OMG!!! (Day 1)

I'm here, I think.

All I know is that I'm sitting on a bed that's not mine. The bedspread is pink, with roses embroidered into it. I'm also in a room that's not mine. The walls are white, not teal, and it has Chinese paintings on the wall. The hardwood flooring feels slightly familiar, but I can't be quite sure. There's a spacious desk at the corner of the room made of smooth dark wood, which matches the door to the rest of the house. Across from the desk is a large closet half filled with clothes. Looking past the desk and closet is sort of a closed balcony which reveals that I am looking from the 12th floor of an apartment building. The view consists of another apartment building and other buildings in the distance which are labeled with Chinese characters. Those characters reveal to me the fact that I truly arrived in Beijing, China less than 24 hours ago.

FULL REPORT ON DAY 1 OF BEIJING!!!

Morning of August 27th, 2014 in San Francisco, CA

I had set my alarm for 6 AM, but I woke up at 5:45 and I couldn't go back to sleep. I took the 7:30 shuttle with Amy to the airport and joined the group that had already arrived. We had 3 hours to sit around but boy did it go by fast. I must say that was the only part that went by fast. The plane ride was 12 hours. 12. freaking. hours. But it was probably the most fun 12 hour ride that I've had. Well the most fun that it can get, anyway. Here's a list of things Miles, the kid sitting next to me, and I did to keep ourselves busy:

• synch our phones to play Frank Ocean's entire Channel Orange album at the same time
• watch parts of sub par in-flight entertainment
• make fun of unsatisfactory airline food
• walk around to visit with others like Amy, Jonas, Jon, Kelly, and Lily
• switching off trying to beat my high score on my phone in Fruit Ninja while watching Captain America
• reading aloud the first four chapters of Tina Fey's Bossypants
• practicing common scenarios in Chinese and getting others to join us (side note: I am actually impressed by how well everyone else can speak it. Basically the only advantage I have over anyone is that I don't have an accent. Many students can read sooo much more than I can)
• attempting to play 20 questions but giving up because apparently "communism" is too hard to guess!!
• rapping to various songs
• not sleeping

This is me and Miles with matching headphones, except the headphones are Lily's and I was listening to Kelly's music.

Even though all of that looks like the time of our lives, it still had the essence of boredom surrounding it. We all cheered when we landed.

Kelly, Samantha, Amy, and I, sweaty and crammed into the train to the baggage claim with a lot of Chinese people. We were the loudest people in there.

All of my bags were incredibly heavy. I'm actually 5% sure I got permanent spinal damage from my carry on. We were going down the baggage escalator when all of the sudden there was a traffic jam at the bottom because someone couldn't get their luggage past the end, which left me, Jon, Jonas, and many startled Chinese travelers frantically walking backwards as fast as possible until the person at the end was able to push his luggage cart off the elevator. I'm sitting here laughing just thinking about it.

Our group split into two and took two buses to Beijing Normal University #2, which is our school. As soon as we got there, my host mother and 12 year old brother showed up to pick me up. They shoved my gargantuan bags into their Mercedes and we left. On the way to the apartment, we passed by the 2008 Beijing Olympic stadium. My host mom said that she would take me there whenever she want. She also told me that she would take me anywhere I wanted. She said she had always wanted a daughter, and that she considers me her own :) She also told me that I looked a lot skinnier in person, which I am not sure whether or not to get offended. My little brother's American name is Billy, which I think is the most adorable thing ever. I'll provide a picture tomorrow. Ever since I left the school, I have not spoken a word of English except for feeble attempts to translate vocabulary words through Billy. When entered the apartment, a man who is a relative of Billy's and my host mom's helped me with my bags. Mom said to call him "shu shu," and I asked her what relation to her he was, and she couldn't figure out how to explain it. I looked it up and it means "younger brother of one's father," so he's my uncle.

The apartment is so clean and pleasant. There is much open space, and not only do I get my own room, but my own bathroom! Sort of. Mom said Billy would be using it, but only I am allowed to use the shower. And the shower is nice too. It has a glass door and good water pressure. I'll put up more pictures of the rest of the house too. Shu Shu and Mom cooked me a fantastic dinner, one that my real mom at home would have made me. The most interesting part of the meal was coca cola chicken wings. Mom says she doesn't like using oil to cook because it's bad for the body, so she uses Coke instead. That sounds like the weirdest thing ever but it was actually delicious. I didn't finish everything though because I was too tired to eat. While it was 9:00 in Beijing, it was 6 am in California, meaning I had been up for a full 24 hours.

The only thing that had concerned me about my stay here was that my computer wasn't connecting to the internet, but I woke up about an hour and a half ago and tried reconnecting, and it worked! So now I'm writing. Overall, this whole trip has skyrocketed my expectations. I cannot emphasize how well everyone from the program gets along, and how comfortable I feel around them. Usually new social situations make me feel a bit tense, but I never felt like that for a second. It definitely does not seem like I've only known these people for less than 2 days (or is it 3? I'm not sure because we followed the sun the whole plane ride). Everyone is so comfortable that I can even see that people are developing crushes on each other!

It's 5 am now and I've been up since 3, so I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I will be posting pictures of everything so ya'll (a word that I picked up from Lily, who is from Georgia) can get a glimpse of my new life. P.S. Please leave comments! :)