Birthdays, Pho and Learning New Games

I'm taking the opportunity of this small window of internet access, even though its nearly midnight and I'm still pretty ill. I had my first day of teaching Tuesday evening, was running around like I was trying to find my head as I prepared a lesson plan for a group of Intermediate level students ages 11-14. But the warm-up game I had lined up to start got booed down by the students. So I put it in their hands and let them pick the game, which of course they had to teach me, since I barely know any. But the second class, which I only spent a half-hour planning went by pretty smoothly. Even though I left my lesson plan at home.
Wednesday was Daphne's birthday. Her not being very fond of birthdays, I really wanted her to have a great time. In fact, she couldn't remember her last few birthdays. So for starters I made her the poshest breakfast-in-bed conceivable: crepes with banana-dragon fruit jam filling and turkish coffee. We had plans for dinner, but first I wanted to get my bike tuned up, so it wouldn't give us any hassle later on. The bike breaking down on Daphne's birthday would've been an embarrassment. Then for dinner, we had a six course meal at a nice restaurant, Ngi Xuan, which served really good Hue cuisine. We then made our way to an expat Irish pub, O'Brien's, to meet up with our CELTA friends and celebrate with some drinks. I wish I could've planned for more, but Daphne seemed to be pretty happy, so I am too.



Then yesterday, another birthday girl arrived off a plane from Singapore. Daphne's friend Jeanne, along with their friend Andria, have come to spend Jeanne's birthday eating and shopping the town to the ground. I've never met a girl so skinny with a bigger appetite than me.
After a pretty late night out yesterday, Daphne and I made it home to find that the power was out in the entire building. We had to make the walk up eleven floors to my place, but on the way we came accross a bamboo screen that I had to take with me, despite the extra weight, exhaustion, illness and nine floors left to go. But its worth it, for the feng shui value it adds to our living room.
After waking-up this morning, covered in so much sweat I thought I had just come out of the shower[no power, no AC], we met up with Jeanne and Andria for some more food. Cheap pho, baked goods and iced coffee. Jeanne got to try the really yummy baguette with pate and fried egg. Best sandwich ever and only 12,000 VND[.66USD]. For dinner, it was Quan An Ngon and we had to call the night there for the sake of getting an early start tomorrow. Plus, it was just beginning to rain and we couldn't be bothered. We'll meet up again tomorrow for a trip to the War Museum[I still haven't been to a single museum in Saigon] and the ladies will be on a plane again Monday morning, by when I hope to be free of this week-long illness.