I made it!

For Blog post:

Hello everyone! I made it to China safely and I am loving it J

Betsy picked me up from the airport on Wednesday. She showed me her university and we went to dinner…my first REAL Chinese food. It was super good! And then yesterday a bunch of her students came to her apartment and cooked Hot Pot.  I learned so much about community from them, and we were only together for a few hours. When they eat meals everyone sits around the same table and you all eat off the same plates on the table. You get a cup of rice to yourself and then you just use your chopsticks to pick up what you want! Every one is reaching over everyone else and putting food into everyone’s bowl of rice! It’s really fun! Some of the girls even let me help! They wanted to show me how to make Hot Pot, so I watched and then they gave me a few tasks.

Something I have been shocked about so far is how similar we all are. We all had dinner and afterward some of Betsy’s students played hacky sack! During the whole night pictures were being taken, just like we do in America. There wasn’t a single awkward moment…except maybe when I bumped my chin on the top of one of the girls head! But we just laughed and apologized to one another for our klutziness.  I really enjoyed myself and it has been so great hanging out with Betsy’s students.  One of their class assignments was to interview another person so I have been that person for about 10 students…some of them even videotaped it! I’m going to say 79 percent of the interview questions are about my love life and romantic opinions.  They ask the questions and Betsy stands back and laughs. And then they interview Betsy and I laugh. It’s quiet the system we got going on.

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Here is a list of some things/quotes I have found funny:

-The counters in Betsy's apartment are really short here compared to the counters in America, which makes sense, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it.

-“Your skin is very fair. You must drink milk everyday!”
-Squatty Potty’s. Enough Said.

-There are stray dogs everywhere! Take stray cats in America, multiply it by 5 and you have the streets here. Except the dogs aren’t cute…they are these tiny little straggly things and I want to drop kick them.  What? I said it.

I think I have transitioned in really well and I have felt very comfortable in my time here so far.  I am excited to see what else there is in store for me!