day tripper.

oh my goodness. it is march now.
i can't believe how quickly time has gone.
i have been in china for over a month now and time has gone so quickly.
days seem to go by pretty slow, but for the most part life is moving all to quickly and there are times when i have trouble keeping my footing.
it has been pretty cold the past couple of days around guzhen town. i haven't like it one bit, but on the other hand, i kind of have an idea about what my family and friends are going through back home. i hate the thought of being nice and cozy warm while they are shaking in their socks.

so here is a little insight as to what i have learned over the past couple of days:

1. it doesn't matter. they don't even speak english. we had open class on friday, which means that some of the parents came and sat in on a couple of our lessons. it wasn't a big deal. i mean none of them speak english so it doesn't really matter what you say, but it was a distraction at times. especially when the kids start talking to them in chinese. NO CHINESE! it's rule #1 in english class.

2. chinese ice cream may be more delicious than mcdonalds ice cream. we found some delicious chinese ice cream that is sold at the little market across the street from our apartment. no more walking all the way to mcdonalds! yes!

3. mosquito net? more like death trap. we seem to be having a slight problems with mosquitos so hannah and i both got mosquito nets to go on our bunk bed. oh boy. let me just say right now, before i get into the details, that everything in china is difficult. you hear the words "mosquito net" and you think, ok, a net that hangs over your bed to keep the bugs out....yeah, that's what i thought too. i was WAY off. it took me about 2 hours to get the whole apparatus set up. are you kidding me?! the net is square shaped, because obviously, beds are square shaped, ok, no problem. i get the net on and realize i put the long sides of the net on the short sides of the bed. yeah i know, i'm way smart. so i had to switch the sides around, thats easy enough. it wasn't until after i had all four of the sides tied on that i realized that the door of the net was against the wall and i had to take the whole thing off and turn the whole net around. are you kidding me, china? how can a net be so difficult. i was sweating so much by the time i got that net up. gross. stupid china! but yay! no bugs in my bed!

4. if you are ever asked to go out with a students family for dinner...kindly deny the invite. on saturday night we were asked to go out to dinner with one of our students families. it was her (karen, our student) dad's birthday and it kind of shows off your wealth when you have americans at your party. so, we went to the party, which wasn't really a party. we went to a restaurant that didn't look too nice because it was next to the michelin tire store, but anyway. we went into the restaurant and it smelled way good. we were all super hungry. we were seated at our table, which was round and had a hot plate and a HUGE bowl (of boiling goodness inside) in the middle of the table. we got seated and were nice and comfortable and then....the lid came off of the huge bowl and....i have never wanted to not look at something so much in my whole life. it was the most disgusting bowl of boiling animal parts, most of which could not be named. i'm talking duck feet, duck heads, sea snake, chicken legs, fish heads and a whole lot of unnamed meat parts. it was so gross. i ate well, drank some of the mystery animal part broth, it was not great and full of fish scales, but whatevs. i choked it down. after the dinner, we had birthday cake, which i was looking forward to the most, you all know how much i love dessert!, and i was completely disappointed. it was not great, marvin. but sweets are sweets, and after animal parts any kind of recognizable food was welcome by me.
ps. i really hope karen's family doesn't ask us to dinner again. the chinese fish for compliments a lot and say "sorry, sorry" when they think you didn't like something. and even though we didn't like what they served us, we said it was delicious. they just want you to say how much you LOVED the food so that they don't feel dumb. oh china.
karen's mom (who was completely wasted. i mean really wasted, we watched her drink an entire bottle of wine) drove us home. but luckily the chinese drive so crazy, so she fit right in with the rest of the crowd.

5. don't ever forget your keys! especially when the spare key is locked inside with the main set. on saturday night after dinner, hannah and i we were locked out of our apartment. we had to sleep on the most uncomfortable couches and listen to one of the girls sing Prince songs all day long. it may not sound like that big of a deal to you, but the girl singing in TERRIBLE. it wasn't so bad sleeping there, it was the being forced to stay there all day because i was wearing my pajamas that was the worst part. i had to go buy a toothbrush at the scary market, but it was all good. we were finally able to get into our apartment at 9pm on sunday. so we only spent about 24 hours in the same clothes, in the same apartment. not too shabby. lets just say that we are never going to forget our keys again.

6. you break it, it's broken forever. after hannah and i got into our apartment on sunday and got ready for bed (meaning: changed out of our pajamas we had been wearing since yesterday and changed into different pajamas). hannah was in the kitchen brushing her teeth, and out of no where i hear "ahhhh! lindsey! get catherine! the water! the water! the sink! the water! ahhhh! lindsey! the water!" apparently, the little thing that hangs on the wall and holds our toothbrushes, fell off the wall, hit the faucet, and broke the faucet off, and....lets just say "old faithful" was going off in our kitchen. we asked catherine if it could be fixed and she said "no. it's broken." but we can call someone to come and fix it right? wrong. broken now...broken forever. oh china.

well. i suppose that is all for now.
until next time.
peace and love from the land of rice and late night construction.