This has been one crazy week. Sunday night we worked through loads of homework. On Mondays I have class from 9-4:15 which is bad enough after a week off, but my first Monday back consisted of a test first thing in the morning with a paper due and Emily and I had a summary/review for the class over all the readings we “read” during the break. My next class, Chinese was an oral exam, and my last class had two papers due. Needless to say Sunday was a late night. Tuesday followed with another oral exam and Wednesday was two more tests. Thursday was a group presentation and then celebrating the end of the week!! We have a favorite restaurant out the back gate called “xue you 学友” and last week we managed to go to it three of the first five nights back home. We missed it while we were away from Shanghai. Thursday night Emily and I introduced 10 of the boys to our xue you 学友. We went out after dinner with the whole CIEE group. It was good to be home and with our friends again.
Friday morning I had a fieldtrip at 9am to a Methodist church here in Shanghai. It was beautiful. The idea that churches exist here in China is still strange to me, but it makes more sense knowing they are government run. We got to tour the inside of the church and it was beautiful. Being inside you forget that you are in China. The church was built in 1929 with entirely imported materials from the states. Everything inside and outside the church is the same as it was in 1929 (with updates and refurbishments), except for the stained glass windows that were destroyed by protestors during the Cultural Revolution. While this is all boring to you, these are all things I have been learning about in classes for years and actually got to see it first hand. It was beautiful.
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| Methodist Church in Shanghai |
After the fieldtrip I met with Phil, a friend and co-worker of Paul Ranta, and we went to lunch. It was nice to meet another person from the states with the same passion for China. The restaurant, Gourmet Café, had great food and fresh squeezed orange juice. We don’t get a lot of fruit here because we have to be so careful about how it is grown, washed, and prepared, so the smallest things (like orange juice) are the highlights of my day! After lunch Emily, Lucy, Mike and I went shopping on Shaanxi lu 陕西路, a famous shopping street in Shanghai. Emily came out very successful, while the rest of us were pretty disappointed. After shopping and some homework we went out for all you can eat and all you can drink Sushi and Sake. It was so much fun. There were 19 of us total; Lucy, Laura, Emily, and I were the only girls. After about 2+ hours of sushi, sashimi, sake, and Asahi we were ready to go. The raw fish and sake didn’t settle well with Emily so she ended her night early. Luckily she was the only one who didn’t feel well or I would’ve started to believe what the girls said about being afraid of the quality of sushi in China.
Saturday we went to the mall at another attempt to get some shopping done, but yet again came home empty handed. I am starting to wish I didn’t wait to get to China to do some of my shopping. Saturday night we had a plan to go get a western dinner and then go to Cloud 9 which is a lounge on the 87th floor of a hotel and really upscale. We just wanted to say we had been to the highest lounge in the world. About 15 minutes before leaving I decided that I really didn’t want to go out all dressed up and I stayed back. I had dinner out the back gate, worked on homework for a couple hours, and then hung out in the dorms with the boys and their Chinese roommates. I loved it because it was the first time I had the opportunity to interact with the Chinese roommates on other floors. Luckily the girls changed their plans and didn’t go to Cloud 9 anyways, so I will have the opportunity to do that again. I was also thankful I got to stay home and get the chance to skype with Grandma and Grandpa and chat with Reilly. It was a hard day for everyone, which I realized, is why I wasn’t really in the mood to go out, but having the chance to talk to family made it better. Those are the times I wish we were advanced enough to have a teleport so I could run home real quick and get/give lots of hugs.
Sunday was more homework and never leaving my room except for dinner. Monday was another long day of classes followed by “Meiguo 美国 Mondays at Malones”. We got our burger for the week and hung out in an entirely ex-pat restaurant for while. After Malones we came home and got ready to go watch a live jazz and blues performance at the Melting Pot. I love live music and the performance was great, so even though it was a Monday night, it was totally worth it!
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