Luke Time Travels While Watching The Hunger Games

Waiting in PDX, Setting up This Blog

     The actual decision to move to Vietnam was easy, especially for me. I just waited for Birdy's verdict. She said yes and now we're here. Easy! Unfortunately, the decision-making process was significantly more complicated. We had just moved to Lebanon, Oregon, 10 months before. Birdy was just finishing up her first year of college. I needed to start paying back my student loans. We had a house (rental) we loved and a load of pets we'd picked up over the year. Neither of us had any savings. There was the future to prepare for- school, wedding, house, career, family- and we knew that moving to Vietnam would mean putting everything on hold while trying not to slide backward.

In Ho Chi Minh City we ate at a restaurant
President Clinton had eaten at- their claim to fame

     At the same time, there were plenty of valid and valuable reasons to risk the move. My family was there and my mother needed our help and support. We both want to travel and experience life abroad. We're still getting started as a couple, so a move like this now would be easier than it would be down the line. It would be a big test of our ability to compromise Birdy's love of Oregon and the familiar with my love of travel and the unfamiliar. It would look fabulous on our resumes. Also, Vietnam has coconuts. Tons of them. Fresh, local, cheap and delicious.

     Once we'd decided to move, we had to find a place for all our animals. That was our main priority. We had to go through all the preparations of re-homing pets, moving out, storing our things, preparing documentations, paying pharmacists to stick needles in our arms, all the while continuing to work. May and June were impressively busy and hectic. By the time the end of school rolled around, Birdy was no longer working and we were able to move to Happy Valley to stay with her parents until we left. That brought stresses of its own.

     The closer we got to leaving, the more it seemed that a million things remained undone. I ran errands and tried to stay busy while Birdy grew gradually more stressed and frantic about all the people she absolutely needed to spend time with and the things she absolutely needed to do. This is what she looked like the night before we left:

Birdy Shows Excitement Over Tomorrow's Adventure

Thankfully, we left Oregon on a good note. We enjoyed a plethora of good-bye parties and get-togethers and resolved stresses that had come between us and her parents. There were tears at the airport, but not nearly as many as I had anticipated. I'm sure the sixteen packets of tissue I had stashed in my pockets had something to do with the looks I received when we passed through security.

On the Plane, Waiting to Leave PDX,
Birdy Still Under the Impression Flying is Fun

     We had short layovers, flying from Portland to San Francisco to Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh. An extended delay in the Portland airport  resulted in almost immediate connections. Twenty-one hours after leaving Portland we landed in Vietnam. We'd crossed the International Dateline and jumped a day into the future without doing anything more than watching The Hunger Games on a tiny screen. It was a relatively easy and quick trip, considering how far we'd gone. Halfway into our nine hour flight to Tokyo, however, Birdy was thoroughly done with traveling. So, naturally, I did the helpful thing and napped.

     It was evening when we arrived, and the son of one of our school's board members picked us up and took us to our hotel. We arrived on a Saturday and had to stay two nights in order to visit the U.S. Embassy on Monday. I needed to get affidavits for certain documents in order to request a work visa. As it was, we entered on 90-day tourist visas.

Intersection in Ho Chi Minh

Smiling on the Outside, Totally Freaked on the Inside
(she's resilient, I have to say)

     Sunday was a difficult day for Birdy. Despite having enjoyed Vietnamese food in Oregon, we couldn't seem to find any food she liked. The traffic and heat and humidity and noise and strangeness of the city worked its way into her. I'm sure she was much more panicked than she let on and I was worried. I knew Tuy Hoa was much different and that she'd be better once we got there, but words can only help so much. We stayed in our hotel room the whole day and watched Animal Planet on the TV. Strangely enough we saw a teacher I had worked with, Cliff Barackman, chasing Bigfoot in New York State. It looked like he was living the dream, too!

Electric Cables (typical wiring in Vietnam) 

     Monday morning I visited the embassy and took care of documentation. We headed to the airport that afternoon to catch our flight to Tuy Hoa, but were delayed by torrential downpour that materialized out of thin air. Thick, humid air, really. It was a relief to finally board the plane and take-off for Tuy Hoa. We were glad to arrive and settle in and it was nice to see my family. The town is much smaller, calmer, cleaner and quieter than Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi. Little by little it feels more like home, although Birdy still struggles off and on. It's a beautiful place and I'm excited to be involved in this project, especially since we get to go barefoot in the classroom. It's the little things that count.