Champaign

We have found and moved into a house!! It took sometime, but it was worth it. We are now living in Champaign and not just visiting for the day. The timing couldn't be better, as Joseph started school on Monday.

We have been blessed many times over with the generosity of friends and family, who helped us clean the house, mow the lawn, giving us furniture, helping us move items and much more.

Tonight, I got to mow the lawn myself and it was great to be able to do that again.
In Hanoi we did not have even a blade of grass at our house we lived in for 3 years. We did have some at the complex the apartment we rented for six weeks, but the staff there mowed what could be called lawns.

In my next post I hope to have some pictures of our time in the States.

California and Illinois

We have been in the U.S. for about a month, with 11 days in California and the rest in Illinois. In CA, we had a great time seeing family and friends and put in more than 1,200 miles. One highlight was a visit to Yosemite National Park with some friends - this was a first time visit for me. It was inspiring!

In Illinois we have been visiting family and friends, looking for a house to live and taking Joseph to his meetings for registration and classes. For Brittany, besides tagging along on our trips to Champaign - Urbana, loves going to the library. She really enjoys reading and watching Magic School Bus videos.

We are looking forward to having time to see more friends. Time is always short :(

Driving

Driving in Hanoi is interesting. You never know what you are going to see. An amazing feat of hundreds of pounds of supplies on the back of a 100cc motorcycle, 3 near misses of an accident right in front of you or delegations with motorcycles (white Gold wings at that) escorts from other countries. This week, on one trip across town I needed to pull over for 4 delegations from Spain, Ireland, Indonesia, and Sweden who are here for a conference.

In Hanoi there is no such thing as illegal lane changes. There are lanes, kind of (motorcycles hardly ever pay attention to lanes). With more cars we see what used to be 3-lane roads turn into 5-lane roads (but still the same space and only lines for 3 lanes). Since the traffic moves at all types of speeds, from about 3 miles per hour to 45 miles per hour on the same roads with the congestion of an ant hill at times, there is a lot of weaving in and out of traffic. Even buses and cars, whose drivers forget they are not on motorcycles, weave. Yes, kind of scary at times. We try to avoid being near the buses-they have a tendency to blow their horns and plow through even red lights...just because they don't want to stop.

In our new place we have to be on the highway more often, which is good and bad. The good is, I can get to places faster. The bad, sometimes I feel I am surrounded by behemoths on my little motorbike. One time in particular I was surrounded by buses trying to merge on my right and front, by trucks and buses on my left and behind. though I must admit, this was due in part to my effort to get around all this congestion. A situation I will try to avoid in the future.

Traffic at night, especially on certain roads, is busy with lots of motorcycles, especially younger people enjoying the night. The other night as we were coming home, I was riding Brittany and Ann was following on another motorbike. As we were driving, a motorcycle of two young men must have been swerving through traffic fast and when they went to pass me the front pet of their bike hit my foot. Needless to say that took me by surprise. Usually traffic is close at times (inches to spare) but we usually don't collide or hit each other at the foot level. Maybe mirrors on rare occasions. We were thankful we were not knocked over.

With all of that said, driving in Hanoi is enjoyable.

Less than 3 weeks

We are down to less than 3 weeks until we get on the plane to fly to the U.S. Hard to believe. It still does not seem real, as Ann and I are still teaching and will up until the last week.

We moved to a temporary residence for our last several weeks here. We are enjoying being in a dry place with May being wetter than normal. Our old house has flooded at least once since we left at the end of April.

We now live in the same area as some of Brittany's friends - which has been great for her. She has really enjoyed running over to their houses (instead of us having to take her on the motorbike).

More news and pictures for my next post.

The alley we use to go back to our house