Meet Xiaotong!

Hey everyone! This is a picture of me and my "tong wu", aka roomate in Chinese. Her nickname is Xiaotong and she's a design student from a nearby art school (yay RISD). All the local roomates moved in 2 days ago and we've been having fun getting to know them and hanging out with them. I'm especially excited because my roomate has already invited me to go to her house for a special meal on the last day of Chinese New Year, sometime in the beginning of March.

Today is the last day of orientation, which has been a big blur because they keep us running around all day. Yesterday, we were sent on a scavenger hunt throughout Beijing to find things such as restaurant menus, visa forms, and clothing prices from specific places so that we could acclimate ourselves to the area. I started getting familiar with the ditie (subway) system and also took my first bus ride. At night we went out again to Nanjie, which happened to be near the theater where the Brown orchestra performed in January. Today we got our class placements and met our teacheres. I've been placed in the 300-level class, which is the second highest and really quite intimidating, as I've forgotten so much reading and writing. We already have homework that we need to prepare for tomorrow which is also rather scary - tonight I have to memorize 30 characters and read a chapter!

Right now we're about to have lunch with our teachers at a nearby duck restaurant...yummy! After that I plan to go buy a dictionary at the bookstore so I can survive classes tomorrow, and then go running with some people and maybe one last shopping trip before it's officially study time.

I finally got a cell phone! Calling from the US, you dial 011-86-10-13810781092. Also, I'm going to try to use Skype soon. Username Twasy120.

Lunchtime, I love you all!