Saturday February 26th, 2011

Today I slept in, until about 12:00. I was really tired when I went bed last night, and it was good to have a night of recuperation. After rolling out of bed, I went straight over to Bally and ran long on the treadmill. Then I worked out hard, took a shower, and left feeling pretty worn out.

I came back to the dorm, played guitar, and read for the rest of the afternoon. At some point, I received a text from the other people in the program. Some folks decided to make a trip over to the Old City and eat pizza at a bar recommended by the Beijinger. Jocelyn also texted, asking that I inform her of anything fun that I had going on, and I told her our plans. The people from my program and Jocelyn all headed out from the dorm at 7:15, bound for the Bell Tower neighborhood.

The ten-person group split itself into three groups, that we might be able to travel by taxi. My cab and one other cab found the little pizza parlor with little difficulty, but the other one, the one holding Wes, James, Trevor, and Lauren, was not at the parlor when we got out. We had no idea what happened to them, and we decided that the best course of action would be to order enough pizzas for the entire group, so that we could speed up the process of eating. The bar/restaurant was really nice, period, and it seemed even nicer in comparison to the seedy locales that we have frequented over the last few weeks. It was almost as if a little bit of the West had transplanted itself in China – the owner spoke fluent English, her Australian husband worked in the kitchen, they had good pizza, and there was every sort of American beverage that one could want.

We ordered 6 pizzas for the ten of us – granted the pizzas were pretty small – and we waited. The pizzas included a bacon and garlic pizza, a zucchini and vegetable pizza, a potato and rosemary pizza, a sweet potato and goat cheese pizza, a pesto and vegetable pizza, and one more – the secret pizza.

The pizzas arrived, but our companions had not. We finished eating our fill of the pizza, and we waited some more. We grew ancy, and we waited some more. At 8:45, the rest of the group, weary and very cold, stormed into the restaurant. We did out best to calm their fiery passion and hunger, placating the angry students in their moment of tribulation. After they ate the rest of the pizza, we ordered another two, and the boss brought out the last segment of our delicious dinner: dessert pizza. This dessert pizza had chocolate, chocolate syrup, and ice cream on top, and needless to say, it was delicious.

The bar began to fill as the night grew longer, and we left the bar around 10:30, bound for our home – ye ole Kai Guan Hotel. When we finally opened our doors, it was after 11:15, and time for my bed.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey