Back in Beijing for year number 3!

Yesterday afternoon I arrived back in Beijing for my third year of teaching here! This was my quickest trip back. The first year I went the OTHER way around - through Amsterdam. I have no idea how long that one took - we left Minneapolis at 9pm on Monday and got to Beijing on Wednesday afternoon. The second year I went through Tokyo making for a 17 hour flight. This year I flew from Appleton to Chicago and then a short 13 hour flight direct from Chicago to Beijing!

I forgot to order the vegetarian meals for the flight but somehow it was in the system so I was a little surprised when the flight attendant told me I had a special meal. Even more surprising was the food I was given. I'm not sure who decides what the vegetarians eat for the inflight meals but they are, um, creative people. They also seem to forget that vegetarians also need protein. The first meal was pretty good - a veggie stir fry with a salad on the side and and fruit. The mini-meal was probably the most unique. I woke up to find on the empty seat next me a pita with giant couscous stuffed in it. Quite strange... The final meal was bread pinwheels with green stuff in between the layers and cold greens on the side. The flight attendant asked me what I was eating, I said I had no idea. The good news is that United serves real Diet Coke. :)

I had a very nice welcome back to Beijing and a lot of Chinese practice. The taxi driver I had from the airport was very nice though slightly incompetent. He didn't know how to get to my apartment so he asked me how much it usually cost and only charged that much since he took a longer route. He asked me how long I had been studying Chinese and then started reviewing (?) the basics (hello, good-bye, thank you) with me despite the fact that we had been speaking in Chinese the whole time. My apartment is one of the farthest from the gate so pulling two 50+lbs suitcases while trying to balance a heavy carry-on along with the heavy backpack on my back was no easy task. Finally when I was almost halfway and debating about leaving a suitcase behind to get later, one of the guards came up and started pulling one of the suitcases. He helped me with it all the way into my apartment. I kept saying thank you thank you but he just said you're welcome and turned around and left not expecting a tip or anything. I ordered water right away since my bottle was pretty old and who knows what has been growing in there in the past month. The lady delivered it right away. When she took the old bottle off she noticed it was a little dirty inside and started cleaning it. Then she picked up the whole machine and drained out the extra old water that I didn't even know what in there. When I paid her I asked if it was 13rmb and she said very apologetically that the water bottle company had raised the price 1rmb. I just smiled, said no problem and gave her the extra money. It was great to be reminded how kind the Chinese people can be!

In the next 2.5 weeks before school starts I get/have to clean every surface and then some in my apartment. The large cockroach population I discovered in my apartment after coming back from Wenling seems to have all, thankfully, passed away. My job now is finding and disposing of their little carcasses. Eww! Everything else is of course covered with a thick layer of Beijing dust so I shouldn't be too bored. Not to mention there is this event in town called the Olympics! Today I'm hoping to chase down the road cycling race. I also saw quite a few athletes in the airport yesterday (which was a complete zoo!). There was an African team all dressed in matching red. I didn't see what country they were from. There were also some British athletes coming in too.