First days in Beijing!

So, after almost 10 hours in the plane, i have arrived safely in Beijing! And of course, right away, the drama began:) A student from the University at which we are staying was there to pick me up, but we never found each other! So after 45mins of looking for him, I took a taxi from the airport to the University in Beijing. The taxi driver, of course, spoke no english, so there I am sitting like a jerk in the backseat not saying a word and barely getting out a "hello" and "thank you" in the 45 mins we were together! Haha. So then we arrive at the university and its huge. Wide open spaces and about 50 buildings. And i'm the ONLY westerner around. Oh, the funniest thing, right after i got to the arrivals area in the airport, a guy came up to me and asked if he could take his picture with me!!! Seriously!!! I've heard that thats waht happens to tall non-asians in China, but i cant believe it really is true! :)
So anyway, im wandering around the university with my bags looking totally lost and out of my element, and im standing on a corner staring at a map hoping that the answer will jump out of it, and then someone comes up next to me and asks if i'm Erin. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Thats so cool. He was looking for me! (guess i'm not that hard to spot, huh? :) So he gets me to where we're staying, i get a room key and finally make it to our dorm. Which is not really a dorm but more of a hotel room, and its super nice for American standards so I think we're living the luxary here in Chin

Next, I finally met up with the guy who had gone to the airport looking for me and we went to get something to eat. He wanted to take me to a resaurant with western food but I declined saying that i'd prefer something more local, and so we went to this small and very overcrowded chinese "fast food" place where you order you meal, sit down, and wait for your name or number or whatever to be called. It was completely in Chineese, the menu had no pictures, and the people workin there were anouncing the orders over the intercom. Okay, picture a McDonalds drive through....hard enough to understand, right? Now imagine them speaking rapid fire Chinese. yeah. Needless to say I could not have done it without my new Chineese friend Sijia Yang. (His american name in fact is "Bacon" because he tells me he really likes to eat bacon!!! LOL)

So now I finally got an adapter for my laptop and am back in my room sending emails! We have meetings tomorrow and I guess the training starts then too! This afternoon I may meet up with some other people from NC that i think are here, or I think Sijia is going to show me around the campus and local area.

This is proving to be already quite the adventure, and it's only just begun! I'm so excited to learn this language (and stop being that dumb girl who stares at you blankely when you ask her a question or tell her that no you can't sit here because this section is closed (apparently that's what one woman said to me that i of course did not understand)) and get to see the city and other parts of the country! the rest of the UNC group arrives tonight and we'll see what happens then.