Sorry it has taken me this long to update things. I've had quite the week so far, and it hasn't even been a full week yet. :P So, lets get everything all caught up, shall we?
To begin, was the plane ride. I knew 11.5 hours was a long time to be in the air, and to be quite honest, I still didn't think I was quite ready for it. However, once we took off and I realized they provided free movies for passengers... I had a much better time. Four movies and an hour long nap later, I was landing in Beijing, China, halfway around the world from everything I was used to. We stayed that night in a hotel, which had really spotty internet, meaning no blogging there. End day one.
Day two started out with a five hour long bus ride to our "town," Shi Jiazhuang, and the Hebei Normal University. Now, this wasn't a bad bus ride. We were the only people on the bus. The university had hired the bus just for us, which made the ride more relaxing than anything else. After we arrived, we got a quick tour of the important buildings around campus, but none were more important than the Cultural Exchange Building, which is where our dorms and classrooms are as foreign exchange students.
As a quick aside, when I talk about "dorm rooms" I really mean something more akin to a hotel room.
These three pictures show the fact that I have a little entrance hallway, two beds, two dressers, two desks, and a bathroom, all to myself. No roommates. Which is insanely impressive, and far more room than I figured I would have. Also, the Cultural Exchange Building stands at twelve stories tall, almost twice as tall as the tallest dorm/building at Kearney. My room is located on the sixth floor of the building.
The weekend after we got all moved in, I struggled a little. We didn't know any of the language, and we didn't have any way to get that information. Our rooms, as nice as they are, don't have internet unless you pay for it, and even once you do, the internet doesn't start until September first. Fourth floor has internet, but only at certain times during the day, so getting on to check translations and things like that was very difficult. I remember thinking that if the rest of the trip was like that weekend, it may end up being a very long four months.
But, as they usually do, things got better. Monday and Tuesday brought the start of Mandarin Chinese class. I can't even begin to express how good it is to know even just a few words in the local language. For example, I cannow say hello, goodbye, how much is this?, I would like to buy this, and a few other extremely useful phrases in Chinese. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will bring more of that class, and next week we start our other classes as well, which include Chinese History and Chinese Literature. I am just as excited for both of these classes as I am to continue learning more Mandarin.
Hopefully it won't be as long to my next post as it was getting to this one. I will do my best to get things updated as things happen. Thanks again for reading this blog, to anyone who does. I hope I can entertain at least a little with the experiences I'm having half a world away.
Adam
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