Birthday and Acceptance

So I had a pretty good birthday, Mallory and Josh, her boyfriend, Matthew all came the night before and then on my birthday we went rafting down the river even though it was pretty cold. There was just enough sun to make it warm and not really cold.

Today I checked my email and I was accepted at Nanyang Technological University. They tell me I should wait until I get a letter from them with all the details. I looked online and it said that I had been accepted but it didn't say anything about what I should do if I wanted to accept.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Tallinn University in Estonia, I have have an interview on May 5th. I wasn't accepting to be excepted at NTU. Now I may have a choice and that may be harder than if I had been just accepted to one school.

Really Wednesday, ShiLin Sign

What exactly does this mean? I think they had a bad translator for this sign. I'm not sure what the Chinese says but the English is very confusing and doesn't make much sense.

Really Wednesday, Everyone Smokes

Even the little kid seems to have gotten a cigarette somewhere.

I thought he would have been taught better but I guess not.

Back in the U.S.

So, for those of you who do not know, Matthew and I decided that financially we could not stay in China for longer than our two month visa. On the 31st of March at 4:20pm, in Beijing, we got on a plan for Seattle. We both have colds or some horrible respiratory thing which we got in Beijing. I was just hoping that I would not cough, sneeze, or have to blow my nose for long enough that the plane would take off and they would not kick us off because we were too sick and a danger to the other passengers. They did not kick us off. It was a 10 hour flight to Seattle, made longer by the fact that I could not sleep as the little girl in the row in front on me started crying and then puking which was so unpleasant that I watched a second movie. Then, when the movie was over I tried to get some sleep but couldn't. About the time I thought I was going to sleep the little girl started crying again so I started watching another movie. But I didn't have time to finish this one as we were about to land in Seattle. During the descent I thought that my head was going to explode from all of the congestion. I got a really sharp pain under my eye. It was a really long landing. We arrived in Seattle at 12:30pm on the 31st of March. It was strange to get someplace before I even left, but that is what happens when you cross the dateline. After China, U.S. customs was easy. The guy who questioned me about my trip asked me if the government treated me alright. I had to say yes because I didn't really have any interactions with the government. Our only interaction was with the police checking passports and visas in Shan Shi Ping and having to register with them to live at the apartment we rented. So I would say I had a neutral experience with the government as I didn't interact with them. After the questions, Matthew and I collected our bags and went through the second part of customs where they can search your bags if they want to. They didn't, and we rechecked our bags and went to find our next flight to Chicago.

In Seattle, I got a bagel. The most wonderful bagel I think I've ever had. This was mostly because I was really hungry and airplane food is just so bad. Hainan was no exception. The flight to Chicago was a nice short flight and I was able to sleep most of the way. In Chicago we had a short layover before our flight into Charlotte. I slept on the flight to Charlotte again. Matthew and I got off of the plane, got our bags, and headed out to wait for the Ramada Hotel shuttle to come and pick us up. My parents left us a car at the hotel so that we could get back to Bakersville the next morning. They are out of town, which is probably a good thing so that Matthew and I don't expose them to what ever nastiness we picked up in China.

When we got to the hotel it was about 12:30am and I was hungry, but nothing was really open. We went out and ended up eating at a Waffle House. Not the first place you want to eat when you get home but it was food.

The next morning I felt like I had just fallen asleep when the alarm went off to get us out of the hotel by checkout at 11. It was hard to get up and out. I couldn't breath through my nose most of the time and my cough makes it hard to move. We did get packed and out. Matthew was driving and we stopped at the grocery store and got cough syrup and breakfast for Matthew and Sprite for me. On the drive back I called and set up an appointment at the Bakersville Clinic just to make sure I didn't have anything that needed to be treated with anything other than time. Turns out the only appointment they had was at 2pm and we wouldn't have time to go to my house before. So we went straight to the clinic and I waited an hour to see the doctor. When I went in they weighed me. I lost 12 pounds when I was in China. I am going to be doing some serious eating now that the food won't upset my stomach. The doctor said that as I didn't have a fever anymore that I was on the healing side and that if I started running a fever again to call him and if I wasn't getting better by the weekend to call him. I have some kind of respiratory infection but as he doesn't think it is bacterial there isn't any treatment but time.

Back home we unloaded the car and tried to stay awake so we might get used to the time difference. It was really hard to stay awake until it got dark and then when it was dark I started to feel more awake. I watched one of the many movies Matthew and I brought back. When I went to bed I had a hard time sleeping and I woke up at 3 and was really wide awake but I made myself lay there until I fell back asleep. Matthew got up and didn't come back to bed until it was light.

Today was an amazingly beautiful day. Really hot compared to what I'm used to. I spent the day taking it easy and eating food. The daffodils and crocus are blooming and it feels so green here compared to China. Also, after the pollution in China, which I didn't think was that bad in Kunming, the sky looks so blue here.

Now that I am home and have internet access again I will update my blog for the rest of my trip. It may take me a little time, but the rest of my China adventure is coming.