Nibs

Last year when I began traveling I kept finding little yellow post-it notes in my stuff. On the notes were written sweet messages from my mother. Well, she did it again. This year though she didn't hide notes in my bags. She hid packs of delicious licorice Nibs.

Nibs are tied for my favorite candy ever behind Scores bars. My mom, knowing all about my sweet tooth, placed the Nibs inside zip locks and crammed them into various places in my stuff. The first one I found was inside a pair of dress shoes. The next one was between folded clothes on top of my bag and the last one was between more clothes on the bottom of my bag.

Upon finding the first bag I immediately opened it and tried to convey my excitement to Huyen. Huyen has a bigger sweet tooth than me and I thought she was going to devour the bag before I could. I cautiously offered her a Nib and waited for her jubilant reaction...which never came. Huyen instead looked like she just ate a bug. She said, "I don't like this. It's like eating rubber." As much as I was surprised she didn't share my love of Nibs, I was equally elated. That meant I could eat the whole bag for myself!!!!

As I stuffed the Nibs into my mouth (I can't just eat one at a time) I began to think about an HBO documentary my father and I watched while I was home. The documentary was called Gangja Queen and was about Corby, an Australian girl who is imprisoned in Bali for smuggling in a huge bag of marijuana. As the HBO website explains: "...the documentary explores numerous explanations for the appearance of the drugs in Corby's bag. Did this seemingly average young woman actually commit the crime for which she is accused? Did one of her family members put the marijuana in her bag without (or with) her knowing? Was there a connection to the Australian neighbor who grew pot on his property? Or was Schapelle simply the unlucky victim of a domestic drug-running operation?"

I'm pretty sure smuggling Nibs into Vietnam isn't illegal, but man, my Mom sure would have felt really guilty had a licorice sniffing dog began barking at me while going through customs.

Typhoon Anyone?

(PICTURE: Typhoon Morakat is stronger than umbrellas.)

One thing I learned last year is that there is really no difference between a typhoon and a hurricane. They're both tropical cyclones with the only real difference being -- and please tell me if I'm wrong -- that hurricanes happen in the Atlantic and typhoons happen in the Pacific.

Besides watching hurricanes and typhoons on CNN, my only real experience with them has been when I was a little kid living on Longacre Drive (my first house). I remember a hurricane came to New Jersey and being down in the basement of that house. Besides that I've got zero experience with tropical cyclones...until yesterday.

Yesterday I flew from Newark to Taipei, Taiwan en route to Hanoi. My Eva Air flight stopped in Anchorage, Alaska to refuel and strangely everyone was asked to get off the plane. We hung out in Anchorage for an hour or so and then got back on the plane and flew another twelve hours. When we were about thirty minutes from landing in Taiwan the captain got on the intercom and said something like, "Hello this is your captain. Thank you for flying with us. We will be landing shortly and there will be some turbulence because of the typhoon..." Nobody seemed to flinch at this announcement except for me. I figured he just used the word "typhoon" instead of "rain." The guy's English wasn't stellar so this could have just been an unfortunate mistake.

When I landed in Taipei -- like a good son -- I immediately got on my email and told my mom I was safe and sound. She wrote right back and said, "We were tracking the flight and the delay and dad found out there was a typhoon going toward Taipei so they were holding your plane - we didn't know for how long but I am glad you are there and emailing! xxxx love you, mom."

As I read the email I thought to myself, "There really was a typhoon?" I then -- for the first time -- looked out the window and saw the worst storm of my life. There were literally a row of palm trees bent over from the strong winds. And the rain, well, it was ridiculous. After staring in disbelief that we landed in the storm, I got back on my email and wrote Huyen telling her to check my flight status before leaving her apartment because most likely my flight was going to be delayed. Well, it wasn't delayed. We took off into the storm.

So just to summarize: yesterday I landed and took off in a typhoon (which is basically a hurricane). Ah, yeah, nuts. So, what did you do yesterday?

Tears, Tears, Tears

I hate crying. Hate it. When someone I love cries, it makes me want to cry. If this sounds familiar it's because I talked about crying in the first blog entry I ever wrote. Well, things haven't changed. My dad has teared up a few times recently when he starts to think about me leaving. When I gave my brother a hug and a kiss goodbye the other day, my dad is the one who started to cry. I've come to accept that my dad is a big softy -- but accepting that doesn't make it any easier. My dad loves his children (and grandchild) more than anything. If I had to say one absolute fact about my father that would be it. Knowing that, I understand how hard it is to see one of his kids leave for the other side of the world...

My dad crying is inevitable. What is always harder to deal with is when my mother starts to cry. The other night I went to a concert with my parents and out of the corner of my eye I could see tears starting to run down my mother's face. Seeing my mom cry is gut wrenching. My mother is an angel and it pains me to think of her in any pain especially when it is my fault. I put my arm around her shoulder at the concert. That's all I could do. Even when I start to type about my mother crying, I begin to cry myself. I hate it. I hate crying.

