Day 11

A smaller group of us decided to return to Tous Les Jours, the French bakery, for another delicious breakfast. We ended going back into the Victory Hotel restaurant to use our breakfast coupons afterwards anyway because everyone needed to hydrate before our soccer match. We, the Pitt students, were scheduled to play a game of football with the UEF students. I had checked the weather before and the forecast was for 99 degrees, but it was supposed to feel like 106 degrees. Obviously, lots of water was a neccessity. We arrived at UEF for a kind of farewell program before the football game. One of our UEF friends Tony sang for everyone, we played a few games, were given small gifts, and took lots of pictures and gave lots of hugs to all of the UEF friends that were present. It was weird to say goodbye to a lot of the students there because we still had another full day, but we were only going to see a few on Friday. Everyone was sad to be leaving and saying goodbye, but we had one more thing to do with our UEF friends: the football match. We arrived at the Phu Tho Stadium and I was surprised to see a smaller turf field. We stretched and attempted to warm-up. I started out the game cheering from the bench. I had expected the Vietnamese students to kill us, since we had heard that last year's Pitt squad had lost by several goals. However, the guys who started the game ended up scoring a few and I was impressed. Eventually I had to go in the game...and I'm pretty sure the last time I played organized soccer, aside from gym class, was 4th or 5th grade. Needless to say, I was not very good. But, it was still fun and we all survived the heat. Here is a picture from the start of the match:

I couldn't wait to shower after the game, and luckily we had at least an hour to shower and eat before our next activity. We ate lunch at the hotel, the usual food: rice, shrimp, fruit, and other miscellaneous dishes. I also ate some ice cream. It looked just like the soft serve we're used to in America, but it tasted quite different, sort of like coconut, and almost had a different consistency. The next activity was a visit to the War Remnants Museum, which was a short walk from the Victory. Professor Berman gave us some background to the museum before we left: it was formerly called the "War Crimes Museum", and is filled with images and other things from the Vietnam War (or the American War, as it's called in Vietnam). Everything is from the Vietnamese perspective, so obviously the United States is the enemy. The images that stuck out the most to me were those of the affects of Agent Orange and napalm, used by American forces. It was very odd to walk through a museum that showed the horrible impact of the war on Vietnam and the Vietnamese people, with the US receiving the blame. Also, there were US Military weapons and planes that were left behind when the US forces withdrew, and they have since become a part of the museum. See the following pictures as an example:

After this experience at the museum, where a group of UEF students met us and brought coconut and fruit drinks with them which was very nice, our group was separated and we went to the market in two different groups. I bought several DVD's (only about $0.60 USD, and actually good quality) and TV show seasons, as well as some souvenir chopsticks. We were there for a while, but not too long because the market is always extremely hot in some parts. We grabbed a taxi back to the Victory Hotel. The ride was much longer than usual because we were traveling around 4:45, which is a busy time for traffic, even more than usual. The group I was with didn't have the address for a dinner with a bunch of the Vietnamese students, so we went to another restaurant that we walked to. It was another very nice restaurant, but was still relatively inexpensive for what it was by American standards. That night, one of the UEF faculty members, Tin, who had spent most of the trip with us, wanted to take us all out to the "American Discotheque". We actually ended up going to another similar place, but it was fun to spend more time with Tin and Tony, another UEF friend.