I'm single!!!!

RELAX, LADIES!!!! I'm not single single. I've just never been married. The second step in getting married abroad is to sign an affidavit declaring that you're single. To make this declaration I had to pay the US Embassy $30. Clearly a lot of Americans have gone through this process because the embassy has a form conveniently already written-up. I merely had to fill in the blanks with my name, Huyen's name and some other biographical information. My favorite part of the form though was this:



In the fill in the blank form I had to circle that, "I love her." I thought it would have been funnier if they had a scale with options: "Circle 1 if you 'like her'. Circle 2 if you 'love her'. Circle 3 if you 'really really really like her'. Circle 4 if you 'Love her soooooooo much'."

So I got my medical test and my affidavit of single status. Next up, a bunch of other forms and hurdles...

I'm Sane!!!!!

It's official -- I'm sane. Well, at least according to the Vietnamese government. Huyen and I are currently immersed in the process of getting legally married in Vietnam. The goal is to get married here and then begin the immigration process to go to the USA. Ideally we'll be legally married in about a month or so and then given the green light to enter America somewhere around December. In a perfect bureaucracy-free world, we'll be able to go back to America shortly after our wedding in December.

Anyway, to get legally married here requires lots of steps. One of the first steps was to take a medical/psychological test at a Hanoi hospital. I'm happy to report that Huyen and I both passed with flying colors. Check out my report:


It's nice to know that I've got no respiratory, cardio-vascular, mental, contagious, hereditary and sexual diseases. I must admit though that I had always thought it took more than listening to someone's heart and taking their blood pressure to come to medical conclusions like these.

Heat Wave

I know there are heat waves all around the world right now and Hanoi is no different. Today it was forty five degrees Celsius or, for us Americans, 113 degrees Fahrenheit. If you think that's bad, it was 116 degrees the day before! Every time I go outside I feel like my exposed skin is on fire. Even worse, when I park my bike out in the open, I then have to sit on the hottest seat ever when it's time to go somewhere. It's so hot that I actually covered my seat with a raincoat this afternoon and found that it had absolutely no affect on stopping my seat from scorching my tush.

So yes, as you can figure out from this posting, I'm back in Hanoi. I got back a week ago and have been extremely busy with teaching, marriage preparations and hosting Huyen's brother for four days. It's been a whirlwind and I can predict with confidence right now, it's probably not gonna stop until the end of the year.

Over the next couple of weeks I'm gonna rotate between what is going on in Vietnam and some flashback posts to the World Cup/South Africa. Stay cool and drink lots of water!!!

Ben

Sabi Sabi Soccer

I think these pictures speak for themselves...but in case they don't: I STILL GOT IT!!!!!

(PICTURE: Check out that awesome defense!)



(PICTURE: No, Pele didn't teach me those dribbling skills.)


(PICTURE: Four on one? No problem!)

One of the highlights of my trip to the World Cup in 2006 was playing pick-up soccer in a suburb of Frankfurt. Devin, Chris and I completely dominated a bunch of cocky Germans. Seriously, they couldn't hold a candle to us and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were about eleven years old.

While on our safari, it became pretty obvious that the four of us were soccer fans. Besides the fact that our trip was timed with the World Cup, the conversation of soccer kept coming up. It turned out that the Sabi Sabi employees all played soccer daily. We asked if we could play with them and before we knew it we were teamed up with the Guides in a game against the Trackers. Unlike Germany, we didn't so much dominate this time. Sure, I totally dominated but there's no I in Team, right? We ended up losing the game 2-1.

WARNING: IMMATURE PICTURES

I've had a couple of immature posts in the past and this one definitely tops them all. It is nearly impossible to go on a safari and not take a few immature pictures. I've also been encouraged to post these from all the people who have seen them and have found themselves laughing. Also, generally in the past, my immature posts have garnered lots of comments from readers which is always an incentive to post more...

(PICTURE: A five legged Rhino.)


(PICTURE: Close Up.)

On a serious note, the Rhino was showing off to tell us to back the hell away.


(PICTURE: Those aren't two trunks.)


(PICTURE: So you come here often?)

Other Animals

Out in the bush, it's not all about elephants, lions, leopards, buffaloes and rhinos. There's lots of other animals out there:

(PICTURE: My brother's favorite animal.)


(PICTURE: Check out the horns on that guy.)


(PICTURE: Impalas are "the McDonalds" of the bush according to Crimson. Every predator eats them and they have a big M on their tushies.)

(PICTURE: Crimson spotted this guy as we drove home at night.)


(PICTURE: Toys 'R What?)


(PICTURE: Birds of a feather don't always flock together.)


(PICTURE: The animal I'm the most scared of.)


(PICTURE: A hungry hungry hippo.)


(PICTURE: One of the co-stars of The Lion King.)


(PICTURE: This huge bird co-starred in Horton Hears A Who.)


(PICTURE: A wildebeest strutting his stuff.)

I've got many many many more pictures of animals...which you'll eventually see in a montage on my blog. However, this was just a taste. After having been on safari, I'm not sure I can ever go to a zoo again.

The Food Chain

As sick as this probably sounds, unfortunately we never saw a kill on our safari. Most killing takes place at night, and besides following the hyena on foot, we didn't do any late night game drives (I've actually never heard of anyone doing late night game drives).

However, we did see a few fresh kills. Here's a few lions devouring a buffalo:

Yummy...


Here's a leopard....

...guarding the impala that it killed and placed up in a tree:


We actually came back to this kill later in the day to find that it had disappeared. Another bigger leopard had come and taken the impala. We found that leopard who began to growl at us...which was our signal to get the heck out of there.