ABROAD IN
6/23/17: This morning I woke up at 3 am and made sure I had packed everything back up. I kinda felt bad for Rachel (my roommate in D.C.) because only the Suzhou and the Nanjing students had to meet in the lobby at 3:40 am, while Xi'an students (like Rachel) had to meet in the lobby at around 8 for breakfast. So, I tried to be really silent while I finished cram packing some of my things this morning. After a few people were late to the lobby from missing their alarms, we headed out to the airport on a charter bus and checked in our bags. It took a long time because we had about 42 people, and each one of us had 2 boarding passes to print out. Also we had to wait for everyone to go through security. So once we reached our gate we only had about 10 minutes to grab breakfast before we had to board at 5:45 am. I was scurrying around the airport with my friend looking for a good place to get some iced coffee and some food, but lines were too long so we decided that we would pick up something in Chicago, where we had a one hour layover. However, after boarding the plane, the pilot informed us that our flight to Chicago was delayed for about 45 minutes. Everyone thought we were going to miss our flight to Shanghai so once we landed, we immediately rushed to the next gate with a little less than 10 minutes until the boarding time period closed (the workers who scanned our passes were annoyed at us). I forgot how nice international flights can be even though the flight was 14 hours long. The movies available are pretty good/new and we also were fed a lot of free food, so even though I skipped breakfast I had enough food. Every person even got a little single-serve bucket of caramel gelato. So overall, the flight to Shanghai was bearable through short naps and movies. It was so surreal arriving in Shanghai, and the fact that I am going to be living without my family in China really hit me then. When looking to the window on the 5 hr charter bus ride to Nanjing, I noticed that the whole scenery is so different and the way people act is so different. The bus ride felt SO LONG but the Nanjingers pretty much cracked jokes the whole time so they made it fun. We finally arrived in Nanjing and it's a little chaotic but lively at night. There are rows and rows of shops and places to buy food on the main street and I am constantly hearing car horns. I can't wait to explore it tomorrow. As we got off the bus, we were told that we are meeting host families and taking our placement tests tomorrow (which determine what class we are placed in for the duration of the program). We just finished this really nice Chinese dinner and the whole time I was so exhausted and kind of in this warm haze. It's even humid in our hotel room, but at night it was only in the 70s. I'm super tired and I have been up since 3 in the morning, so I'm going to head off to bed. Alex and Alex were happy when we arrived in Shanghai!
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Andrea 施安雅17-year-old XC runner and boba tea lover living in Seattle but studying abroad in China. Also, I have a cat! Archives
August 2017
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