Surprises around every bend.  And always good to be just a little prepared. Perhaps a little open and curious.

Case in point: this morning’s iced coffee—expresso with almond milk and fresh milk (no skim or 2% anywhere in sight) and I’m sure a little sugar—contains little coffee “jellies.” The first jelly slips up in the straw and surprises me.  A worm?  Okay, it is nothing like a worm but  . . . and it is just one of many of these exquisite jellies.  Julia’s chocolate soda drink has chocolate jellies.

Also, a find from a few days ago—tiny and perfect cream puffs. Oh, to die for!  We are walking and sweating so much that a few cream puffs at the end of the day is of no consequence.

It is a balmy 80 degrees this morning and boy, it feels like autumn. Or early summer. Just something lovely.  And a breeze!

We have been very lucky with the air conditioning in all of our lodgings.  It is neither too hot or cold and adjustable.  This has saved us over and over—mid-day naps when the sun is unbearable—and then, out again when the sun goes down.  The sun goes down pretty early or rather, we are experiencing fall sun sets with summer temperatures.  

This Monday morning, near the end of our fourth week traveling, we are all doing what we had planned to spend time doing.  Woke up reasonably early for my early zoom, then pho down the street and now Ed is at a gym and Julia and I are sitting in a coffee shop trolling the internet or writing.  I had hoped to spend many mornings like this and we haven’t.  It is the difference traveling as a three-some opposed to just Julia and I traveling.  It has been a adjustment but it is a happy one.  

So, here we sit at a window bar at Highlands Coffee, which may not have a Vietnamese name, drinking extravagant morning drinks with a view of a busy street.  Julia didn’t want to sit outside because of the noise and the sun and I capitulated.  From my window perch, I can see a train station and quick traffic going by.  Have I written about crossing the street here?  An almost impossibly because traffic regulations are a mere suggestion and motor scooters don’t feel bound by any of them!  But we learn—holding hands the three of us—and cross with aplomb.

And I have been on the back of a motor scooter as it defied any and all traffic signals and lane demarkations—slipping around SUVs and buses stuck in traffic, squeezing between cars and going around and into the lane of oncoming traffic when necessary.  And I am still here to write about it.  I could never, ever drive anything here!

Noticing more—motor scooters and motor bikes (don’t know the difference between the two) park along the sidewalk lined up in very close quarters.  This is on every street—apart from embassies and some government building—everywhere.  Each line of scooters is watched over by someone who exacts a small payment from the drivers.  On streets with wide sidewalks, there is usually almost half the sidewalk to walk on.  On narrow street with narrow sidewalks, pedestrians walk in the street while scooters and sometimes cars, are safely parked on the sidewalk. At busy times, the scooters are parked to or three deep and it can feel like the only place to walk is the street.  Now to be honest, the people of Hanoi don’t walk places.  Oh, they park and walk to the store, restaurants, etc. that they are going to.  They may stroll around the city lakes or walk the wide streets that are blocked off for weekend festivities, but they don’t really walk places day-to-day.  Tourists walk.  We walk—our average these day is more than 4 miles a day—and because we walk, I notice the lack of walkable sidewalks, but for Vietnamese who are on their scooters all the time using sidewalks a parking lots makes complete sense.  Off the street and safe.  And, of course, they are not the only ones—years ago, we were shocked to see the wide sidewalks of Rome filled with tiny cars.

And yesterday, we had a western eating day.  We ate breakfast at an American Diner—very decent but kinda boring American food. Forgive me, my Hoosier friends, it was a taste of Indiana—not too many vegetables, lots of melted cheese and the promise of as much meat as we wanted.  Julia’s pancakes were slathered in peach jelly and my toast was a perfect white slice.

And then for supper, we found an Italian restaurant two blocks from our house and we ate pizza.  The place was small and charming—much more a local Italian restaurant from a small town in northern Italy and not at all Jersey-Italian.  The music was Italian pop, not Frank Sinatra and there was no extra cheese on our thin crusted pie.  Somewhere around my second slice and end of my first glass of beer, I felt the displacement, the wondering where I was.  It could have been a neighborhood place in some small town outside of Turin.  I mean, sort of.  

Such displacements come more often after I’ve been somewhere else for awhile.  I think I see people I know from many part of my life now and again more often.  I am apt to exclaim how something reminds me of Bolivia or China or Frascati.  The world becomes very small indeed. 

Two days ago, we went to a Water Puppet Show.  I saw the water puppets when I was here 20 years ago.  That time from a seat in the back of the theater; this time from the fifth row which was awesome!  We have not managed to find any traditional music which I enjoyed at the show.  We also got the “audio tour” and we had translations of the basic story lines of the show.  I had a great time.  Julia liked it.  

And finally, the massages!  We’ve had them every week, sometimes two.  Julia has enjoy them all which is pretty exciting.  She is not one to invite touch and yet none of our sessions have irritated her.  We had facials yesterday and she loved it.  Again, all useful experiences.

I am loosing my sense of the time difference.  At the beginning of our journey, I could get confused but I was very aware that “home” was a half day behind us.  The  awareness has melted.  I am here on this side of the world now, every day now. I am used to talking to people in the US early or late, I am crossing impossible streets, I do not expect to ever be understood, I expect new discoveries on the streets that I’ve been walking for three weeks now.  This is the awareness that is impossible for me to hold onto when I am home.  And yet, I want to add that this is another kind of home feeling that has a lot to do with why I love traveling like we are doing.