My Cousin Justin

(From left to right: Me, my brother, Justin, my cousin Adam)

My cousin Justin is visiting this week and we're taking a bike trip out to Mai Chau. My cousin is know to, how to say this nicely, sometimes have his head in the clouds. There are about five thousand family anecdotes about Justin with the most infamous being the time he was almost left in Israel because he went to the bathroom at a restaurant while his tour group boarded a bus to the airport. A waiter had to rush Justin to catch the flight while everyone else was already on the plane.

Anyway, the last three times I was supposed to meet Justin he was an average of seven hours late. Last night he kept up the pattern but was only a couple hours late. He was supposed to arrive at my house around midnight, but at 2AM he still wasn't there. I told Huyen we should jump on my bike and go look for him in the streets of my neighborhood. We did just that and shockingly didn't find Justin. As soon as we got back to my house my phone rang -- it was his taxi driver and he couldn't find my house. Huyen talked to him and told him to drop Justin off. Three minutes later we walked to where Justin was and sure enough he was standing in the middle of a t-section taking pictures...

The first thing Justin said to me is, "Is a bill that says 5 followed by five zeroes five hundred thousand or five hundred?" I told Justin that was five hundred thousand. He said, "I think I gave a few of those to the taxi driver." Turns out Justin went to the ATM at the airport and ended up giving ALL his withdrawal money to the taxi driver -- roughly $120. That's $104 more than I told him it should cost from the airport to my house. Oh well, live and learn.

It's great to have Justin here and we're gonna have a heck of a trip. However, I have a feeling that on a few occasions we're gonna be in the same stance as the picture above: me looking pissed as Justin stares of into the clouds.