And this is why life is unfair. Last night I talked to Huyen on Skype for the last time before I'll see her...and she began to cry. I have someone on the other side of the world who is brought to tears because they get to hug me hello, and people here who are brought to tears because they have to hug me goodbye. I feel lucky to have this much love in my life but at the same time feel really unlucky that all the people I love aren't in one place.

A few nights ago I was talking to Huyen and told her that I was feeling sad about leaving my family. Huyen of course began to cry, feeling bad for me and my family. When I woke up in the morning I had an email from her. She wrote: "Do you know that I love you so much! That why I can feel your feeling! I know it is hard when we have to be away from our family! But I think you will be ok and just want to remind you that you always have your second family in Vietnam and that is my family! They all love you and always welcome you! Especially you have me! I always want to make you happy! You will see your parents soon too! Just be happy because your parents are the GREATEST PARENTS! They want you happy too! All the people you love are always very close to you, they are always in our MIND, our HEART!"

Huyen's right, I do have the greatest parents and they are always in my mind and heart.

Being home makes you realize how special your loved ones are. I was greeted at the airport three months ago by my sister who took a train four hours to see me. The other day I was handed a photo album by my brother and sister-in-law with pictures of me and Lilah. It's been amazing seeing them as parents and in just three months seeing my niece grow. I've hugged and kissed my grandmothers both multiple times regardless if they've encouraged my adventures (Nanny) or told me to get the heck home (Grandma Cele). Every place I traveled I was greeted with both hugs from my friends and sheets on their couches, pull-out beds and air mattresses. I love being home for one reason -- the people.

So thanks everyone for making the last three months so amazing...

$2,528.39

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That is 70 thank yous for all the people who contributed to the Habitat For Humanity fund. It's pretty amazing that between 70 of us we are going to change a family's life for the better, forever. This has truly been a team effort among friends, family and total strangers who read my blog. Yesterday I transferred all of the money from the bank account I opened to Habitat in Vietnam. The grand total is $2,528.39!!!!

The Sorrow Of War

This morning I finished one of the books recommended to me. The book is called "The Sorrow Of War" by Bao Ninh. I have read many books about the Vietnam war but this is the first one I've read that was written by a North Vietnamese soldier.

The book was extremely well written and proves to me once again that there are no winners in war. The other underlining theme of the novel is that wars don't end when treaties are signed. Wars stick with people forever. The author wrote: "Each of us carried in his heart a separate war which in many ways was totally different, despite our common cause. We had different memories of people we'd known and of the war itself, and we had different destinies in the postwar years. Our only postwar similarities stemmed from the fact that everyone had experienced difficult, painful, and different fates."

There are many powerful stories and images within the novel but perhaps the most powerful thing of all is when you read the last page. After the novel is finished, on a single page is the paragraph about the author. It says: "Bao Ninh served with the Glorious 27th Youth Brigade. Of the five hundred who went to war with the Brigade in 1969, he is one of ten who survived. He lives in Hanoi."

Saute Moutons (White Clouds)

(PICTURE: Evan, Mike, Brad and Me in the front row.)

This blog is long overdue. My excuse: I scanned these pictures last night after having them for nearly two months.

For those of you who don't remember, upon coming back to the USA I almost immediately got back on a plane and went to Montreal for my best friend Brad's bachelor party. Brad had told me he wanted to go jetboating in Montreal but unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate with us the day we planned on going. On Sunday morning I woke up and called the jetboat company around 8:30 and asked if they were doing a 10AM boat trip. The person who picked up said they were, but we had to get there an hour early. I woke up Brad and asked if he wanted to go. He did. I then called a couple of guys' rooms and asked if they wanted to come. I got two more suckers -- Mike and Evan -- to join us. We all ran downstairs and jumped into a cab which got us to the dock at 9AM. We were dropped at the wrong dock so I ran down the port and got to the right one. When I arrived NOBODY was there except a few staff. One of the staff was the owner who told me that he had a trip booked with a middle school. He said they would make room for us or take a second boat. This was great...sort of. There were a few things that weren't cool...or in actuality, waaaaaay to cool:
1) It was FREEZING outside.
2) We did not have warm clothes on.
3) We were given damp sweaters to put on.
4) The owner preceded to talk and talk and talk...until Brad told him he had a flight to catch at 1. The owner literally talked for an hour so we got on the boats at nearly 11AM. This put Brad into a small state of panic that he'd miss his flight just so he could be drenched in rapids.

In the end, it all worked out and we had a blast. The ride was ridiculous. Basically these jetboats go head first into Grade IV rapids. Everyone gets annihilated by freezing cold water...which feels extra chilly because of the insanely cold winds. After we docked, the four of us threw off our clothes and sprinted to the street. We got a taxi and back to the hotel in pretty good time. The rest of the 1PM flying crew was waiting for Brad in the lobby and they all quickly took off and caught their plane. Without a doubt, it was one of the most memorable parts of the weekend.

Oh, and we got these great pictures:

Fifteen Months!

The count-up continues! Huyen and I have officially been together for 15 months!!!!

More importantly though, the countdown continues. I'll be hugging Huyen at the Nobai airport in SIX DAYS!!!!