Travels and Settling In

So here I am... in China!  I am not quite sure how or where to begin, nor am I sure how regularly I will be able to keep this updated.  But I will do my best to keep all of the pictures that I take uploaded to Facebook (so get a Facebook, Mom!).

So yesterday was a day of travel, and everything went quite smoothly.  My 13-hour flight from Toronto to Beijing took us right over the Arctic, and I was seated next to an interesting elderly Chinese woman.  I don't think that she understood the stewardesses very well, because even though she accepted every bit of food offered, she would sit looking at the food for a few minutes and then clandestinely slide her entire meal over to my tray.  Needless to say... I was confused yet pleased.  With spotty English, she would ask to get up every once and a while and would spend long periods of time looking out of a window at the back door of the plane.  She took it upon herself to wake me up in order to show me that we were now over the Arctic ice, and she dragged me to the window again when we were crossing back over to unfrozen terrain. Regardless, she was pretty much adorable, and came to give me a friendly hug as we parted ways at customs.

The trip from the airport to Tianjin was a little over three-hours, during most of which I slept, as it was too dark outside to take pictures. 

When all was said and done, I crawled into bed at around midnight local time (noon back at home) absolutely exhausted.  This morning some of my fellow students and I walked around Tianjin University with the assistance of local volunteers in order to get an idea of what exactly we had gotten ourselves into. And boy... did we get ourselves into something.  Almost every interaction with the Chinese world thus far has been a learning experience; everything about China seems so distinct and unique from the world that I am used to. Though I have neither the time nor the ability to recall each of these events (those of you back home have story after story to look forward to as I remember them), I know that my perspective after this trip will be forever changed.

Today I managed to:
 - Acquire Chinese currency
- Get a Chinese phone number and data plan (still working on jailbreaking the iPhone to make this work...  The slow internet at the hotel is not helping this process).
- Order an awesome mango green tea
- Pick up, though slowly, some helpful phrases to use when interacting with the Chinese people.



My classes start tomorrow... I don't think that there will be much to update on the blog, but if there is, I'll be sure to post on here.  Tonight some of my friends and I are hoping to nail down how we are going to use our three-day weekends out here. I will update on here what my plans are as soon as I know them.

I do miss home, but this (this = exploring a completely new world!) is a whole lot of fun.  Nonetheless, I am never above admitting how warm and fuzzy I feel when I get a Facebook message / e-mail from someone back home checking in on me... Anyways, hope everyone's summer is off to a great start!  Thanks for reading!!