was my birthday.  Yup - I acted like a 3 year old.  Awesome.

• I worked a full day, and that actually kinda sucked!  People were friendly and wishing me happy birthday and what not, but a. I was in the office on my birthday - and that just blows, and b. one of my co-workers had on his douche helmet and gave me an earful of douchey attitude.  Not cool dude, not cool.

• FINALLY, I made it home and welcomed friends over for a pre-dinner drink before we went to Sumo Sushi (all you can eat sushi and BBQ) for dinner.  Awesome night with awesome friends - felt very special and very lucky.

Roses from my landlord!

Nathalie, me and David @ dinner

BEEF

Daraca, Damien and LaMont @ Sumo Sushi

Something on this table disagreed with me completely ...
Sumo sushi is dead to me.

And then ...

• ... something in the sushi disagreed with me - TERRIBLY.  So I spent the next 24 hours racing to and from the bathroom.  No need for details here, but - let's just say it's wasn't the best ending to the day.
  
  (You're probably thinking ... hmmmm - what did you expect????  All you can eat sushi + BBQ in Vietnam sounds shady as hell.  Thanks Captain Obvious.  I agree wholeheartedly that it was not the smartest decision on my part.  You'd think I'd have learned by 33.)

All in all, a pretty inauspicious start to 33.  

But instead of focusing on the negative, I'll end this on a positive ... 

1. I got to celebrate my birthday for 36 hours because of the time difference between here and the States.  That kinda rocks.

2. I'm heading to Nepal for 10 days in late March.  That's just straight up badass.

3. I'm finalizing my trip home during the summer - definitely something to look forward to.

4. My Irish friends are having me over for lunch on Sunday to celebrate St. Patty's Day in true Irish style.  No idea exactly what that means, but you know it's going to be amazing.  

Thanks to all of you for the birthday wishes, cards, emails, Skype, texts, etc.  I felt the love reaching 1/2-way around the world!!  

Catching Up

I'm confident your days have been a little less bright without my weekly updates.  To turn your frowns upside down, here goes ...

It's the start of week 10 for me - almost 2.5 months in Hanoi.  Crazy how time flies, and yet - sometimes it feels longer.  Good longer - productive longer - but ... longer.  Definitely still suffering from the occasional bout of homesickness, but it's getting a bit better as I meet more people and keep trying new things.

So let's see ... the past two weeks ...

Let's start by highlighting how I've been working my ASS off.  Not even kidding.  1 week in Jakarta working 12-14 hour days, followed by last week working 10-12 hour days.  Let's just say - it was misery.  I'm back down to 9-10 hour days ... I can live with that.

I realize that's not the scintillating stuff you're here to read, so how about ...

I've made friends!  Like, real, honest to god friends!  I met Nathalie (from California), Lamonte (from Georgia) and their daughter Monae through David and Julienne and have hung out with them several times.  They're really great people - totally relaxed and welcoming.  Through Nathalie and Lamonte, I met Dharaka and Damien ... another couple, from Northern England (crazy accents - brilliant as the Brits would say).

Yes, both are couples, but ... as I was explaining to Dugs last night ... it takes one set of friends to introduce you to another and then they bring their friends and then it's all one big friendly group of friends (that's an excessive use of the word friends ... friendsfriendsfriendsfriendsfriends).  Plus, Damien's a doctor for International SOS - so maybe he has hot single doctor friends?  Fingers crossed!

Oh my god, I found the Vietnamese version of Costco.  And it was epic.  Was introduced to Metro by Nathalie and Lamonte who swore that it's THE place to buy things in bulk - including fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, etc.  We went Saturday afternoon and I promptly plopped down $200 for 4 lbs of ground beef, some noodles, fruit, speakers for my laptop, fresh fruit, veggies, a rechargeable fan (evidently power outages are common here in the summer, so a rechargeable fan is a MUST), some toiletries, yadda yadda.  Was so pumped to get home and enjoy the amazingness that I heard was Metro food products ...

... and was sorely disappointed last night when I realized the ground beef had to have been at least 50% fat - the fan is noisy as all get out - and the fruit is mushy.

Oh well - still a good place to stock up on toilet paper.  And you never really can have enough toilet paper.

All in all, it's been a productive few weeks.  Still missing family and friends and still HOPING someone (or all of you) takes me up on my open door policy, but until then .... catch ya on the flip side!

And of course - some pics!!!

Guess he just really needed a smoke ... out on the ledge ...
of his three-story office building.  Huh.

I found the keymaster.

Make shift barber shop on my street.

Jakarta.

My building in Hanoi

Lobby of hotel in Jakarta

(you're likely noticing that I don't have any pics of the actual
city of Jakarta ... right - because I only saw my hotel, and the streets
to and from my office from a taxi.  RRRRRiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhtttttt.)

Sunset over the lake.

My creation!

Found at a bar on Friday night.  Amazing!  I like #7!

Metro (aka Costco)

Sunday in the park ... 

No one needs this much garlic, but for $1.25 a bag, you'd totally buy it too.