Team Coco

Friday was a pretty standard morning, we headed over to UEF for Vietnamese History and then Language class.

Here's a picture of Tin and Greg in the polos that UEF gave us for the cultural exchange. The cultural exchange was basically a series of games and competitions for us to mingle with UEF students. We split into 4 teams and naturally, my team was named Team Coco. I'd like to comment on the nickname Coco making it over to Vietnam. It's really taken hold and more people here call me Coco than at home. Coco was a name that my twin brother (shouts out to Chris) referred to me before he could pronounce my name. The progression followed that during the school year, one of my friends from home, the lovely Natalie, came to visit and called me Coco in front of my friends at school. A couple jumped on that, including Greg. Greg dropped it here and now it is my name. Onto Team Coco's domination.

The first challenge was a dance competition, so the logical decision was to form a line with the bulk of the team, have them open up and have me carried in on the shoulders of two people. It was highly graceful and I took to solo dancing with my team supporting me. Eventually tagged out, but we were the best. Our trip adviser was the judge of the event, and somehow he didn't like our organization so he gave us second. That's manageable. After that there was an event where they had to tie balloons to someone's head. After my performance I had no choice but to be the one with balloons tied to me. That went well, then there was an event where we had to pop all of the balloons and Team Coco won both. The next game was hard. There was a list of items in a category that one person on the team had to describe to a UEF student. Again I was put up. It was insanely hard. We got countries and the only one we got was Canada. It's weird how different of things we learn about in the US. One of the countries was Egypt and I was saying pyramids and mummies and he had no idea. I was shocked. 

The game after that was a popular one in Vietnam. It looked like a big Twister mat, with two dice. One was a color and the other was a picture. There were the different pictures with different colored rings around them and there was only one of each combination on the board. The way the game worked, once the dice were rolled, the first person to place a little rubber circle on the spot won a point. Also, we were tied to a partner by the wrist and ankle (shouts out to Kong). The game got pretty aggressive but I think Team Coco got second. After a hard fought battle, we took first overall and went home proud. I wish I had photos but we were pretty involved the whole time.

For dinner, we decided on Black Cat, which is a world-renown burger joint. Ironic, but it lived up to the hype. It was definitely the best burger I've ever had. Not my hand in the photo by the way. Being an average male college student, I went for the burger with bacon and BBQ sauce. One of the best decisions of my life. It'd be awesome to return some day.

It's hard to see because of the club lighting but Lush was really cool. We got VIP seating and the general manager was hanging out with us the whole time. The security treated us like movie stars and it was a really interesting experience. Our plans for the next day were to go to the Cu Chi tunnels. A history lesson was very welcome with me.