First day of work!

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM! 

(I really, Really, REALLY like saying that)

Morning has been coming quite early for us as we are getting over the jet lag. For the last two mornings we have been up before 5am. Tonight we are rallying to try and stay up later. Hubs just looked over at me and confessed "I'm getting sleepy"--but I know, we can DO THIS!

.....I digress, I think A.D.D. is a byproduct of jet lag.....

Today was our first day of work! Hurrah! 

In classic family tradition, we took our pictures to send to our mamas:

HI MOM!

This is me wearing my first business suit, it felt pretty good. 

We got up bright and early with two hours to spare to catch the bus to work. Hubs opted to exercise while I decided to organize the massive stack of Ha Noi information we received this weekend and made breakfast.

We made our way to the Embassy and the security is TIGHT(this I am very grateful for). I apparently was not on the list to get in that day so it took some time to get me in. Then the woman who was my first meeting missed her bus this morning and was late for the meeting. She was very apologetic, but I just hung out and read material in my welcome packet. Everyone was very welcoming, per usual.

Then I headed over to another section to meet the man who is filling in for my "real" boss, who is out of town. My "acting" supervisor has the same name(first and last) as my dad, which I think is a very good sign.

Afterwards, I went to meet my new assistants; I will call them M & V. V is a Vietnamese full-time staff and M works part-time and is an EFM like me. (EFM stands for eligible family member: a family member of an Embassy employee; spouse, partner, child, etc). Both of them are AWESOME and I am really looking forward to working with them. M took me out to lunch to her favorite place.
Was it Vietnamese food, you ask? Well.....no....it was Taiwanese:

Green beans, chilis, garlic cloves, peanuts and some unknown crunchy objects that we thought might be bacon fat or something of the like--yummy!

Club soda with lime and the cutest stir stick of all time. Note the bendy straw; these are BIG in Ha Noi, almost every restaurant we've been to has had some kind of cutesy straw.

Pan-fried vegetable dumplings. Mmmmmmm.

After lunch, M left and V gave me a tour of the Embassy grounds. She introduced me to a lot of people by saying "This is my new boss", it sounded so strange, but it also felt pretty good. I have a LOT of work to do and I am really excited for it.

The Hubs met me later that afternoon because we had appointments to meet the Ambassador and Deputy Chief of Mission. It wasn't until I was sitting in the Ambassador's office on his couch that I realized how blessed we are to have the opportunity be working at such a great Mission; serving our country and countrymen. Both the Ambassador and DCM gave us great advice about our careers & life in the Foreign Service. I have only been living in a foreign country for three days, but already my gratitude and pride to be an American has grown tenfold. (I could write a book about this, so I'll save this thought for another post.)

At the end of the day we were both energized, exhausted, slightly overwhelmed and SO tired. We decided to order in and pop open a bottle of Vietnamese wine. We ordered Indian food...again....we ordered different things this time, but I spared the food photo to avoid repeat photos.

We have not yet tried local Vietnamese food, but the wine was decent! 

The price tag says it was just over $5 US, it was definitely worth it!

That's all for now, I am signing off to go find something to keep me awake for at least two more hours. More tomorrow....goodnight, or--since it's earlier where you are--should I say: 

Good Morning USA!!!(nope, not as fun to say)