Health report: trending in the right direction. I slept decently and woke up feeling the best I have in a few days. I still have a deep and painful cough but my energy has bounced back. We don’t have any food or coffee in the Airbnb so we went downstairs to a coffee shop. It had a great vibe. So much of Hanoi today reminded me of New Orleans, which makes sense because we are bordering the French quarter.

We drank our coffee and ate croissants. On our way back to the apartment we stopped to buy some fruit. The streets were lively, with people wheeling all sorts of fruit stands by.

Nick and I had some things to talk through and book, so we did that while Millie played. This Airbnb had some basic toys and she played by herself happily for over an hour. Ultimate toy rotation: take your kids toys away for six months and then they’ll build things with Jenga blocks for hours.

Once we were done we headed out to explore the city. We walked to the nearby lake and walked around it. We bought tickets to visit the temple in the middle of it. The weather today was my ideal weather: sunny and 75.

We continued walking in search of lunch. We found a spot that served excellent dried beef salads. I can imagine how refreshing these would be on a hotter day. It was nice to eat fresh and vibrant food after Japan and China.

Millie took a tiny bite of the spring rolls we ordered and decided she didn’t like them. It is always a fine line between letting her get hungry enough to try stuff, while also making sure she is getting enough to eat. Once we were done eating, we found a smoothie/beer place. She got an avocado and mango smoothie and we had beers. We spent about 1.5 hours here, just watching the world go by. It was excellent people watching of both locals and tourists.

We continued onward to visit the St. Joseph Cathedral. There were people outside decorating for Christmas and we explained the difference between Jesus we saw here and the Buddha we had seen in the shrine earlier in the day.

She was taking it all in and then asked “does that building in the background represent the bomb that was dropped on the city?”, referring to Hiroshima. I am constantly reminded of how confusing this firehose of new—and intense—information must be for her. She still can’t quite understand the difference between myth and reality, and she has no context for how recent or distant various historic events were. She also asked me if pirates were real today, and it blew her mind when the answer was yes.

We came back to rest and then went to a simple dinner where Millie ate one cucumber and a spoonful of rice noodles. Could be worse, could definitely be better.

On our way home we saw a dog trying to ride a motorcycle and it tickled all three of us. Baby girl, where is your helmet?