Day 43

Another morning, the same routine: getting up, take a shower, get dressed, put the moisturizer and the sun block and take Thach Thao and Phuc to school, then take the breakfast to Xuan’s mum and head for breakfast ourselves.

Today we go to a nice coffee shop where I eat stewed beef noodle soup, a first, and drink my cà phê sữa đá. Xuan does the same. We stay at the coffee shop until it’s time for me to go to the nail salon for more one to one lessons. Unfortunately I didn’t take the camera so I didn’t do any pics of the coffee shop but I can tell you it has 2 old and really big trees, it’s very shadowy and there’s a waterfall that creates a calm environment. Attention: Ants of the size of your nail can also attack you; they just drop from the trees…

Time to go to my lesson, so Xuan drops me at the nail salon. I’m not only learning nail art painting but also how do put and take care of gel nails so I start my lesson by watching closely how they do with the gel nails.

There’s something very funny around here, normally the person who does the gel nails don’t pain them after and normally they’re men and who paint are girls. I’ve realized here that there’s no jobs only for women or only for men: men do massages, manicure and all other stuff and I’ve seen women carrying heavy weights and even working in construction.

Let’s get back to my lesson, so after I’ve watched how to put the gel nails it’s time for them to be painted, the client wants flowers and I want to learn everything I can: so I just seat next to the girl who’s painting the nails in order to learn how she does it. When she finishes I go practice a little bit my art, I start with the semi circles and drops from yesterday but I still didn’t get the hang of it, I’m too perfectionist and not being able to do it is leaving me mad.

Xuan brings me lunch and I stop so I can regain my concentration and some strength for the afternoon. Chi Lam is amazing! In the paper bag I have soup, rice with veggies, beef, chopsticks, a spoon, napkins and, I’ve learnt later, even a toothpick. She takes care of me like a princess and I’m very much thankful.

After lunch I go for more practice and this time I go for roses and its leaves. Fortunately I’ve tried it before on Chi Mi so wasn’t that difficult, even if I still have difficulty with the proportions of the drawings, I can’t forget I’m going to be painting on a nail and not on an empty canvas… the afternoon passes flying and at around 4 pm, Xuan picks me up so we go get the kids to school.

Today Phuc took the new helicopter to school and all the kids are amazed by his toy so while we wait for Thach Thao to finish, Phuc glows in front of everyone with his new helicopter. When Thach Thao is ready we head home, leave the kids and then go for a much-deserved massage.

I’ve realized that my girl is not number 17 but 27, my lucky number 27! =) I feel so good in the end that it’s like my legs are made of jelly, in fact all my body is made of jelly.

At home we have dinner, the guy who sell the hot stones for  massage comes around and we order a couple of them to create our set and after that I go practice a little bit more of what I’ve learnt today and this was the result…

Time to go to bed ‘cause tomorrow is another day…

Night night everyone, don’t let the bedbugs bite!