Arriving Home!!!

our living room . . . at the airport and Rachel watching a movie on the plane . . . Rachel posing in all her cuteness . . . and our kitchen/dining area, yes, the fridge is barely taller than the table, it is NOT an illusion!

Hello friends!!!

We have just today gotten online and we are thrilled to be able to catch you all up on our happenings! It has been quite an adventure these past few weeks. . .

After spending an hour and a half on the phone trying to pay a seatbelt ticket received just the day before leaving the country, we arrived at the San Francisco airport with plenty of time to make last minute phone call good-byes and leisurely wait for our flight. Rachel watched anxiously out the window for our plane to pull up to the gate . . . I frantically looked for a good cup of coffee and our last truly american food for quite some time.

Rachel did remarkably well on the 13 hour flight! (thank goodness for dramamine!!! She slept about 6 hours)

After arriving in Beijing on Tuesday the 25th of July, we spent three days there in the Sino Swiss Hotel being oriented to our new company and surroundings. There we were able to meet a family and one single man who we will be working closely with . . . then on Saturday we headed HOME. As we checked in at the airport we were quite certain there would be several fees for overweight and extra luggage, but to our great surprise and pleasure, the sweet airline worker checked our bags right through . . . no fees, no questions, no problems!!! What a great welcome to the country!

We arrived to a wonderfully sunny and blue-skied day, temperatures nearing 100 degrees we are certain, but were quickly wisked to an airconditioned van sent and driven by an employee of the Univeristy. When we arrived at the university, we were given our choice of two apartments . . . the third floor facing the girls dorm, or the fourth floor facing the boys dorm. We quickly chose the fourth floor apartment as the mold problem was obviously less agressive there.

Since that day we have made several trips to Wal-mart (but the first 5 didn't count as we simply walked around in a daze taking it all in and picking up a few things here and there we "couldn't live without"). We now have a semi-stocked "pantry" and fridge, and all the cleaning, laundry and bathroom supplies we need. The most important shopping trip was a 6 hour day spent with my new friend Sara searching for a hair supply "warehouse" of sorts where I could find a curling iron. It had only been visited by one teammate previously and she only had very vague directions written on a napkin. However, the 6 hours was not a total loss! We did find "Italian Best Coffee" which is a very nice coffee shop downtown that served us wonderful iced coffee with the best whipped cream on top! We sat in wonderfully coushined chairs and sipped iced coffee in the airconditioned cafe for at least half an hour . . . "Italian Best Coffee" will be visited again in the future (granted that I can find it again!) But alas, by the end of the day I did come home with a curling iron (and clippers for Jerry).

They said to expect things to take longer here. . . but 6 hours to buy a curling iron???? Hopefully even that was an exaggeration of the rule!

Altogether we are adjusting well. We have made it through the jet lag stage and have had a few little illnesses to overcome, but we are on the upswing and looking forward to conquering more than just Wal-mart soon.