Oops, was that 6 months?

Pretty much. Somehow I went back to Sydney for Christmas and Tabitha's wedding and ended up being there all that time. I initially had visions of a glorious beach filled summer but in reality it was a lot of working my ass off (okay only some of the time), being cold (alot of the time) and spending way too much money (phew thank god that's over).

When I first got back to Sydney I had a hit of reverse culture shock from two things- 1) holy moly were portion sizes huge, and 2) everyone's standard of living had noticeably been upped. Scary.

But now I'm back in Hanoi so there's a lot of reverse reverse culture shock happening again. I should probably mention first that in order to get back here I almost missed both my flights, one my fault, one not. Let's just say I found out that my new Swedish Hasbeens as much as they are awesome and comfortable are most definitely not made for running through airports.

But I digress- Hanoi, culture shock, yada yada.

There were a few things that I had forgotten, namely, everything. Including my small amount of crappy language skills.

Here are a few other things:

It's hot here. Really. Bloody. Hot. Don't even get me started on sweat.

Things never go to plan/are easy. I had three rolls of film scanned and developed. Last time for some reason they just "missed" scanning and developing a chunk of shots that were on the negatives so this time I checked every one. They had missed printing 1 shot right in the middle of the negatives and only put 43 of the over 60 shots on the cd. After I got them to put the rest on and I got home they didn't open. Sigh.

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Blatant staring and being talked about. I woman laughed at me because I was riding my bike with a helmet. Johnny asked "are you sure it wasn't the flowers on your bike?". I'm sure.

You can't just buy what you need in a convenient easy way. I rocked up to the supermarket only to remember produce there is pretty much limited to tomatoes, pumpkin, eggplant and Asian veges that taste like water or detergent. Meal and shopping planning 1, Jo 0.

I have no idea what anyone is saying. My maid was very excited to see me and chatted for ages. I think she may have mentioned something about...oh I have no idea.

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Sometimes things are just weird- my friend Mel and I went to a new french bistro the whole experience was an...experience (see visual cue above). We thought we kept hearing dolphins/a cat stuck in wall but then half way through the owner came in and turned up the stereo and proudly said "these are sounds from my farm" *Cue sounds of animals possibly having sex*. Oh and he also completely ignored out order and gave us food we didn't want.

I now have time. Alot of it. And all my friends are gone/ leaving. Gasp!

On the upside to this all we're heading to Hoi An this weekend. Johnny has to work but I get to hang out. Pretty much like every day.