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Thursday, October 8, 2015

A classic afternoon

Upon my return to Hanoi from my college fair trip to Ho Chi Minh, I vowed to take it easy and get ready for our trip next week.  There were a group of Vietnamese men that tried really hard to make sure I would "take it easy"!

It started when I walked Libby to her class that she was teaching.  On my way home I took a different way and ran across a place called Fressen Beer.  I was intrigued because I had never heard of the name of this beer, but I had heard about microbreweries in Hanoi.  So I walked in to see what it was like, and since I hadn't had lunch, I ordered a bowl of soup and looked around.


It turned out it was a restaurant in the style of a German beer hall, complete with German-style beers.  Cool!  Strangely, though, they also had bottles of whiskey on every table, including their house brand single malt whiskey.  I'd never seen that before.





There were a few strangle things on the menu (I was only having vegetable soup -- no worries):


But the fun started when the four guys sitting at the table next to me saw that I was sitting alone and insisted on having me join them. They had told my server to give me a beer, so what could I do?  I joined them and toasted them. They were were a great group who lived about 20 km outside Hanoi but had come into town because one of them was buying a car, and they were celebrating.



As I got up to leave -- which was very difficult since it was clear they were staying awhile and wanted me to stay -- they insisted they were paying for my beer and bowl of soup.  We exchanged phone numbers, but I'll remember the good conversation and hospitality in a German beer hall in Vietnam in the middle of the afternoon.

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