Noelice in Hanoi!

I picked up my childhood friend Noelice from Noi Bai airport on Saturday evening. My heart raced when I saw her appear from baggage claim. I hugged her so tight and I kept saying, "I can't believe you're here!" I've missed her so much!

After a sketchy taxi experience on the way back to my apartment she hopped right on the back of my motorbike and off we went to the Old Quarter for dinner. She was such a trooper as I managed my way through the traffic.

Yesterday morning we had pho for breakfast and made our way to B-52 lake. While we were standing next to the lake looking at the fallen plane a man came really close to Noelice and said, "Dep" and walked away. "Dep" means "beautiful" in Vietnamese. Very funny!


In the afternoon Noelice and I sat at Cafe Pho Co for a couple hours and enjoyed some Cafe Trung Das (egg cream coffee with ice). We then walked around Hoan Kiem Lake, walked over the famous red bridge (pictured on my blog's banner) and then returned to my apartment for a nap. It was too hot to do anything else.


That evening we went to visit my friend Amalia at her new villa in West Lake with a couple of our other friends from Language Link.



Amalia and I

This morning we did a few errands around town before heading to Just Massage for our one hour massages! Noelice is a massage therapist back home, so I thought it would be nice for her to get a massage rather than being the one to always give them.

For lunch we met up with my friend Mai Phuong for Bun Cha and then went to Love Chocolate Cafe for dessert. It was very interesting introducing Phuong to Noelice. Phuong looked at her and said, "You know, with your sunglasses on you look Asian." Noelice said, "I am Asian" then Phuong looked at me and then looked back and Noelice and said, "But I thought you were American?" Noelice said, "I am American. I'm both". We giggled about that for a bit.



Mai Phuong

After completely indulging ourselves at Love Chocolate, Noelice and I headed to the swans on West Lake and paddled off into the evening.

Tomorrow we're going to take a flight to Danang and hang out in Hoi An for a couple days just relaxing on the beach and getting clothes made =)

Noelice took way more pictures than I did of her time here, so I'll have to post them up here after she returns home.