I woke up at 4:30 to get to the airport. Alex came with me and gave me a sweater. <3 I’ll be nice and warm in Harbin. =D Then I ended up being alone on the plane and all the other AFSers got to be together on the plane. T.T I wanted to sit near Gabe, because he was the only other person I knew. T.T But he was, like 5 rows behind me. I nearly cried a bunch of times on the plane. Not sure if it was because I was happy to go or if it was because I was homesick. =/ But I landed in LA and got together with the other AFSers. That’s when I noticed that there was a guy on the plane who I met at pre-departure orientation. He waved and I waved back. His name is Zach.
We all got our luggage and found the van that was supposed to pick us up. There was Gabe, Zach, me, and this one girl who isn’t from Seattle, but from Washington, who was headed to Japan. Then, later on, another guy got on. I think his name is Cameron and he’s going to China, too. At the hotel, there were so many people already there. AFS had its own little corner and was making people sign-in and taking everyone’s temperature. And giving us booklets to read and fill out a survey. We then got our rooms with roommates. I got put in the same room with the girl from Washington heading to Japan. Sadly, I don’t remember her name. O.o So then we had orientation the whole day except for a few breaks and meals. I met tons of people. There was even a guy from the UK who has dual citizenship, which is how he got the NSLI scholarship. O.O Then we had to go to sleep by 11. The problem was that the people heading to China had to wake up at 4, but the people going to Japan got to get up at like 8. So, I had to figure out a way to get up in the morning without waking up my roommate. -.-
But I got it done and got downstairs. We had to get our temperature checked again and get 7 face masks before heading to a bus to get to the airport. I sat next to a girl with dual citizenship. She’s Russian and American. o.o
We got to the San Fran airport and got all checked in. We had like an hour to wait to board, but then the flight got delayed, so we had to wait an extra half hour. At the airport, this guy came up to us and told us he and his friend were from Coasta Rico and were part of AFS heading to China. That was pretty awesome. On the plane ride, I sat next to a guy named Benjamin. It turns out he’s exactly 12 hours older than me! O.o Scary, right? He didn’t know much Chinese, so I tried to teach him some. The flight was only an hour long. When we got to San Fran, we had to get to the other gate to get transferred. We didn’t have to wait that long though, from what I can remember. There was wifi there, but you had to have a T-mobile account to get on, so that sucked. -.- But my friend Zach and I were talking about the word for bathroom because we were trying to teach our UK friend, Matthew (Matt). There was a Chinese guy sitting in front of us. He heard us talking. Later, when I went to go try to get online at a charging station, he came by and talked to me in Chinese. He said my Chinese is pretty good. ^.^ I’m very proud. (I’d also like to take this time to thank any and all Chinese teachers I’ve ever had who made me practice speaking.)
My plane ride to Beijing was 11 HOURS. I sat next to a girl who’s name I don’t remember. She didn’t really talk to me. T.T But the people around me were talking a lot. They were talking about different languages and also trying to teach Benjamin (the guy who’s 12 hours older than me) how to say “I’m allergic to peanuts”. So yeah. It was interesting to hear the conversations about other languages. I fell asleep every once in a while and the meals this time weren’t actually that bad! I walked around a bit too and tried to talk to other AFSers. They were talking about movies though and I haven’t watched that many, so I left. Once we got to the Beijing airport, we were met up by AFS-China. We got onto a bus and headed off some far place. All the luggage couldn’t fit on the bus though, so a second bus had to be brought in. O.o Darn Americans. We went really far away to, apparently, a university, but the rooms are like hotel rooms. It’s pretty hot here, but it doesn’t seem as hot as it was the last time I was here.
It’s been so awesome here so far. Everyone who’s going to China is here, from all over the world. There are people from Thailand, Germany, Italy, Australia, Austria, Denmark, a girl from Japan, Switzerland, and a bunch of other places. I’ve been trying to get to know more people, but most people like to stay in their own groups with their own countries. Bleh.
It’s crazy here in China, though. People here are deathly afraid of swine flu. We’ve gotten our temperature checked every day. And today/yesterday, 3 people from the US got sent to the hospital for throwing up and a couple people were sick with a high temperature. So now we’re ALL in quarantine! -.- We missed an orientation and now we’re stuck in here for lunch too, as far as I know. I don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here. I really don’t want to miss the field trip to the Great Wall. T.T Right now my roommate has a friend over who’s like a room or two down. They talk a lot about boys and stuff. I feel bad. =/ My roommate said she would prefer to be in a room with her. And I was right next to her when she said that. I feel hecka bad. I guess I’m not girly enough? They talk about boys and things like that. This is why I like hanging out with the guys better, like Zach, Gabe, and Matt. But the guys have rooms on the other side of the campus, so I can’t sneak out like the girl who’s in here right now. If I get desperate enough, I’ll probably sneak out. -.- BLEH! So yeah, that’s all I got so far for right now. I’d tell what we learned at orientation, but it’s not that important for you guys to know. So yeah.