I love Chiner!

Hey! So at this point, I have only 7 weeks left here in China! Ahhhh! It's going by so fast! I've just barely figured out how to get onto my blog and of course pictures won't work on it so this will just have to be a narrative of what's been going on here! Just wait for the picture overload after I get home.

Quirks about China:
**As in my title, they add -er onto EVERYTHING! "Let's have a toaster (toast) for your visiter here in Chiner!"
**Diapers are not essential. Instead, pants with holes in the front and the back are used for easy access to the street once "things" start coming.
**Babies are not the only ones to go to the bathroom in the street, adults and children do it also. You learn quickly to avoid any and all puddles when you're out walking.
**The best time for shooting off fireworks is at 6 in the morning.
**Cold and spicy green beans are a regular treat at breakfast. Along with seaweed from a bag.
**Chicken is served for lunch once a week...it feels like Christmas Day every time when this day comes around!
**All of the bad smells in the United States put TOGETHER could not amount to how bad it smells here
**When out walking at the night market you can find all kinds of food on a stick! Anything from bread to chicken fetus.
**There is no place more beautiful than the city of Yangshuo
**On 1 apartment building here, you will find more people than what my whole hometown had.
**The city I'm in has nearly 2 million people in it. 98% of them have never before seen a white person so we are huge celebrities everywhere we go.
**Everywhere we go people love to talk to us, take pictures with us and try to have us kiss their babies.
**The kids here are so different from American kids. They are so happy with every little thing they get. They aren't materialistic about anything and are so grateful for even the tiniest things they have.
**For as loud as they are, they think that we are louder and will stare and gawk at us at even the slightest sounds.
**Clapping is weird and dancing in the streets or shops is un-heard of.
**When it rains, you feel like an arc should be appearing because it DOWN POURS! Streets flood and still the people trudge on ward on their little bicycles.
**The Great Wall of China...most beautiful thing I have ever seen!
**The Chinese people are the most determined and hard working people I have ever met. Even the richest people here have NOTHING compared to what we're used to and still they are so happy and work so hard for everything that they get.
**Apple drinks with floating coconut=the most amazing thing I have ever drank! They could possibly even trump Mt. Dew!


I LOVE it here! I love the cheap DVD's. I love the little kids! (Especially Ringo!) I love the night markets. I love the bags. I love the sunsets. I love the people that we've met and the countless people that literally saved our lives in Beijing. I love the taxi rides and the funny drivers that try and talk to us or dance with us to their funky re-mixed American music. I love how excited we get when we RARELY make our brownies and cookies. I love dance parties on the roof!

Most of all, I love the girls in my group! I know for a fact that I was supposed to be here right now. I have already learned so much from them! It's good to be with people that don't know any of your history and can give you a fresh perspective of things in your life. I love how many nights we've sat up talking and the things we've talked about. I've learned so much about myself and I've grown up a lot. In a group of 16 girls (and 2 guys) it'd be impossible to NOT have personality differences. But everybody gets along so well! We haven't had any major drama or fights or problems and I'm so grateful for that. It can be hard with being together LITERALLY ALL THE TIME, but we're getting through it. I'm going to miss all of them so much.

It's going to be so hard for me to not smuggle a kid home! They are adorable. They are always so excited to see us and love to give us hugs and kisses. They're at a boarding school and the oldest are about 6 so we get to "play mom" a lot and it has been awesome! I love it here! It's crazy to think that I have only about 7 weeks left. Hopefully I'll try to write a little more later.

"The Americans here...now we bar-ty!"