on top of the world...

I was actually on top of the world yesterday. The flight path to travel to Beijing takes you up through Canada, over the Artic Circle, and back down to Beijing. I learned a lot about fireworks thanks to a very exciting inflight video. Here are the highlights:

Who spends the most money on fireworks per year?
Disney World - Think about it. 365 days x 4 parks = a whole lot of fireworks.

What is the bill for the fireworks in the US on the 4th of July?
200 million dollars...that includes all the little towns.

I was about to learn how fireworks were made but sadly I fell asleep. I also decided it is a VERY bad idea to take children under 12 to China. See, like said we flew over the North Pole. If any child ever saw that they would know in an instant that Santa isn't real. IT IS ONE BIG ICE SHEET. This is not a new discovery, I have known for years that Santa isn't real, oh and that the north pole is an ice sheet, but a small unsuspecting child doesn't know that. If Santa were real his poor little elfs would be frozen gnomes in Santa's vast ice sheet of a backyard. As you can tell I had a lot of time to think.

Other than that the plane ride was uneventful. There were ten open seats on the entire flight and I was graciously blessed with one next to me! The guy on the aisle wanted to be my best friend, but I nicely declined. He drank a lot on the plane too, probably why he feel asleep so easily.

As a I told many of you, when I landed I had a bit of an adventure. I arrived in the new terminal built for the Olympics and it was beautiful. However, I could not find my traveling companions. I almost left the airport to venture into the city alone, but I decided I would wait for Alysha's delayed plane. I'm glad I did because the other girls randomly found me almost two hours after I landed. It made me feel good that if I went missing they would go on a search and rescue misson for me.

The car ride to CUC was interesting. Italy has nothing on the China road system. People are walking and riding bikes through the streets, while the people driving are attempting to avoid them. Oh and avoid other cars. We eventually just had to realize we did not have control of the car and stopped watching. Once we made it to our rooms we threw our stuff down and ran to get food. I ended up not eating because I was a little scared. I decided to eat my peanut butter, THANK GOD I brought it!

The beds are not the most amazing thing you will ever sleep on. We decided it was similar to camping, but harder. Actually, this morning I didn't wake up with a sore back or anything. The bathroom is a little scary. The toilet and the shower are one, and a warm shower is not really an option. Although it is better than what we were working with last night, aka FREEZING cold. In the middle of the room there is the "magical box." This controls all the electricity for the room. So say you decide to turn the ground button off, none of the outlets work on the ground. This causes you to freak out in the morning when you wake up and see that your laptop battery appears dead. Does it sound like I learned my lesson? All the outlets are American, European, and Chinese, so really it is wonderful. Oh and we have AC. Our room is an ice box. As long as we don't get a bill at the end of the 7 weeks we are keeping it this way.

I unpacked this morning and went for an adventure through campus and the surrounding area with my roommate and two of the people with us. We found a nice little pastry place, so I finally ate. Pointing is the new way of communicating here. We learned that flip flops are probably not the best idea seeing that one of the sewers was overflowing and Alysha stepped in some sludge and started to feel a tingling, burning sensation on her leg. For those who are worried...her leg is fine.

The rest of today is kind of up for grabs. I may try some food other than pastries, maybe some rice or noodles? Who knows. Our professor gets here at 7 and then we will figure out our lives from there. Seeing as we don't know how to use the subway or anything we figured it best to wait until some one tells us more.

That is all for now!

Megan!