Comfort Zone 现在，我普通话说的很好。

            I recently came to the realization that I have reached the stage of nearly worry-free comfort when going places and doing things here. This catharsis came a couple days ago when a friend told me , "You're about to start at square one again in Vietnam." Dammit, this is true. 现在，我普通话说的很好。

           It will take me months to construct such sentences in Vietnamese. Unless I start using the Pimsleurs I downloaded, but that isn't likely. I am going to philander like a fish out of water the first few weeks kicking myself for not learning some basics. Maybe even hoping that people will know English， 普通话， or Spanish.

           Before I booked my ticket here I did not have solo travel experience. The flights to Hong Kong and Guangzhou were significantly cheaper than the Shenzhen flights. I was given instructions on how to come to Shenzhen from these places, but I was literally too afraid. I didn't speak the language and I imagined it being very difficult without the airport pickup my company provided. I ate the extra cost for peace of mind.

            Now with my current knowledge of the ease of train travel in China I would have flown to Guangzhou, hopped on the train and then cabbed to the hotel for training. So easy. I never imagined it would be so easy to live in a county and barely speak the language. I now take back all rude the comments I have made about Americans who don't speak English, especially ones that live in the north. Because you don't really need it. Between the charades, translator app, and showing searched words in the dictionary one can more than get by. For this reason learning Vietnamese is on the back burner for me. I did perfectly terrible in the Beijing airport only knowing 你好，我是美国人。So I think I will be fine knowing less. Flawed logic, but logic nonetheless.

As far as comfort goes I was thinking about how I used to meet up with my friends in the city.

Level 1: OMG where is the metro and how do I find it? 我看不懂中文

Level 2: Let's meet at the exit of this metro and take the train together.

Level 3: Meet me at the exit, we're adults and can take the train alone. Unless you're going to the other ass end of the city, in that case some company is nice.

Level 4: Here are the directions from such and such exit.

Level 5: How the hell do you not know where this is?

Level 6: Throwing public transport out the window and hopping in a cab and telling the driver directions in Chinese.

        Level 6 took awhile. But once I got there I was not even aware of it. Yesterday I had a long ride on the metro and ran into an expat who told me "You seem extremely comfortable here." Which is true yes, but if I were to always ponder all the things that made me uncomfortable that would be my state of being. I often forget how hard it is to be an expat. I enjoy it about 97% of the time. And then I have a day where I want to smack the next person to blare their motorbike horn, play their megaphone on a loop, or let their kid ride bicycles in the street and smack into me when I am walking. Some days I feel like nobody has basic manners, but then there are plenty of Americans who have terrible manners.

           On that note, today during my news reading binge I found out only 38% of Americans have left the United States, that figure could be wrong. That is the number with a passport. I wouldn't consider Canada really, since you still have all the comfort foods, mass televised sporting events, and English in most parts. Culture shock is nearly non-existent. Not to say that it wouldn't, but I have never found the two places to be so strikingly different. I'm adaptable, I don't see that going away.

      Adaptability is a major reason why I have chosen to go to Vietnam. The larger reason is that I am bored here. Is that weird? I am in such a routine here I think I would be even more bored next year. I used to really love writing about all the new and interesting things I was up to on here and now, well you can imagine. I tutor all the time which leaves me exhausted, too tired to go out, so I have become somewhat of a social hermit. Luckily my good friends here tutor as much or more than me so our little free time is spent together having lazy days. On weekends I teach yoga classes or go hiking. Two years ago I would have scoffed at such a dull schedule, but now that I am living it I quite like it. I wouldn't have it any other way.

      So I will have to wait and see how long it takes me to get to the same level of comfort I have here in Hanoi, Vietnam. How long till I can order food in a restaurant, ask basic questions and understand the answer, navigate my way around and learn to cook the traditional food. Luckily the question now is not how, because I know it will happen in due time, but when?