She's Here!!!

My housemate/roommate has arrived!!! 

last night around 9pm we headed to the airport to pick Jen up. The airport is about a 30 minute drive from our apartment. She was scheduled to land at 9:50, so we arrived just in time. So we head to the arrival/departure board to see which door she would be coming out of only to find that her flight had been delayed 2 hours. Now she was scheduled to arrive at 11:40pm which means that she wouldn't be through customs until at least 12am. 

So we had two hours to kill at the airport. Our coworker, Ngan, came to the airport with us to help with translation if needed :) so I got to spend some more time with her. She sits across from me in our office so we talk a lot but it was nice to hang out with her and get to know her a little bit. She also taught me a couple phrases. We decided to get some food while we were waiting. So we got Pho, which is a popular traditional dish here. (pronounced Fuh). It's the first time I have really had it and it was delicious but a lot of food! She finished a lot faster than me and then commented on how little I ate. I still can't understand how they eat so much food. LOL. 

Waiting at the airport eating pho. :)  

I am really excited about being friends with Ngan. She is such a sweet girl and she wants to learn English and I want to learn her language so we are going to help each other! And it is always great to make friends with the locals. Plus she works at the school and you can never have too many friends. I am also praying that she will come with me to church sometime. She seems very interested :) Its really awesome to see what God is doing and how He is using me. I love making friends and sharing the love of Jesus! This is going to be an awesome year! 

Back to the airport, finally at 11:41pm Jen's flight arrived! So we stood at the big glass doors of customs looking at every foreigner come down the stairs trying to find her. We waited and waited and waited and waited. Getting the visa and going through immigration takes forever!! but at 12:20, Valyn (our principal) said, "The next person to come down the stairs will be her. I just have feeling." Low and behold he was right! The next person to walk down the stairs to baggage claim was Jen! We were all excited! Our entire English staff is here!!

She came through customs like a pro and we embraced her like family, because that is what we are here GIS family! 

Welcome to H@N0i Jennifer. It's going to be a great year!!! 

Apartment Living

Right now I still have the apartment to myself. This is good and bad. I don't have anyone else to answer to, I can get up when I want, shower when I want, cook when I want, have the temperature set at what I want. However, I miss the company of other people! The company outweighs everything else. So I am super thankful that my housemate is arriving this Friday night! I am so ready for the adventures we are going to have and the lives we are going to touch! God is doing great things here!

My apartment:

So in the apartment, the joys I get to deal with are a crack in my shower. I am trying to get the owner to fix it, but he says I can continue to use it with the crack. UMMMM. NO. So I am thankful there are two showers in the apartment. My school is working on helping me find someone to repair it, but who knows when that is going to be. 

Also the air conditioner in the living room is leaking water. When I say leaking water, I don't mean just a few drops, I mean like a rushing stream/river down my wall. I asked around the school and they said it was because I had the temperature set too low (20C) so I moved it up to 26C (which is 78F) and it is still streaming down my wall. Also it is pooling under the hardwood floor. So this is something else that my school is hopefully going to help me fix. 

The only thing left to deal with are my little creature friends that like to crawl around the apartment. Cockroaches, ants, and I think there is a mouse somewhere. I have been scouring the internet looking for natural repellents. They said garlic is a good deterrent of cockroaches, ants, and mice. YAY. So last weekend I put out some garlic cloves all over the place and I haven't seen any cockroaches or mice! (There were some dead one in the spare bedroom, but I don't go in there so I don't know how they died) Ants are a different story. So any ideas/tips would be appreciated. Someone said vinegar but I don't know what I am supposed to do with the vinegar.

I am probably just complaining about small things because I know things could be a lot worse! And I thank God that these are the only things I am having to worry about right now! But please be praying that the shower and air conditioning get fixed soon (both are important as you have to shower and it's hot here!). Also pray that these critters find another apartment to crawl around (I'm just not a fan of bugs!).