Leaving Vietnam

Finally, here are the last group of pictures from Vietnam, from the last couple of days in Hanoi. At the time, we really were exhausted and tired and we were ready to come home. Now, just a few weeks later, we do miss it and wish we could go back (although the thought of the flight is a bit daunting--too bad nobody's developed a teleportation device yet).

There's a wonderful french bakery at the bottom of the Hanoi Hotel that served excellent cakes and pastries and the like for an extremely low amount of money.

This was at a Thai restaurant (yummmmmmmmy).

Hue definitely took good care of us all.

Packed and ready to go to the airport to begin the LONG journey back to St. Louis.

Some shots of the Hanoi Hotel lobby.

These trees are maintained throughout the year and controlled so that they will all bloom on the first day of Tet.

Our little pink-striped inmate.

Goodbye to the Capps.

On the road to the airport.

This ad was EVERYWHERE in Hanoi.

Looking over all the pictures, it was funny that this was the last picture we took (this was at the Hong Kong airport) until we got home. ComPLETEly exhausting trip back home. Norah was great (there was an hour between Hong Kong and L.A. where she was crying, but otherwise she was great) but after all the madness of Vietnam, all of those flights with the layovers and the security checkpoints were just too much. Don't even get me started on LAX airport. Seriously. If you can ever avoid LAX, avoid it. Seriously.

I had my one near-breakdown going through the security checkpoint at LAX. After getting our bags (you have to check your bags to LA since they must be taken through customs), going through customs (to get Norah into the country there is a packet of information that must be given to them) and waiting in line to check in for the flight (all of this took about two hours or so) I was DONE. We finally got all checked in and had to go through security. We walked up (Norah is strapped onto my chest as we had spent most of our trip) to the security checkpoint. Norah is starting to cry. Not fuss, but cry. I had my laptop bag on me, so the laptop had to come out. Oh yeah, we're in the States again where our freaking SHOES have to be taken off. We had travelled through however many countries that don't require the super-duper-extra-secure step of removing SHOES, so I had forgotten about this. So, Norah's crying, laptop has to come out of the bag, gotta take off my shoes. I don't know. I was very close to screaming and telling the security guy to shove off (a much less polite version of what I was thinking) but I figured it wouldn't be the best move on my part. Deep breaths saved the day.

Anyway, we made it back home. All in one piece and life is different, but somehow the same--or at least it is as it should be.