We're Here!!!

Landed yesterday afternoon, safely!

We flew over the US, Canada, Russia (Siberia), Mongolia and finally China... after 24 exhausting hours in a car, bus and on plane, we arrived 'home' for two months.

We're at Renmin University of China (The People's University) staying at its on-campus hotel. Beds are quite tough (like a slab of concrete, with only little give) and pillows are really heavy and feel like they are filled with jelly beans!

We met last night for the first time as a group of 61 students! We were given cell phones, instructions about dining on campus, and told to meet back at 9:00 this morning. BOCOG will be taking our pictures, giving us UNIFORMS! for the games and more information on our volunteer experience. We'll finish off our day with our first Chinese culture class (and we're having a translator translate it from Mandarin to English).

I'm still adjusting to the 13 hour time change, most obviously because it's 5:45 in the morning and I'm blogging! I was so tired last night, I was asleep by 9:45!

I'm already making great friends in the Mizzou group. I don't think I could've asked for a better set of people to spend two months with. Everyone is so nice and easy to approach, and deal with our huge language barrier! I had a waitress in our restaurant last night come up to me and start chatting away in Chinese! I did exactly what came instinctively, start talking in slow English, as if she'd understand me any better!?!?! She tried the same with me in Chinese, but to no avail! We had to get one of the Renmin interpreters to bridge the cultural gap.

Have a great day,
Mark

(Pictured: The map that was updated during our flight, the MIZZOU group congregating at Beijing's Capital Airport and "The Nest" on the Olympic Green.)