End of teaching festivities!

Em starts feelin' it
Originally uploaded by Mike Rettberg.

We finished teaching our wilderness first aid yesterday. There was a great party afterward at the office with beer, food, and small gifts. At some point Duong said, "I hope you and Emily don't have any plans, because we've planned an evening for you. You're coming with us."

This turned into a debauched night of Vietnamese Karaoke, and a visit to Chez Moi for some late-night dancing. Luckily the camera had been long put-away by the time we got to dancing.

A fantastic send-off from some great friends and students. We all drank a bit too much, and probably had too much fun.

This morning Brian and Maya left for Ho Chi Minh City leaving our villa vacant save for us. There are some new photos in the Dalat section of Maya, and Col Vinh, our wonderful cook to whom we also had to say goodbye. On Sunday we leave on a 2-day bicycle trip to Mui Ne on the coast of the South China Sea (or the East Sea as it is known in Vietnam).

Dalat has been good to us and we are sad to leave our many friends here, but to stay would be to risk attachment to another group of people and another place, and tearing ourselves out of New York and the States was hard enough.

We miss everyone back home and love receiving your emails. There are a host of you who should have received/are going to receive post cards in the mail.

One last note: as a beleaguered A's fan, I was truly happy to see that Jermaine Dye won World Series MVP. Go former-A's!