Shopping in the Old Quarter

After breakfast at the hotel this morning (a mediocre affair, generally speaking - one thing I do not understand is why, in a country that has, hands down, the best coffee ever, the hotel coffee is burned every single morning), we took a taxi into the Old Quarter. We found a coffee and pastry shop called "Bread and Chocolate". This pastry shop is part of the Hoa Sua school, which provides restaurant training for disadvantaged Vietnamese youths. By the quality of the pastries we sampled this morning, these trainees are on their way to becoming spectacular pasty chefs. I understand that they also have a French restaurant in the French Quarter (where else?). We may try to find that tomorrow, although it sounds like it might be too fancy for a four year old, and we are not willing to leave Lan with the hotel sitter. (I'm sure the hotel sitter is a lovely and kind person who is excellent with children - I'm just not willing to leave a four year old who is beginning to attach to us with anyone else right this minute. I expect that she will be with either Dave or myself until she is scheduled to begin at Apple Tree in February. She does seem to miss school - she was at school every day here in Vietnam from 8:30 to 5:00 until we adopted her last week. It is not clear if this was a pre-school or a compulsory kindergarten type of school - I've tried asking this question twice and got the answer, "it was school.")

After our pastries and coffee (good, Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk instead of the burnt American coffee at the hotel), we wandered along Hang Gai street in the Old Quarter. There were tons of silk shops on this road (although we are sad we didn't get to shop for silk in Hoi An (near DaNang), which is where the best prices and quality for silk are supposed to be found) we did find an ao dai for Lan, and some other beautiful things. I would like to buy Lan an ao dai that might fit her as an adult, but, I've no idea how to guess how tall she might become. She is tall for a Vietnamese girl - several people have questioned whether she really is only four years old - but, she is still within the realm of "normal" for a four year old girl...(I'm babbling, I'll stop.)

After shopping we found a restaurant, which I wish I could remember the name of, or even it's location, because it was very very good. David had something called "beef steak cooked in Hanoi style". It was beef with steamed rice in a sauce that was fabulous - it tasted like maybe the sauce was a vinegar based sauce, but, it's hard to describe. It was sweet, but not too sweet, and tangy. We ordered an egg and cheese omelet for Lan, because she ate eggs and cheese the other day - and she ate them very happily again. (Vu, one of the social workers from Holt, told me later that all Vietnamese children love fried eggs. That would have been great info to have 6 days ago when she wouldn't eat anything but fruit and yogurt. No one at Holt in DaNang, or even her foster mom, mentioned eggs one way or the other when they told me her food preferences. Of course they didn't mention greens either - although they did stress that she loves "boiled vegetable" - which I think now probably means greens. I just imagined that they meant boiled carrots...although, she likes boiled carrots, too.) I ordered noodles with chili and garlic - it was excellent.

We met this afternoon with a Holt representative, who told us that our I600 application was approved on Friday. They are picking us up tomorrow to go back to the Vietnamese immigration office to pick up Lan's passport, and then we will have our SOS clinic appointment and 2nd US Embassy interview on Friday afternoon. Holt expects our visa will be issued on Monday or Tuesday. The question will then become, can we get on a flight out of Hanoi before Saturday the 27th? Things are not looking so good with Korean Air in that respect...

Well, it's time for bath and then bed. Lan is picking up English - today she counted to ten and will say "up" and "down" and "hello".

More later,
Gretchen