I scream, you scream, Isaac screams for Ice Cream!!!

Well, after meeting with our travel agent here at the hotel (the travel agency pays for our hotels and then we meet with the agent to pay her), we struck out on foot. Before I tell you about that, let me explain the travel agent. Trong, our Holt rep here in Hanoi met us in the lobby with the travel agent. She was a very sweet, young pregnant lady who whips out the credit card machine (the old kind), makes an impression of our card and writes down all of the information on our card (including the pin # on the back!) For all we know, she is on a flight to Cancun right now to soak her swollen feet from the pregnancy! It just goes to show you, you have to have a little faith every now and again! Anyway, now I will tell you about our little jaunt! The streets here are very crowded with people, cars, scooters, scooters and more scooters! Crossing the street is a treat! Everyone should experience it once in their life. Whoever said that once you start crossing, just keep going, don't stop...They are most correct!!! If you even hesitate, you will be mowed down by someone (or an entire family loaded down with 2x4's and some drywall)!! Anyway, I digress! We started walking and Isaac spoke to just about everyone we saw! Including the police officers who I was sure were going to ask us to prove he was ours! We went looking for a place to eat besides the hotel. We found a great little place that served Vietnamese and Thai. The food was wonderful and like most other meals we have had since we got to this country, came complete with one or two people to stand by your table while you eat. This is very interesting to me, because as our son babbles on in his native tongue, they can understand, but we can't. So you have these people that sometimes just laugh at whatever he is talking about, but we just sit there like....duh???? The man tonight saw that Isaac was a little out of sorts going on about something, so he came over and took his shoes off and had him cross his legs in his chair. This made all the difference in the world! After eating, I paid the bill. Now, get this, there is 16,000 dong to 1 US dollar. The bill was 137,000 dong. I paid, I think 152,000 dong. Well, evidently, this was the best tip these people had ever seen. Everyone at the restaurant on the way out, folded their hands in front of their mouths and nodded to us as we left. They kept thanking us all the way out the door and a little bit down the street. Once we got back to the hotel, we ordered ice cream from room service. Let's just say, the pictures speak for themselves. So...as we go to bed, enjoy the latest pics. Love to all and again, the comments keep us going. We just keep saying to each other how wonderful it is to have so many friends and family follow us on our journey. We could not have made it this far this happy without them! Marty