Here on Yong An Street

I kind of can't believe I'm here. Sometimes when I look out the window I feel like I'm watching t.v. This is just so amaizing, I'm SO excited!
Our 13 hour flight here went well. That is, after Brandon (who apparently packs like a woman) emptied some things from his bags and put them in Cathy Lee's and my bags. Going over the 70 lbs limit is a bit costly so we helped him out. Now I know the biggest question on everyone's minds is; which way did we fly? Flying direct from Chicago to Beijing did not take us over the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic Ocean... over the North Poll! Aw! It was so awesome! All of the sudden I look up from my book and the little cartoon 474 on the screen was making a little dotted line over Santa's house. We opened the shade and there was ice every where, so of course we took pictures.
After landing we showed the Chinese government our visas, got our bags and went through customs easier and faster than buying stamps at the post office. The director of the International Affairs Office at the Chengde Medical College, Laura Wang had my name on a little sign, and Cathy Lee found Mr. Fan (aka Mr. Fantastic) so we were wisked away pretty quickly. Then came the 4 hour drive from Beijing to Chengde. Driving in China is very different from driving in the States. We like to do crazy things like drive in lanes and not run pedestrians off the road. Some of the roads we took didn't even have lines painted on them and good luck figuring out the difference between 1 honk and 3... I think one's "look at me, I'm here" and the other's "hey I'm passing you". I guess on Andrea's trip to Chengde they side swiped an other car on the highway. So we arrived at my apartment and Laura showed me how to work everything. My air conditioner, washing machine and stove are all in Chinese so I took notes. After that Laura and I met up with Andrea (the other Drake student who's teaching here) and went to dinner. My first Chinese meal was delicious. Dammit anyway, so much for hating the food and accidentally losing 20 lbs while I'm here. Sleeping in my apartment wasn't bad considering this is my first time living on my own and I'm in a foreign country. I went to bed when you were all eating lunch and woke up in time for you to eat dinner. The 13 hour time difference is a little weird but I'm not too jet lagged.
This morning I mopped and cleaned my apartment before unpacking (don't fall off your chair Mom, I don't always enjoy living in filth). After that Cathy Lee and an other foreing English teacher from the Petrolium College, Andrew, stopped by and we went to breakfast. Andrew's been here since May so he knows his way around. He's an interesting guy... and by that I mean extremely odd. I won't go into his story but we'll just say the three of us girls won't be hanging out with him much.
That brings me to this afternoon. I just got back from lunch with the President of my school. In attendance were 3 teachers from the English department, Laura Wang, some other guys I wasn't introduced to, Andrea and myself. That was an other huge, delicious meal with lots of pijue (beer). The president liked to toast us and kept saying the Chinese equivilant of "bottoms up". Lunch was a lot of fun... maybe too much fun. Also people keep commenting on the fact that I'm left handed (three in the past two days). One woman from the Enlish department explained that in China people think that if you can use chop sticks with your left hand you are very clever, artisic and romantic. Needless to say she's my favorite teacher now.
In a few hours Andrea and I are getting a tour of campus and seeing our class rooms. I'm a little more excited to teach now that I've found out that their conversational English classes are on about the same level as American health class. Not too serious. I was told by an other teacher on our plane ride over that students really like learning American songs and games. Sounds like head, shoulders, knees and toes and a round of heads up 7-up is in order. MAN I'm loving China.