Happy 4th of July

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Happy 4th of July, my friends!

This holiday has been a little weird for me this year for a few reasons: 1. I've never been out of the States over the 4th before. Other than once when I was younger, I think. Either way, not since I can remember. 2. It's cold in Sydney right now. Like really cold. I'm pretty sure I've never worn a sweater with a scarf on the 4th before. Or in July, for that matter. 3. I didn't see any fireworks, which is one of the best parts of the 4th of July. 

That being said, it was a really good day for a couple reasons: 1. I got to spend it with two of my favorite Americans, Ash & Anderson, and our honorary American, Pete.

The Americans! 

 2. We celebrated Christmas in July with some good friends and had a lot of super delicious food. 

Group photos are hard so the photo quality is rubbish. ;)

The idea behind Christmas in July this year was to make your favorite Christmas foods from your country. Representing America, Ash made a turkey roast, sweet potatoes (the ones with the marshmallows on top - the best), and a peach crumble for dessert. And representing Germany, Julia made pretzels, and potatoes where you cook your toppings (anything really: we had tomatoes, pineapple, onions, ham, salami, mushrooms, corn, and cheese) on a hot plate at the table. I'm not sure where the Aussie themed food was...I guess it was because they weren't doing the cooking! ;)

Hot plate for the German potato toppings

Beautifully set table by Julia

Red napkins with stars shaped like a Christmas tree = Christmas in July on the 4th of July all in one! 

All in all, it was a great day! Lots of time with family and friends and good food. At the end of the day, that's all that matters! And to all the Americans reading this right now: enjoy the fireworks, BBQ, and everything American that you possibly can. I'd love to hear how you celebrated so I can live vicariously through you! 

Vietnam

I'm so overdue writing about Vietnam and I'm not going to even post very much right now. Basically, SO much happened on the trip that it is a bit overwhelming to think about posting about it. Overall, it was an amazing trip. If I didn't have the travel bug before, I definitely have it now! Here's a quick overview of the trip for now:

Favorite city: Hoi An. It was this cute little shopping town on the coast. We stayed two nights in a hotel there, which was the longest we stayed in one place the whole trip. Plus, this hotel was the only one of the trip that had a pool. That is a win-win, my friends. It was the cleanest, calmest, safest feeling town of all the ones we visited, in my opinion. 

Favorite activity: The motorbike tour in Hue. It's hard to pick just one favorite activity because we literally did something new every day. The motorbike tour was so much fun though. Some of the highlights were stopping for lunch at a monks house (amazing vegetarian food!) and riding through the rice fields.

Favorite food: BBQ in Nha Trang. Again, it's hard to choose just one meal or food that was the best, but the bbq meat was amazing. It wasn't the most relaxing or comfortable meal of the trip though because it was crazy hot (as in sweating like crazy while just sitting still) and extremely smoky. Plus, we had to cook our own meat at our table. I've decided I'm more of the type that like my food to be cooked before it comes to the table. If I wanted to cook my own meal, I would have stayed at home! But it was an once in a lifetime (maybe?) experience and the flavors of the food were delicious.

Those are just a few of the many, many amazing parts of the trip. Much, much more to come in the next few weeks!