Utterly Exhausted

(PICTURE: Dining on goat udder on our wedding night.)

At the end of our wedding day, I was certain of two things:

1. I was 100% married.
2. I was 100% exhausted.

Starting on December 1st, when our first friend arrived in Hanoi, I had been averaging less than five hours sleep per night. I'm positive that even when I was younger, I couldn't have handled a sleep schedule like that for nearly three weeks. The symptoms of a lack of sleep were creeping up on me. The most obvious was that I was losing my voice and constantly being told by my wife to shut up (is that a bad sign for starting a marriage?). On my wedding night, I only wanted to do one thing -- sleep!

However before I could count sheep, I had to eat goat. You see, Ninh Binh is famous for its goat and, well, I freaking love goat. Huyen and I had told everyone about the local delicacy but only the under 35-year-olds (I can't say young people anymore because Heather yelled at me after an earlier post) and the Salter parents were up for leaving the hotel. We had the bus driver bring us to his favorite goat restaurant where we all dined on goat prepared in a variety of ways. Following dinner, Huyen and I decided it was time to stop playing host and headed back to the hotel.

The hotel, named Legend Hotel, was immaculate. The four star hotel looked like nobody had ever stayed there before and well, I'm pretty sure not too many people had since it was brand spanking new. Huyen and I couldn't have asked for a better honeymoon suite as it was equipped with a giant bath and a humongous bed. Seriously, the bed was like two California kings stuck together. I kid you not, a dozen Vietnamese people could have easily lied side by side on this mattress. However, being as tired as I was, I'm pretty sure I could have slept on a wooden crate (you know, the bed I usually sleep on at Huyen's house) and slept like a baby. I can't think of a time when I had a deeper sleep then the night of my wedding.