hamburger holiday in hanoi

so i havent really had time to post anything new in almost a week but i dont even have a good excuse cause weve done absolutely shit all in hanoi. however, while doing nothing ive still managed to never have a free moment or get more than 4 hours of sleep per nite. of course i've been spending max time with my sister from a different (swedish) mother, linn (whom along with her boy ib we picked up on the side of the road as id mentioned earlier).

i've also met plenty of people at our hostel, mostly facilitated by the fact that so far pretty much my entire hanoi experience is comprised of chilling in either the hostel lobby or up on the rooftop bar. so ive got my swedish counterpart and ive got alexia from melbourne who gave me a fabulous haircut up on the roof just the day after we met. we had to search the city for a pair of scissors to cut my hair with and finally ended up getting a pair from a hardware store. a little dodgy? nahhhhh. the next day linn cut one of my t-shirts into a tank top so you just know im super stylin' nowadays. oh and on top of the new 'do and clothes, i lost my sunglasses in nanning (fucking nanning, i hate that hell hole) and just replaced them with ridiculously hot faux chanel ones complete with big tacky gold plastic interlocking Cs on the sides. and i suppose my irish chauffeur 'mini' would like a shout out since i get toted around on the back of his scooter. oh yes, ive been on the backs of plenty of scooters and motorcycles by now and though at first it seems a little freaky since traffic is pretty insane, you figure well if 4 year old kids can stand on the back of one just holding onto their daddy's shoulders or chicks in skirts can ride side-saddle on them, i better be able to do that shit too.

its rather sad to admit we've done hardly anything but we try! it's just that almost everything is fucking closed for tet (happy chinese new year by the way.) however we have done a few touristy type things. we went to the military museum where me and linn got to pose calendar girl style with tanks and fighter planes (those pictures will be up as soon as i can figure out how...) a whole slew of us from the hostel also went to see the water puppet show one nite which isnt as horrendous as one might expect. i rather enjoyed it, along with the giant mass of white seniors who arrived and left on tour buses that filled the rest of the audience. alright i honestly dont even remember what the hell we've been doing...in all seriousness, id say ive just been drinking and going out. happy hour at our hostel kicks off at 5 pm and away we go. one nite i 'accidentally' stepped on a glass table and broke it with my bare foot, resulting in generous amounts of bloodshed. a nice german boy has been playing doctor to me so its nice and bandaged.

on chinese new years eve we had a big bbq and me and linn decided to get decked out in our bikinis and put on sick amounts of bright blue eye shadow (the end result: cheap hooker chic) in an attempt to get a beach party going. (to my ladies back at home in canada, you'd all love linn too. seriously, sister from a different mother!)no other girls wanted to participate. there was a big fireworks display on at the lake and we sat so close i got some burning fireworks remnants in my eye. we couldnt get into a club that nite (well in all fairness, i was wearing linn's red track pants rolled up, flip flops, and still rockin' the eye shadow) but we did end up on the steps of a church chilling with some vietnamese who were singing and playing beatles songs on their guitars. i also got my first taste of vietnamese moonshine from a giant plastic jug.

anyway im a little choked today cause i broke my camera screen so i gotta figure out how i can get that shit fixed. and today im just tired and a little bored but we're finally leaving hanoi tomorrow for ha long bay (we couldnt leave because apparently tet = no buses or trains). oh and as for the title of this post, its cause we get to eat some yummy burgers at our hostel bbqs. however, there are no mcdonalds here which is quite a tragedy for me...