Monday was moving day! Our housing turned out to be less than desirable. We found out that the management handed out room keys like candy. We all had to bleach our rooms because they were pretty much filthy, there were cockroaches, rats in the entry way, and finally - bed bugs. Bed bugs were the final straw. As soon as Dr. Walters found out about them, he set out to find us some new digs.
We somehow finagled our way into the international student housing (where we would have been from the get go, if not for some unfortunate logistical issues). We checked in there and checked out at our old place. Once we got the word, we were all packed within the hour. We were quite the sight on our journey to our new place. We had a 20 minute walk with all of our luggage and all of the cleaning supplies, food, and water that we had purchased since we got here. And we thought people looked at us funny just because we were American. Try eleven Americans hauling all they could carry across a busy campus.
It was a little crazy, but in the end we all feel a million times better. A million. We have a security guard at the university gates and also in our building. We have a beautiful view of campus and there are no bed bugs here! What luck! Maybe they put us in the other place first so that we would appreciate what we have now. The only downside to our new little slice of heaven is that we do not have internet in our rooms. We are working on it, but it is going to take a few days. We leave for Nanjing tomorrow, so I anticipate internet maybe Monday or Tuesday.
As of today we have one month left here in China, and I have officially been gone for 3 weeks. Class is going well and we are finally all feeling at home in Xiamen. The food here keeps making me sick, but we have pitchers to boil water in our rooms now, so I think that I will just be eating a lot of ramen over the next month, and try to avoid the cafeterias with all my might.
We had a movie party last night with some of our Chinese classmates. We watched a Kung Fu movie and now we all want to learn some Kung Fu. I don't know if we will get that chance, but my project partner (Vivienne) brought a friend who is a Tai Chi expert, and he agreed to teach us Tai Chi! We had a lesson today and he wore us out. It lasted just over 2 hours and we were practicing in the afternoon heat. We are not very good at Tai Chi, but maybe we will be experts when we come home. We will see. Tai Chi is usually only practiced by the elderly, so everyone got a great show, seeing seven young Americans trying to play Tai Chi. Good times all around.
Well, the group leaves at 5:45 tomorrow morning, so I had best be off to pack!
By the way, I miss pizza, macaroni and cheese, tap water, safe fruits and vegetables, and dry air.
When I leave China I will miss lush greenery, my classmates, choco-pies, magnum bars, and meals for $1.50.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment