hi!

First of all, everyone please send positive thoughts towards my grandfather, Hal, who just had a heart attack. I've been told he's recovering and I spoke to him myself, but let's all pray for his recovery.

As for me, nothing nearly as serious as a heart attack, but I'm back on track--pretty much recovered from my cold, my knee is feeling better after I fell down the stairs, and my hip has mended from my tumble off my bed. I am now an offical Beijinger, with my used bike and my cell phone. My cell phone is pretty terrible--some of the buttons don't work--but it was only $25, so I shouldn't complain. Everything is really cheap here, like water bottles for 25 cents, and an average lunch about 50 cents, but it has been adding up, and I'm finding that I'm going quite a bit over my budget. It might be time to call the parents about it, especially since we have a long break coming up in July, and we're all traveling. Everyone wants to go to Shanghai or a beach town, but I'm eyeing a trip (it's actually a tour, so not by myself) to Inner Mongolia. It's only about $125 for everything for four days, so it's quite a good deal. Anything more expensive than that and I'll have to start cleaning out my savings account! I have had a lot of move in expenses though, and I have to realize that although going out is a lot cheaper here, it does add up.

I'll talk about some miscellaneous stuff before i get into details about outings. First of all, class is going really well. It's pretty easy, just difficult sometimes to understand what the teacher is saying. And I'm still struggling with making words come out of my mouth. Actually, the other day, I made the whole class laugh with a language mishap. I wasn't feeling good and had my juice to drink, but I was told Chinese teachers don't like it when you drink in class. So I told the teacher in Chinese that I was sick, and did she mind if I drank my juice? The funny part was that instead of saying juice, i said alcohol instead. She looked at me really funny, and wondered if I was serious until everyone started laughing! Anyways, it lightened up the class a bit! I also was really negative about the people when I first got here, but I'm not so much now. You just have to be prepared to be laughed at a little, and laugh along with them. I had a pretty good time buying my bike yesterday, and when I went with a friend today to buy hers, I was joking with all the vendors whose bikes I didn't buy, as they were telling me that my bike was terrible, and they would have sold it to me for half the price!

Here's a list of random things about Beijing:
1. everyone rides their bikes while talking on their cellphone/holding their umbrella and someone is always riding on the back fender
2. "Screw the foreigners" is the city's favorite game
3. There is constant, ongoing construction, and while everyone says they like it, there's a lot of discontent, especially from the people who are being forcibly relocated
4. there is no toilet paper in the bathrooms, and no toilet, either (I actually prefer squatting)
5. I'll think of more, I'm just drawing a blank

As for outings, the highlight of recent times was Saturday night, when I declined a visit to Silk Alley (major tourist shopping, going there Sunday) with a group of 15 or so and decided to go with just three other girls to a place called Houhai, otherwise known as the Back Lakes areas. We ended up renting a little motor boat and put-putted around the little lake, which has a cute little bridge across it and is surrounded by bars and restaurants of varying price and chiceness. After about an hour of enjoying the cool breeze, we returned the boat and headed for a restaurant. We ended up eating right on the lake and had a pretty decent meal. We then headed towards the bars and ended up shopping for a bit. ( I bought a cute wallet) We stopped by one bar to listen to the music and then got to a bar with couches outside, right next to the lake. We sat around, talked, and enjoyed the evening until it started pouring, at which point we ran 20 minutes to find a cab. Previously, I had been going out with a huge group of people, and this was a lot nicer, as I was able to actually talk to a few great girls, and actually have a meaningful conversation. I also talked to the owner of the bar for a few minutes, in Chinese, so that was nice.

Okay, that' s probably enough for today. Tonight we're going to an acrobatics show, tomorrow the group is hearing a talk on the different legal systems of China and the US, I have my meeting at the World Bank regarding working there, and Friday we have a tour of the hutongs, or alleyways, of the city. Saturday we're going to the Great Wall all day and Sunday I have a shopping date planned with a friend. So it's busy busy! Hope everyone is doing well!