I was quite unaware that it was Vietnamese Independence Day when my plane touched down in Hanoi. Customs and immigration officers were typically grumpy, but from the young taxi driver to the throngs of boys selling postcards on the street, the Vietnamese I encountered were vivacious and overflowing with laughter. Was I really that charming with my overstuffed pack and greasy face, speaking broken English and atrocious “phrase book” Vietnamese in hopes of being better understood? I guessed so.

The backpacker ghetto of Hanoi's Old Quarter was teeming with more fun-loving and carefree Vietnamese, walking arm-in-arm or piled three, four, and five to a motorbike. The Vietnamese flag — a bright yellow star in the middle of a scarlet field — hung from a window or ledge of every building. Everyone seemed to be heading to or wandering around Hoan Kiem Lake where vendors were selling snacks, balloons, and everything noisy. “What a fun place!” I thought, “Hanoi is one big carnival.”

The explosions during dinner clued me into the fact that this wasn't a typical Friday night in Hanoi. When the waitress invited me and my dining companion up to the roof, it became clear that the explosions I would come to associate with Vietnam were neither grenades nor artillery, they were fireworks! So there I was — pale-skinned, freckled, and freakishly tall at 5'6" — joining half of Hanoi on the rooftops of the Old Quarter watching showers of color rain down. I cheered when everyone else cheered and, just like Boston on the Fourth of July or Paris on Bastille Day, the fireworks grew into a massive crescendo, each display greater than the next.

“That was it!” “No, maybe this one. . .” Until at last, my fellow revelers and I watched the grand finale of the fireworks fade into a memory.

My pesto was lukewarm when I got back to the table, but the shot of black rice wine the waitress brought over warmed everything up and made me wonder if one of the fireworks had slipped down my throat. “Gah-MON,” I choked, thanking the hostess in my newly acquired Vietnamese.

After five gainfully employed years in Boston, Rebecca Bennett '95 traded in her business cards for a backpack and spent nine months traveling independently in China, Southeast Asia, and Nepal with Karen Boss '95, pictured above. Her experiences in developing countries, coupled with some soul-searching and several visits to the Career Education Center, led her to Boston University's School of Public Health where she is currently earning a master's degree in international health.