Vaccinations

Before the final interview, Huyen had to do a couple of medical related tasks to comply with immigration policy. The first task was to get a bunch of vaccinations. Like the visa interview, these vaccines can only be given in HCMC. The US has a contract with a vaccination center and tells you that no other places vaccines will be accepted. To me, this seems pretty ridiculous especially since some of the vaccines require a second shot! This means if you're applying from Hanoi, you've got to fly back to HCMC a month later just to get stuck with a needle that you could get stuck with in Hanoi at an internationally recognized hospital with doctors -- some of whom are American -- that have been trained and certified in America. But heck, I'm sure I'm not the first person to complain about a US policy.

I will say this though, the vaccination center in HCMC was very efficient and even recommended to Huyen some other vaccinations that she should probably get (yeah, yeah, they make more money that way). Huyen and I had discussed her getting some additional vaccines for our travels/big move so this has put my mind to rest a little bit. The most interesting thing about the vaccination center though was to see how many people were planning on emigrating to America. Every single person at the center had the same American paperwork that we had. I would estimate that in the hour that we were there, there were probably fifty people getting their American vaccines.

After a few pricks in Huyen's arm, we were finished and ready to go. Vaccinations done with, there was just one final step before the big visa interview...