4

Ni Hao!
I'm now in Qingdao and classes start on thursday (tomorrow). I'm sortof scared, but ready to start. It's been so frustrating being here and barely knowing any chinese. unlike in other countries we travel to, most people don't know english. So, when we've gone shopping its difficult to express yourself and I always feel so inept. So, I'm really glad we're going to start soon so that the language divide won't be as bad. The other day I was ordering food and because I can't speak chinese the lady behind the counter had to point at the menu and move up and down as I shook my head until she got to what I wanted...I felt like a stupid american...
anyways...since I last wrote I've seen some pretty amazing things; we went to 'factory 798' which is an old factory that they've turned into an art distict. All of the art is modern Chinese art and it's so different from anything we're used to. Alot of it was political (so I'm surprised the Chinese government allows it). The only thing is..we went on a monday at 9:00am..and guess what..most of the galleries (except maybe 3) are closed on mondays, and don't even open until at least 10:30. I was really dissapointed!! We were able to see through some of the windows and the art looked amazing!!!
--side note---it seems as though the chinese department at vassar isn't very organized (I've concluded this from both the trip and from what other students say). For example; when at the summer palace we were instructed to go a certain route and see certain sights...I wanted to make sure I went the right way and got the most out of the visit, so I followed the professor. Well, the group of us that followed him ended up wandering through random paths and not seeing all of the places we were supposed to, mind you, he was walking about 100meters ahead of us pretending he knew exactly where he was going. Another example is last night when we went to the convenient store to buy a few things for our rooms we took the bus as a group, once there our professor said we would be going back on our own, but he didn't tell us the bus line or stop or the information we needed to take a taxi...I guess he doesn't keep in mind that a group of us barely speak chinese. I ended up taking a cab and using the map taht the university gave us to help guide the taxi driver (it took a bit and he wasn't exactly sure where we were going for a while...but we made it)--so ya, everything's an adventure!
When in Beijing we had a free halfday and a group of us went to the olympic site! Surprisingly, it seems as though they still have a lot of construction to do. we weren't allowed to go in any of the buildings but we took pictures as close as we could get to the big stadium (the birds' nest) and during the taxi ride drove around and saw a bunch of the different olympic sites.
So, about my dorm room...It's nice, sortof...there are hardwood floors a balcony and a bathroom in our room. the bathroom isn't really that clean and, following with chinese culture, there is no shower curtain. It's hard to describe (I'll take pictures), but the shower is part of the bathroom, so when you shower there is a 'water hose' (i guess you could call it that) that comes out of the wall and you use that to shower, but, keep in mind, the toilet, sink, mirror...are all in the same tiled little bathroom. so, in short, you're showering with the toilet, and in theory, you could take a poop while in the shower..hmmmm.
My roomate's name is Lola, she's from texas and is a going to be a junior. Her personality ispretty cool, she's sortof loud and really puts herself out there i guess you could say. I don't think we're going to be best friends, but it's not a baaad roomate situation. (if you look on facebook-mom and dad, lily can show you-at the tagged picture of me with a group, she's the 3rd one in from the right). The beds are really hard, but they give us comforters to put under the sheets (I'm not sure how much they actually help).